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Blog post. June 27, 2011.
On Sunday afternoon, after two long days up on the mountain, we began our descent slipping and sliding in the back of a packed pickup truck in the pouring rain.
It didn’t take long before we ran into some trouble. . .
A challenging commute in rural Thailand Photo by Patrick Short '14
After a solid amount of digging and pushing, we were free and back on the road.
The pattern of slipping and sliding continued for hours. Everyone had a bail-out strategy (often in jest, but sometimes not) for which direction and how they would jump out of the truck if necessary.
About at the half-way point in our journey, we were all prepared for another 3 to 4 hours of nerve-wracking mountain driving when we arrived at an Akha Village.
We were informed that there was a giant fallen tree blocking the path a few kilometers up and that if we tried to go around or over it we were, in the translated words of the village chief, “gonna go head first over the side of the mountain.”
We didn’t need much more convincing and took them up on their offer to stay the night in the village, something, according to our leaders, very few outsiders have ever done in an Akha village.
