A saying I learnt...

Yesterday is history,
tomorrow is a mystery,
today is a gift ... that's why they call it "present"

I hold my "present" dearly. It's where I live now. I am still in Chiang Mai... the place takes a hold of you and doesn't let go. The smallest things of today build up into the mysterious and wonderful things of tomorrow, like the conversation I had one night with Yo and An from Walai House (the owners). I wanted to go trekking for a few days and to see hill tribes that were remote and non-touristy and what began as simple questions evolved unexpectedly into a trip to Yo's friend's hill tribe in mountains of Fang.....120Km north of Chiang Mai. It also turned into a Walai House field trip.... so 6 of us packed up into Yo's pickup truck and headed north, accompanied by two trunks full of Thai herbs and foods of sorts from the market that Yo and I had visited that morning to cook for our crowd. Yo says the green curry with chicken was his favourite and that I can now set-up my own Thai restaurant. He's a sweetheart! I tried my best not to poison anyone....especially cause we arrived almost at 9 PM and spent the best part of 3 hours chopping galangal, lemongrass, garlic and chillies among many other things, and preparing 3 different dishes + rice for everyone in a dark kitchen lit by candles. It was in fact an unforgettable night.

That night was spent cooking, eating on the deck overlooking the mountains and gathering around a fire to keep warm! We slept in bamboo huts surrounding a toad filled lake... with their "toad chat" to accompany the crickets and the smell of the bamboo hills. I got to open my sleeping bag that night and can happily say it kept me very warm. The following day we woke up in a completely different place.... there was so much light it felt like we were in the sky. There were clouds below us so all we could see was what surrounded us at ground level. Sean cooked us fresh pineapple and banana pancakes and we slowly woke up while Yo went off to the lake to fish for our lunch feast. The vibe was wonderful. The group who had gone up clicked very well. Wile Mata sang, and Yo fished, Ryoko gave Reiki and Little Sean gave Thai Massage. Big Sean went out to pick Maracuya fruit from the nearby trees and then cooked us pancakes in a wok, while Yuki discovered the newborn puppies nearby and played with the local kids.

We then took off to visit the locals. For the first time, we were all invited into their hut. We gathered in a circle around the hearth, and awaited a cup of their locally grown tea while we asked about their life and their customs. The hut was a two room affair where the entire family of 6 slept in the room next door to where we were sitting. They had 3 pigs sleeping below the raised hut, and a few dogs and cats to keep them company. The tea was very good, but what was superb was seeing the wife, the local healer, give us all massage....and realise how she "felt" and intuitelvely knew what most of us had to pay to learn. It was fascinating. We spent nearly 2 hours there, looking, feeling, smelling and mostly trying to see life from their eyes and from the place where they sat. The rest of the afternoon was spent walking and cooking, eating, and talking, enjoying each other's company and smelling the hills around us, before heading back to Chiang Mai.