Keep Your Body Low, Baby

Usually when that’s uttered by your partner, that’s a good thing. Not when you’re scaling by the side of a huge rock, or when moving your lower bits across an ancient tree trunk to get to the other side.. So apparently my lack of physical coordination is well documented. When we went trekking with a Lisu man (a hilltribe of northern Thailand), we dirtbiked down mountains, swung across rivers with a stick, carried our butts across tree trunks, scaled sides of rocks, squeezed our bodies into small pokey cave openings, all I lost was, contrary to popular expectations (i.e. Z’s) the two soles of my Teva sandals.

The truth is, I don’t actually go rough it out like that. I’m more flashpacker than backpacker, more thinking-about-adventure than adventurer. Z and I got here with ambition: we were going to quadbike and get muddy, go white water rafting and get soaked, climb a mountain, camp overnight. What we really achieved was: checking into a swish, charming little place tucked away at the foothills of a mountain, in the “city of the stars”, having no itinerary except breakfast, lie down, lunch, lie down, dinner, sleep. Then one trek. To be here in the midst of nowhere, and to eat like a queen everyday, affirms your belief in the supernatural: seared duck liver salad, wonderful chicken stuffed with prune and ginger wrapped in bacon, buffalo fillet, passionfruit cheesecake and other wonderful things like that. If I’m ever to be stuck in the mountains again, I’d like to do it one more time at the abode of a London-trained owner/chef. I’m definitely coming back here again, and keeping this a secret too.

I’m back in Chiang Mai for a few more days before the flight back home. Safe and in one piece, though aching and soon aching to return (here, never home).