June 1 trek to Akha Turban, and two other Akha tribal villages

After our usual visit to the market, we travelled southeast on the road back toward Thailand, then stopped and hiked about an hour and a half upward in the rising heat. We then reached a mostly Christian Akha village, watched some weaving, visited the two school masters.

Then we headed slowly downward, stopping at two other Akha villages en route, where the women showed different styles of headress. One of the villages had a complete animist spirit gate complete with open-fanged wolf skins guarding the entrance to the village, plus a "couples swing" for a fertility mixer night for all the Akha villages within 20 miles. We did our distribution of fish, peppers, biscuits, Tylenol, Tiger Balm and lipstick as usual, and drank lots of tea and a bit of water, which probably contributed to the runs the next morning.

Next day we went to the market, Leslie bought her last costumes/fabrics, and we set off in our hired rattletrap Toyota, stopping at numerous checkpoints before we successfully retrieved our passports and crossed the border into Thailand. We caught a Song Tow to the bus station, a very slow bus to Chiang Rai, then retrieved our luggage and jumped on a luxurious air conditioned bus with toilet for the remaining three hours back to Chiang Mai.