Home » Thailand » Southeast Asia 2000 - Travel Diary, Part 4: Hilltribe trekking and hospitalisation

The hilltribe trek became a very interesting experience for other reasons than we had intended. During the journey we walked through some amazing jungle scenery in the hills outside Chiang Mai and visited a genuine hilltribe village, but unfortunately my main memory is of the severe diarrhoea that I suffered from. Eventually I was taken to a hospital in Chiang Mai where my condition quickly improved. My travel insurance in Gjensidige Forsikring turned out to be of little help in this situation, as Gjensidige failed to acknowledge to the hospital that they would cover my expenses, and I therefore ended up having to pay the hospital bill myself.

Southeast Asia 2000 - Travel Diary, Part 4: Hilltribe trekking and hospitalisation

Jan Arild Teland
2006-05-08 18:27:08

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Boon had brought some hot noodles for lunch, of which I was able to eat the majority. Things were looking up and I was again looking forward to the trekking.

I was expecting us to walk into the jungle from here, but instead we got into the car and drove downwards for a long time. This made us a little bit concerned, as we feared having to walk all the way up again :-) In the end we turned off the tarred road and drove into the jungle on a mud road. On the drive we passed several hilltribe villages, and in one of them a guy jumped into the back of our vehicle and sat down. I thought that we were just giving him a lift, but it turned out that he would later help carry our stuff.

Eventually the jungle road came to and end and we had to proceed on foot. Unfortunately, the start of the walking looked very tough as the road went steeply upwards. It turned out that not only did it look tough, it was in fact very tough! It took us about 45 minutes of walking upwards until Boon relieved us by saying that we were now on the highest point and the rest of the walk would be downhill. By then I was completely exhausted, which I suppose had something to do with me being sick. Although, the road was tough to walk, I am in reasonably good physical condition, so I should have been able to handle it better. May Tina did not seem to be equally tired.

From the top it was a two hour walk until we reached the Karen Hilltribe village where we would spend the night. Since the road went mostly downhill, we had some more time to enjoy the scenery. It was a real jungle, very lush and green. There did not seem to be much wildlife around, but we saw several ant colonies crossing the road at regular intervals. At one point, Boon disappeared, only to re-emerge later with a bunch of mushrooms that were to be used for dinner later.

Hilltribe trekking is a big industry in Chiang Mai, and it goes without saying that all these treks are going to interfere ...