After about 6 hours of hiking, we reached our destination, a Lahu village high in the mountains. It offered a great vantage point to see the valley below, and a picnic table was strategically placed for watching the sun set behind the mountains. Here, Akutimo! means "Hello/Thank-you", but this didn't work too well with the deaf mute woman who hung out with us, communicating in grunts and pantomime. A few of us got into a waterfight with some of the local kids, and she gave us proper hell for winding the kids up before bed. At least, I think that's what she was saying.

That night, a guy named Atchi, employee of Permchai and friend of the owner of the bunkhouse in which we stayed, was a great source of info of hilltribe life in the modern age. His English was quite good, and soon he found himself fielding questions from a wide range of topics. Talked about government initiatives to supply villages with fresh water from mountain-tops via vast lengths of PVC pipe to prevent the diseased run-off from lower altitudes; an initiative to provide solar panels to the villages (odd at first to see these things in the middle of the jungle) so that the villagers would use electric light and heat rather than continue to cut down the forest; teaching the villagers how to sustain themselves on crops aside from opium. A difficult sell, since opium fetches more money, and the dealers tend to come to the tribes, as opposed to the villagers having to truck out to town to sell their corn and radishes. Apparently, the upside to all of this is less drug addiction, and actually a bit more cash, since often the tribes were paid for their services in opium, whereas other cash crops fetch real live money. Talk continued about the multiple dialects throughout Thailand, with Central Thai being the 'official' language taught in schools (and to my cousin) merely because Bangkok was now the source of power. Politics - the Muslim clashes in the south, and the rural appeasement in the north on the part of the recently deposed prime minister. Military checkpoints, which I passed through en route to Pai, are in place partly to keep out the Burmese, and partly to prevent over-whelming supporters of the former PM from storming Bangkok. I'm sure there are lots of other reasons for the checkpoints as well, but I'm generally apolitical, and those reasons simply didn't come up. Quite the evening, and after one day I already knew this was better than riding elephants or taking photos of complacent long-necks.