Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) Tourist Guide


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TREKKING AND TUCKING IN:
Our Trip To Wawee Coffee Plantation

Text : Tarn Hup & Lucksamee
Images: Tarn

We at CMTG are always delighted to get a duty invitation to go on a camping trip, any time, any place. Hence, before we knew it, we were on a truck to Doi Wawee - yes, the very same name as that famous coffee band who invited us to witness their charity project to help hill tribe kids with cloths, toys and edibles.

Well, although the purpose was intriguing, what really interested us was the chance to take a 3-day break from the office (shhh - we told the boss this was going to be a real three-day toughie for us, up there in the mountains, with temperatures around 7 - 8 degrees Celsius...though admittedly with a lot of free booze thrown in to see us through.)

So there we were, 2.5 hours from Chiang Mai on the Chiang Mai-Chiang Rai road and another 40 minutes on the din daeng (‘red earth’) road. Naturally, for adventure-lovers like us, the trip offered quite a variety of forms of transport, even one or two more than we wanted, perhaps. Well, we started in a van from Chiang Mai, and continued on 4WD on a rocky, bumpy track, then crossing a small river, and continuing on foot by paths across the mountaintops. (See, it really was a sweat for us office types).

Akha child

Then, around 4 pm we arrived at the Doi Chang school. It was a so-called ‘coincidence’ that that day the Tambol Administration also launched its own Unseen Doi Chang campaign to promote cultural and home-stay tourism in the area. Without early planning, we witnessed a musical parade put on by Akha, Lisu, and Yunnanese from the locality. It would have looked just like any other ordinary parade elsewhere without the magnificent panoramic view of the Doi Chang Mountain as a background. Local people said the name Doi Chang comes from these two mountain tops that together, if viewed from where the school is, look like two gigantic elephants - a mother tending her baby. Unfortunately, my camera couldn’t capture this ‘pachydermic’ outlook because the view was too wide.

Late in the afternoon as it was, it was already cold in spite of what had been a red-hot sun during the middle of the day. The Wawee caravan - i.e., us travellers - decided to have dinner (and plenty of cool cold beer) just where we were, or at least nearby at an agricultural research station. It proved to be a really nice place to dine. Mr Matt Demon, the writer of the Gourmet column, would surely have loved it - fresh, locally-grown vegetables, along with oozing mixed grills on the hot stove which we circled closely, holing to warm our extremities as well as to get some food. And so to bed!

After a brief break, the next part of our agenda was taking a look at a newly-discovered giant tea bush or tree. We were told this tree was about a thousand years old, and hidden somewhere in the midst of the lush forest on the nearby mountain. To tell the truth, when the village headman pointed in the direction of this reverend and enormous plant, it made some of our party’s members’ faces turn pale...it seemed such a horrendous distance away that alone made many people’s face turn pale, for it seemed surely beyond us city folks’ powers of endurance. But the doubters had their minds put at rest by the assurance of the locals that it was really not that far off.

Then, at last, we reached this ancient plant specimen, and I have to confess that try as I might, I could not justify the energy expended getting there with the actual meeting, face to face - so to speak - with this 100-year-old tree, shrub, herb whatever. In fact I felt the tree probably could have done with being left alone for another hundred years, before being visited again. True the director of the agricultural research unit seemed very happy to approach the plant and take some cuttings. As for us botanical newbies or complete idiots, this was a good photo opp, which some of us took as well as we were able, before starting the long walk back to the village.

So we started off trekking - and trekked and trekked and trekked through a labyrinth of mountain trees...the local men leading us assuring us, reassuring us - “Oh, not so far off now. We’re almost there.” I don’t know about the others, but I felt that I was on a par with the fellowship in Tolkein’s the Lord of the Rings, and could emote with them when they did their epic journey from Shire to Mordor.

Still, we felt we’d earned our oats by the time we got back there, and after addressing ourselves to quantities of spicy pork soup and fried rice waiting for us, we felt quite refreshed, and ready for the next episode - a visit to the coffee plantation near by. It was at this point that the villagers told us we’d walked ten mon, which means hills, to the tree and back. And looking at that distance we’d covered, I couldn’t help wondering what the headman, who’d told us the tree wasn’t far off, would call ‘a long way’. I certainly wouldn’t want to have to tackle it. All the same, while I don’t know about the others, I felt kind of proud at having gone through with it. A sense of achievement, for us townies.

Trekking

For a welcome change, near as the coffee plantation was, we went there bumpily on the back of a pick-up. When it reached the village, we stopped to give the stuff we’d brought for them to the kids there, and for their part they put on some performances of singing and dancing to entertain us. And pretty amateur though they were, the sincerity of their acting touched us.

When the performances were over and the performers had dispersed, we continued on to the coffee ranch of Wawee Coffee itself. There our host treated us to fresh coffee. Not just the drink but the real fresh coffee berries, just off the tree. It’s the first time I ever had coffee this ‘fresh’. Although it tasted sweet and juicy, I still prefer to drink rather than chew it.

On our last night, we made a bonfire to cook on and to keep us as warm as we’d been our first night. I don’t remember too much of what happened the second one, what with the distance we’d walked, the effort made and the various beverages consumed, but I certainly enjoyed the company of the friends that I just met, and the food, the beer, the atmosphere, the weather too - in other words, pretty well everything.

So it went. And while I hadn’t really noticed the aches and pains of the trekking while I was doing it...Man! once I was back in the city it was like every tendon, sinew and muscle had seized up, or gone dead. What I really needed was a first class whole body massage. What I actually did was creep into bed and get a real good night’s sleep. You know, sleep the great healer.

By the way, the agricultural research unit near the school at Doi Chang offers rooms and tents for rent, for people who want to overnight there. Check out their Unseen Doi Chang campaign, with PR Khun Suriyan Tiparat at 053-605-936 on weekdays and 01-020-8980 on weekends. If you like coffee, you’ll love visiting Wawee.

* Special thanks to Khun Kraisit Fusuwan of Wawee Coffee, who arranged the trip for us.