Whoever said cockerels knew the time of day? Aaagh! These bloody cockerels started at 2.30am and continued every half hour or so until dawn! I was moments from breaking my ‘no kill’ policy until tiredness took over!
Its a stand off!
In the morning I was surprised that Jeva and his family didn’t appear to be particular early risers, I honestly thought we’d be up at 5am. I was sleeping or dozing on and off for quite a while but was keeping an eye on Dusits sleeping form and decided that when he got up so would I, but figured getting up before then wasn’t all that necessary. Dusit didn’t rise till around 8.30 and the rest of the family weren’t that much earlier, in fact Hellenna was no-where to been seen, just heard, till about 9 or so.
Jeva's home and Jeva cooking breakfast
Breakfast was another huge meal, very similar, in content, to dinner last night except the men had crushed fish chilli this morning which they assured me was super hot, I declined the offer of giving it a go!
Village life
The food they’ve prepared for all of us has been really delicious, simple but very tasty and so much of it. The Lahu people generally eat an awful lot apparently, the most common factor in each meal being rice, its rice with every meal here.
Jeva's wife and youngest
After breakfast we visited the village school, I had met the teacher yesterday and she’s not from this tribe but from the city but like everyone else in the village very friendly and welcoming. There didn’t seem to be any set regime to the school day, the kids just came and went as they pleased. When we arrived there were 4 little kids playing and colouring pictures in which soon turned a bit boisterous with two of the kids before the teacher eventually told them off! Jeva came to the school with us this morning and soon was sitting down learning words and letters with the teacher alongside Hellenna. It was really great to see actually, the rest of the kids were forgotten about for a while and Jeva and Hellenna were practicing their letters with the teacher.
At school
I’m sure normally Jeva wouldn’t normally come into the school but he is obviously very keen to learn more and stayed listening and learning with his daughter and the teacher for a good 45 mins or so.
I'm not sure the cat is so enthralled!
Me with Jeva and his family
Soon, sadly, it was time for us to leave the village and continue trekking. Once again trekking isn’t really how I would describe it but it was a nice walk through some rice fields and farm land and valleys before hitting the main road.
Life on the hillls
Dusit seems to know everyone we meet along the way and stops to chat to them all. When we get to the road we pop into another house belonging to more members of the Lahu tribe just to use their fire and cooking implements to rustle up some lunch. Once again the family were very welcoming and inviting.
On our walk Dusit had been picking a few bits of greenery here and there from different plants saying that Thai people eat everything that grows here. There were some flowers that he pulled up complete with roots still intact and I thought at least I wouldn’t be eating those. Well it seemed I was soon going to be!
Once again though the food was delicious, roots and all! ;-)
Our lunchtime stop
We managed to get a ride back to the main town where Dusit wanted to walk me around the market again. ;-)
I assured him that this time I was marketed out!
Back in Chiang Rai I needed to make plans for heading back to Chiang Mai and for further plans from there. Dinner was at the local bazaar where I got talking to a slightly eccentric French guy who had a bit of a thing about thinking that any beautiful Thai women he saw were ladyboys! There was some entertainment on the stage and he was convinced there were men, I was convinced they were women.
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