Why so much smoke?

Dave finished work in Chiang Mai, so we decided to sign on for a much-anticipated "hilltribe" trek. The ethics of a hilltribe trek troubled us a bit, so we researched many options. In Chiang Mai the trekking is more about the people you see rather than the nature you explore, especially in the dry season. We ended up with the Eagle House trek, which has a special arrangement with two Karen villages west of Chiang Mai.

• Day 1:
• 8:30am - Begin two hour drive to local market to purchase food for the next three days. Smallest market we've seen in Thailand. Continue driving and driving in the back of a pickup truck (with seats) and stop at an elephant park for rides. We, along with the two other German-vegans declined to ride, and instead had a fascinating tour of the rice paddies and corn fields.
• Corn? yes, they are now growing corn in Thailand.
• Drive some more, and stop for lunch in an orchard - lunch was delicious - fried rice with tons of veggies, and more importantly - no waste! Wrapped in banana leaves, our whole lunch was compostable.
• More driving. Start hiking through small Karen villages. Dave even helps prepare rice for the animals.
• More hiking for about 3 hours, through many rice fields. Stopped on the way to make bamboo mugs and collect herbs on the way for our dinner (lemongrass, cilantro).
• Around 6 pm we reach our home for the night - a Karen village. The ladies try to sell us their handicrafts and the men prepare dinner by fire in a super-smoky house (without a flu). We eat a delicious dinner with many veggie options and attempted to sleep in a bamboo house on bamboo slats with a sleeping bag designed for 90-degree weather. It was about 40F.
• We learned how to prepare one of Eli's favorite Thai snacks - sticky rice and coconut milk cooked in bamboo over a fire. Yum.
• Dave was cold for the first time in his life and let's just say, no one slept very well.
• Day 2:
• Lots of hiking! 6 hours of walking through burning fields and mountains and through meandering streams. Stopped for yummy bamboo-rice snacks and eventually for another delicious lunch.

• Around 5 pm, arrived at raft-camp, also maintained by a local Karen village. No roosters to wake us at 4 am. Bathed in the freezing river and hung out with our German friends (we were the only Americans on the trip - Eli's German came in handy).
• Late dinner, but also yummy. More stir fries with tofu and lots of veggies, and popcorn for dessert. Unfortunately no movies :)
• We figured out a better sleep system involving stuffing wool blankets inside the thin sleeping bag. Worked much better.
• Day 3:
• French toast for breakfast! (Rice and scrambled eggs for Eli)
• Time to go rafting! Our guide built bamboo rafts for us that morning! Questionably sustainable, but later we discovered that another village would take apart the rafts and use the bamboo for building.

• Due to the incredibly low water level, our rafts sustained substantial damage, and we all got cut up. It was a fun adventure. Dave used a bamboo rod for paddling - quite different than canoeing.
• A bit more hiking, and we return to the truck. Driving through tons of burning fields, right next to the road. Yuck.
• Stopped for lunch - our only terrible meal of the trip. Topped with a heavy sprinkle of MSG. Pineapple for dessert - which is much more flavorful than pineapple we get in the states. Less acidic and more complex.
• More driving until we reach a waterfall - freezing! Our guide takes a full on shower and we watch.
• Back to Chiang Mai!
• Dinner with our new-friend - someone we met at Chabad of Chiang Mai, who turned out to be connected in the Adamah-Teva community. He and Eli probably had 50 friends in common. He took us to Aum, a delicious vegetarian restaurant.
• After dinner we met up with our travel-partners, the two German-vegans, at iBerry, our hands-down-favorite ice cream shop in Thailand and had more delicious ice cream and sorbet. Eli was super happy with pandanus leaf and red bean ice cream. This made up for not having black sesame ice cream. This place is crazy!
• Back to our home-away-from-home: The Green Palace. Not a palace. Not green. But cheap and clean.

Some insights Dave took down while trekking:

• Bamboo: fence lasts 2 yrs. Siding lasts 30 yrs. Grows to adulthood in 4-5 yrs.

• Slash and burn: guide denies need to take more land. Evidence suggests o/w: villages only intact x 2 generations max, need for more land (guide says o/w, but they are obviously but burning new land w 50+ yo trees, even thiugh he says there are laws that prevent people from doing so). Hypocritical of us to say this bc even though they're not living sustainably it's not like we do either. Cities consume much more per capita.

• Men v women: men cook, build, and hunt. When men hunt, women take over. Women often plant and harvest rice.

• Water buffalo v cows: buffalo better bc give more meat and eat the same.

• Cultural tourism: interesting exchange, or lack thereof bc of language barrier but we got to ask most o what we wanted.

• Women are marrying later (25yo) than previoussly (14yo) 2/2 school (now req'd until 12th) and 2/2 to moving to city for work.

• Guide claims people not moving to city, in fact they're coming back from the city bc life is too hard. Not sure.

• Countryside: not particularly beautiful. Mostly bc so much is burning and so much cut down. Rice fields are dry/pretty and remind us of terracing in Andes.

• Rice: stored after each season in a family store room (kept for drought season). Most still farming by hand on a subsistence basis. Some have started selling and planting by machine. These villages have two plantings, which requires pesticides and fertilizer (if planting only once per year, can be dine organically). Pests include snail, water bug, and rat, good guys include fish, algae, and snake.

• Corn: newly introduced 4 years ago on almost only cash basis. Must buy seed and must use synthetic fertilizer/pesticide. Interesting that u doubt they know what it's going to do to their top soil.

• Subsistence vs cash economy: most villages are in a hybrid situation. They have a weekly market that gives access to town goods for cash. Most are still farming to eat, nit to sell. Tourism seems to have minor effect: 1 group of 6 comes weekly ( and did family gets to cook for them and make the dollars).

• Trash: 5 years ago, almost no plastic. Now there's significant microtrash all over 2/2 plastic refuse. There is no disposal system. Sine people bury their plastic, others burn it. That said a lot us still biodegradable: our lunch has been in banana leaves each day.