Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) Tourist Guide


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Ice-cold in Omkoy:
Really Getting Away from Songkran

Text : Anne
Images : Thunchanok Prapeepavanit

A week or so before the annual Chiang Mai water war broke out around the old city moat, we - that's us office staffers at SP - had a meeting to plan our break. And one of us, lifting his glass full of beer for the seventh time that night, suggested we all go to Huay Jino village in Omkoy - that's some little townlet south of the road between Hot and Mae Sariang: the back of beyond, in other words and 1,661 feet up. And putting his credibility on the line, he claimed that for all that in Chiang Mai it would be just about the hottest time of the year, the destination he was suggesting we head for would be perfectly cool. Well, we all drank to that appreciatively, and in the intervening seven days, wiping the sweat of incessant labour from our earnest brows, we all looked forward to our coming trip to the Back of Beyond, and its gentle zephyrs.

One week later, dreams aside and out in world of hard reality, we discovered just how much off beam our dear colleague had been with his confident predictions. Dead, close to zero, temperature of the freezer and totally unbearably wrong.

But we didn't have an inkling when we hit the road, sniffing the fine fresh air of early morning in Chiang Mai, but glad to be out of what would be an unbearable oven by midday. An uneventful drive, till passing the Jaem River just out of Hod someone in the van caught a whiff of the alcohol the vendors on their wooden rafts in the middle of river had on offer. Serious discussion, I can tell you - how much we all needed and would appreciate a little break in the journey at this point. But duty supervened. We needed to get on, it was felt. But we made a note to remember this location, and test its suitability as a place of rest and recreation on the return journey to Chiang Mai.

We continued 50 kilometers on the good asphalt road from Hod to Omkoy District. Didn't even stop at Omkoy Market, the last place at which a decent drink would have been available. But instead we made a right turn and continued for 35 kilometers on a bumpy hard-soil road which climbed 60 degrees, up and up and up. We were literally so rocked and choked and shaken inside the car that no-one could utter so much as a word the human ear would be able to understand.

But during this breakdown of verbal communication, my eyes were busy taking in the incredible scenario outside the windows. Our car was bouncing along gaily from peak to peak, sometimes with frightful drops of verticality, perpendicular cliffs at either side. It was like being in a cheap plane that had fought its way to an altitude where you could reach out and grab a handful of fluffy white cloud.

And having made this hazardous, bone-breaking climb into the clouds, where did we find ourselves? What had we ascended into, so close to the heavens? A place of zero facilities, a minus quantity where civilised amenities was concerned. In short, a Karen village up in the clouds, that consisted of simple wooden houses and very little else. And when we stepped out of our time-travel-type vehicle - oh - my - goodness....how very cold it was. Chills ran down our spines, crept into the marrow of our bones. One poor soul cried out that we would freeze to death up there - not of course (our weather forecaster having failed to give us what we would be facing temperature-wise) having brought so much as the littlest woolly vest, never mind our down-filled duvets. "Fabulous!" someone panted appreciatively, and his breath formed the words and immediately turned into tinkling ice. Well, I'm exaggerating a little. But cooooold, definitely.

Luckily, a friend of mine had a personal acquaintance up there, name of Kaesau. And this young hero saved our lives. He helped us find the abundance of wood that burned in the hut that evening and deep into the freezing night. If you took a look outside the hut we stayed in, the stars seemed so close you could have reached out and grabbed a handful. And come the morning, the infinitely cold, slow-moving morning...there below us was a sea of shining cloud, that stretched as far as the eye could see.

I hope by this time you can understand why this little memorial write-up of our trip makes us seem to have had time and interest only for and in the demon drink: alcohol. But reader, spare us the criticism. If you'd been there, you too would have put it away as eagerly as we did: keeping yourself going through the long Plutonian night - getting yourself started in the ice-cold morning. And when we'd cooked breakfast on the fire with thick and brittle fingers, we strolled through the village, some of us sniffing the air for the smell of the local liquor that must have been available. How else up there could people survive that cold, without imbibing some of the notoriously strong local whisky. The plan for that day was to visit Utum, another Karen village, which was the only place in this entire mountain range where we could make cellular contact with the outside world.

Let me tell you what I knew about the Karen people upon this mountain. It amounted to this - that the single women wore white costumes and the married red - that they had amazing skills in fire-lighting and maintaining. Even though we'd used the same wood the previous night, we were drowned in the black heavy smoke of ours, while theirs was fine - no smoke at all. (Kaesau teased us about this too.)

Their whiskey was called lao yang. It was made of a mountain variety rice grown locally. According to custom, after the harvest the Karen would make this lao yang from the current year's yield, and distribute it to everybody in the village. As non-village members, we had to pay 20 baht per bottle. I guarantee - as a professional and profound drinker - that, after one sip of this whiskey you could feel every taste bud in your mouth responding to it, get the sensation that it was running down your throat to your stomach and into your kidneys. Some moments after the first astonishing gulp, I thought I knew exactly how many bends my intestines had. The taste itself was sweet, but the alcohol content real heavy.

Out of Utum village, we headed to Doi Hua Chang. The car we went in had a problem with one of the wheels, so we sent a scout on an offroad motorcycle to survey the road ahead. A few minutes later, the guy came back to say, "The road sucks. I didn't dare to go on."

So we put the car in reverse gear and drove up to a view point on the mountain. This was a great stop that presented us with a panoramic vista of nature that we enjoyed, sitting under a Benguet pine tree.

Back in our resting place of the night before, we hurried to test the product we had just bought. After a chaotic interlude of volunteering, selecting, rejecting, nominating and I don't know what, Kaesau was the one chosen, since he knew just how lao yang should taste. We were all watching while he drained down an amount that must have burned to a cinder every last taste bud. Then, he looked up at us and in his solemn, quiet manner, said, "It's fake. It's no lao yang - it's just plain alcohol."