Travel Sized Bites.
A selection of short stories submitted by visitors to the site between 500-1000 words
If you would like to submit a story or travel tale please go to the submission page
a golden surprise
By Author: Dick Curtis
E-mail: re.curtis@virgin.net
Submitted on Wednesday 4th August 1999
My girlfriend flew in and we were soon eating in Bangkok's back-packers quarter, sharing a table with an enthusiastic young Aussie. She had just returned from a hill-tribe trip in the north and fired us to do the same. Two days later we left by train for Chang Mai, and the next day on a bus, that lurched and bounced all day, travelling increasingly poor roads in a huge arc through the forest, arriving after dark, 250 miles later, at Mae Hong Son.
Our Australian had given us the name of a dynamic woman, who could arrange our trip into the hills. We asked and were told that she visited the post office each day, at five. We met, were taken to her home, fed and given a bed. She said that she had made many trips to Europe, Australia, and the States, raising money to educate Shan children and had many friends worldwide. She would arrange our trip. We were to buy and wear local Thai peasant clothes, next day her son would take us to our guide's home but unfortunately he didn't speak English.
The seven year old bobbed and skipped across the paddyfields and through the forest, arriving at two simple thatched huts, the home of our guide and his son. His teenage son had lost a leg but for several days glided effortlessly around, preparing our meals on a small clay stove.
We left early one morning quickly melting into the forest, often walking up streams and through dense thickets, but always climbing away from the valley floor. Glimpses of distant vistas, dappled through the leaves as we climbed. Late in the afternoon four young men appeared, greeted our guide and joined us for the final ten minutes walk into the village.
On the hilltop in a "slash and burn" clearing, a dozen stilted huts stood above churned mud, enjoyed by rummaging pigs. Men, women and countless children surrounded us and quietly gazed, watching our efforts to be natural and unconcerned. A hut was found for us. We explored the compound, played at barefoot doctors, and spent the evening eating with our guide, the headman and his family.
Before sunrise we left. Each day this routine repeated as we travelled from village to village, before we eventually dropped down to a valley track, hitching a lift on an open-backed truck crowded with men and packages. At a turn in the track it stopped, our companions and guide left. We were left with the driver, who drove on. In the next clearing a police-post crossed the road. We were questioned, checked and allowed to leave. Around the corner the others rejoined us, and we sped into town - our trip was over.
Our last evening was spent with our guide and the fund-raiser, before finally parting, we expressed thanks and swapped addresses.
Six months later, following my girlfriend's letter, a reply arrived saying - a month after we left, our guide sadly, had disappeared without trace.
Then, one evening, six years later in London I choose to watch a BBC documentary about "The Golden Triangle" which subsequently revealed and unravelled - Thailand, Burma,
The Shan Liberation army, their training camps, and drug trafficking through Mae Hong Son, and then the "penny dropped"
We had spent ten days, undercover, gathering intelligence for the Shan army on the Burmese border !