Mae Klang Luang

Poon, our trekking guide, a Karen and his brother-in-law.

Poon's brother-in-law, the cafe owner.

Getting ready our orders from the night before.

Poon brought his nephew who speaks English to our chalet the night before for a chat.  He must have enjoyed trekking with us girls !  We were not prepared for this unexpected visit and I thought he brought the village chief with him.  He is 43 and the nephew Joe 40, a Catholic.  Poon is Buddhist.  We later placed more orders and accepted his invitation to drop in for coffee at 7am the next day.  He actually appeared at our chalet at 6.30am ready to walk us to his cafe.  Deng, our driver drove us over instead while on our way out.  It would have been a pleasant walk to the cafe but we had no time to lose - a long and windy road to Mae Hong Song ahead of us.

Sunflowers here only bloom during winter time.

One of my favourite shades of pink.

The only sound here is the flowing water of the river.

Morning walk - the path looks easy enough but believe it or not, we got lost trying to find our chalet later!

Chalets - ours was the only one available during the time of booking.  Not knowing what to expect, we trusted Kai and went for it.  It turned out to be a wonderful and memorable experience.

Nights on the mountain can be cold in November.

This little girl was digging away before realizing my presence.

Poon looked a little startled here being flanked by these Malaysian beauties.

Rice field 

One of Poon's many roles, playing Prince charming!  We already had a chrysanthemum somewhere given by him when we walked passed a nursery earlier.

Rice field after harvesting.

Trying out wild plants.

One of the several bamboo bridges we had to cross during the trek.

Our trek along a waterfall.

The trekking was moderate but certainly nothing like how Kai has put it,  ' sooooo easy . . . '  

Poon doesn't speak any English and we don't speak any of the Karen dialect.  But we think we have managed to understand each other.