Life in the villages of Northern Thailand is a challenging existence.
The people are industrious and work hard to have enough food to eat. They do
not have running water, so hygiene is a problem. And there is the added
difficulty of carrying water. Also, the homes do not have heat and it does
get cold in the mountains in the winter, so there is discomfort. Nevertheless,
the people are happy.
Young girls and women worked all hours of the day processing the rice that was
being harvested. Every home had one of these devices for pounding the rice to
crack open the hulls. At the Karen village, I awoke to the sound of women
pounding rice and chickens crowing.
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After pounding the rice for 5 to 10 minutes, they'd scoop it out into baskets.
By tossing the rice in the air, they separated it from the chaff. For each
batch of rice, the pounding and separation process had to be repeated several
times.
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Our trek group, minus Arish behind the camera.
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Our campsite the morning after, with bamboo lanterns and table. Dom (still
groggy in the early morning) and Da were a jovial pair. They didn't speak
English, but that didn't keep us from trying to talk together.
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After our trek, we visited Udom's home in Soppong. These
beautiful Lisu girls were in their tradional, colorful clothing.
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Next Page - Long-Necked Women
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