• Thailand – Karen Village Trip Diary – Day 8

    29Jul
    Categories: Personal, Photos Comments: 0


    The view from our bedroom



    We got up very early and left.





    After a while, we got off the main road onto a paved road that soon became intermittently paved. It soon began to climb over a mountain range. We got to the top of the range and began to ascend into the valley below. As we were going downhill around a curve to the right, the driver miscalculated the sharpness of the curve. To our left was a steep wooded hillside. To our right was a cliff face going up. It had been raining earlier that day and the pavement was roughly paved with lots of gravel on it. He slammed on the brakes and we began to slide straight toward the small concrete pillars that stood between us and the tree-studded embankment. The ladies were shrieking and the men were gasping. Weirdly enough I was doing neither. Time slowed down and I analyzed the situation. When we were only a meter or two from the pillar, my mind cranked the wheel to the left toward the pillars and the embankment. Unfortunately, the driver did not and we lunged toward the towering rock face to our right as the wheels finally regained traction. He overcorrected several more times, whipping the skidding vehicle back and forth, coming to a gradually straighter, gradually slower heading. Most of the people were gasping for air, but apparently I was too stupid to be scared. I wasn’t breathing hard and my heart wasn’t beating fast. I’m still trying to figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

    We continued on until we came to a large village on a river that is the border between Thailand and Burma. Just as we got there, Thai soldiers and U.N. personnel were escorting a truckload of Karen refugees that was leaving, beginning the long journey to Canada. These refugees had been displaced by the ethnic cleansing by the Burmese government against the Karen tribes. Also contributing to their refugee status is the guerilla war between the KNU (Karen Nation United) and the Burmese government. Part of a platoon (8-10) of Thai soldiers sat in a little sandbagged enclave overlooking the river.




    Refugee bus getting ready to leave


    Riverside





    I took a change of clothes and other necessities out of my large backpack and put it into two of my purses, one of which I slung over each shoulder. We boarded a wooden boat and headed up the river. The boat ran on a converted car engine and its propeller shaft stuck 3-5 meters out the rear. It was also deafening. My ears were numb 3-5 minutes after exiting the boat. Apparently the river is full of sandbars because the driver zigzagged all over the river. At one point we were only a meter from the Burma shore! I guess I’ll have to add that in gray to my list of countries visited. We took the boat to the night’s village. The village is accessible only by boat or motorbike during the rainy season (which it is now). (During the dry season, only a few very rugged trucks attempt the journey.)



    A wat (temple) up on the mountainside along the river



    When we got there, the boat driver took us up a steep path to the village. As we were walking along the concreted roads in the village, I slipped and almost ended up flat out on the ground. Algae were growing on the road because it was so little used because the roads into the village are nearly impassable!


    We relaxed that afternoon. Many of us wrote in our journals and read our Bibles. (This is the first time I have mentioned this, but we have done quite a bit of both on this trip during the relaxing times.)


    That night we had a church service. We had a special treat in that the pastor played bass guitar along with Gee playing guitar and another musician in the church played drums for us while we were singing “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High” and “Here I Am to Worship”. We had a fairly normal service except Katrina was sick and wasn’t able to participate. Also Gee had a really bad cough and wasn’t feeling very good. Katrina gave him some echinacea, but surprisingly enough, it didn’t fix his problem in the 2 hours before the service. But Gee soldiered on (not that he had much choice unless he wanted to cancel the service; he was the only one that knew Karen and English), coughing and hiccupping through the service.


    That night, we sat around a candle and talked for a while. It was really cool. We talked about the trip and about myriad other things.

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