Finding Uncle Balo

It was a sunshiny day.  Daeng talked with her sister-in-law, Hlong, to find out that some of Hlong's relatives were coming from Myanmar, Burma, and she wanted to get a message to her brother who lives about 50 kilometers north of Chiang Mai.

They have no telephone service there so Daeng said we would go find him and his family and let them know.  Now, all we had was a village name and his name.  The village name was Ban Pong Akha by Ban Mea Ma Lai and his name was Balo.  Well, talk about finding a needle in a haystack, this was it.

We talked with one of the waiters, here at the Top North Hotel.  He drew us a little map to get us going in the correct direction.  The main Akha area is about
50-60 kilometers directly north of Chiang Mai.

We set out and his directions were perfect to get us to route 107.  I had tried to find the village, by name, on my GPS but had no luck.

I felt okay about the trip as we had been there a few years ago and Daeng does speak some Akha.

We drove about 35 km and asked if we were going the correct way.  We were told to drive more and then turn left.  We drove another 10 km and asked again.  We were told to drive a few more km and turn left.  Well, about 8-9 more km we stopped and asked again.  This time we were told to turn left at the next road and drive a little ways and turn right.

We followed those directions and stopped again after a few km and ask for directions at a little store.  The lady said to drive up the rode to the stop light and turn right, then ask again.

We did exactly that and the next person we asked told us to go about 10-12 km and at the Akha village, past the elephant place, stop and asked.  We did just that.  When we ask the Akha lady here she said she did not know Balo.  I thought that was strange as his family sells wholesale fruit and goes all over this area.

We drove quite a ways to the next settlement  in the jungle.  There the lady at the small market store knew Balo and told us exact direction.  We had gone to far so we had to turn around, go up to the road directly across from the last place we stopped at and to up the hill to the top.  His place was on the left hand side of the road.

She was exactly right and we recognised the house when we pulled in front of it.  They had built a few houses around it but it looked about the same.

Everyone was glad to see us as almost everyone in the neighborhood knew Daeng as a child. 

Daeng told Balo why we were here and he got on his motorbike and drove up the mountain road a couple of kilometer and called Hlong by cellular telephone.

When he got back from the phone call he told us that his family would have to pay 15,000 THB, about $500 USD, for immigrations to come to Chiang Mai from the border.  He told them to stay there at our home in Mae Sai and he would come see them Sunday.  We are going back on Thursday.

While he was doing that, we hung out with the kids and family.  The kids just got back from catching bees.  They take a long bamboo stick and put this sticky stuff in the end.  Then they reach up and touch a bee, it sticks to the stuff on the stick and they bring it down and thread it onto a small piece of Bamboo to dry.  I'm told they are very tasty.

We had some Thai noodle lunch spiced in the Akha manor.  We talked more and Balo had to go back to his work.  We stayed a little longer, taking a few pictures. Yes, that is a real rooster in her hands.

I just had to take one of the little Akha lady and myself just to show size of many Akha folks.

We made it back to Chiang Mai and took a nap. 

After that we had dinner with our friends Brian, Noochy and Wayne. It was a good day and our mission was accomplished.