Saturday, September 17, 2005
VALUABLE LESSONS & JUNGLE CAMPING
I learned 2 valuable lessons over these last few days. #1, listen to the guides；#2, even drunk locals know the area better than we do. We arrived at the Lisu village (Leechow i think it was called,) 10km from the Burmese border and the guide told us we could stay there and do day treks from the village...apparently, the area we were shotoing for near the border was closed two days prior to our arrival due to an escalation in their never-ending civil war. Wanting to be adventurous we picked up a local to lead us to an even smaller village. The local was quite drunk and said we should take a car but we decided to walk the 2 miles. 5 miles later and an hour until dark we relized that this village didn't exist. trying to find shelter and with almost no food (4 moon cakes, 5 oranges and 4 boiled eggs for 10 people) we came across an abandoned road workers camp up in the trees. after assessing its safty, we went up and built a fire. It was a well designed camp with sticks and cardboard laid out as beds, a fire pit and plastic tarps to shield the rain. While some worried about malaria, some killed spiders and others sang.
Back in Tengchong now at a guesthouse. The shower was quite refreshing (i.e. freezing.) Tomorrow we head up the Nujong (sp?) river to a Dai village near Liuku, hopefully with better results.
I learned 2 valuable lessons over these last few days. #1, listen to the guides；#2, even drunk locals know the area better than we do. We arrived at the Lisu village (Leechow i think it was called,) 10km from the Burmese border and the guide told us we could stay there and do day treks from the village...apparently, the area we were shotoing for near the border was closed two days prior to our arrival due to an escalation in their never-ending civil war. Wanting to be adventurous we picked up a local to lead us to an even smaller village. The local was quite drunk and said we should take a car but we decided to walk the 2 miles. 5 miles later and an hour until dark we relized that this village didn't exist. trying to find shelter and with almost no food (4 moon cakes, 5 oranges and 4 boiled eggs for 10 people) we came across an abandoned road workers camp up in the trees. after assessing its safty, we went up and built a fire. It was a well designed camp with sticks and cardboard laid out as beds, a fire pit and plastic tarps to shield the rain. While some worried about malaria, some killed spiders and others sang.
Back in Tengchong now at a guesthouse. The shower was quite refreshing (i.e. freezing.) Tomorrow we head up the Nujong (sp?) river to a Dai village near Liuku, hopefully with better results.
