- [Man] What have you got there Sweety?
- Flag.
Whoa.
- [Man] The flags of Doi Chiang Dao.
(man speaks in foreign language)
(people speak in foreign language)
Hello there, welcome to Thailand
and possibly one of the driest campsites
we've ever camped at.
This is Doi Chiang Dao,
the third highest mountain in Thailand,
and it hasn't rained here for three weeks
and this is a very steep lunge down the mountain,
extremely dry, there's no creeks around,
at least no creeks that we've seen.
We have been hiking here four days now.
I've only seen one creek
and that was further down at the 400 meters
above sea level,
so all this gear is stuff that the porters carry up here.
This is a very popular camping location.
A lot of this gear stays here permanently
as they bring other hikers up here.
Not the kind of thing you'd just bring on a one nighter.
Lots of Thai recipes being cooked over here.
It's one of the porters there.
The porter who was carrying our equipment
was also carrying the gear
for another group yesterday,
and in total he was carrying 50 kilos,
most of that weight being water.
So, that's the thing that the porters have to carry
all the water up here.
It's a big 20 liter drum of water right there,
so I'll tell you
when you camp in a spot like this
here there's no raining water
you really start to become a bit more conservative
with your water use,
and you realize just exactly how much water
you are using in one day.
We've gone through about 18 liters since yesterday,
that's including for cooking,
so we've used a few water minimizing strategies
on this trip.
It is extremely hot during the day
so we have to drink a lot
but a few tricks just here
I wanted to share with you.
Because we can't possibly clean our hands
with running water,
isopropyl alcohol which you may have seen
on some of our other trips
becomes very important,
and this is sticky rice
that we bought at the markets
in the nearby city,
so it's only 10 Baht for each portion of sticky rice.
That's 80 grams before it's cooked,
all pre-cooked and good for a couple of days
outside the fridge,
so you can eat that cold
and it tastes quite nice.
Sticky rice tastes quite good
even when it's cold.
Two minute noodles.
So, another quick, easy recipe.
It only requires a small amount of water
and a small amount of fuel.
So,
there's one group over there just packing up now.
So, because we've minimized our cooking needs,
we also we carrying a small cook set
and only half a can of butane.
So, because there's the need to carry
such a massive amount of water,
we really have to compensate in other ways,
reduce the weight of our pack,
and the other gear that we're carrying
to allow for that additional weight
that you would normally not be carrying.
So, yesterday our porter carried about 20 liters
on our behalf and six liters of that water
is actually stashed further down the mountain
about halfway down
and we'll be drinking that on our way back down today.
So, because this is a very popular campsite,
just for the safety of the tent,
we've strung up a small fence around the perimeter
just to warn people there's a tent there,
we don't want people tripping over our tent.
This is Christina digging into a few biscuits.
What have you got there, sweetie, biscuits?
Yeah.
- Hungry.
- [Man] You're hiding your face again.
This is Christina.
- I'm hungry now.
- [Man] You need a few biscuits, sweetie?
- Nothing more, only one.
- No sharing?
So, Christina's hair is very long.
As you can see I don't really have any hair.
One strategy I use for adjusting to the extreme heat here
is I just completely shave my head
quite regularly when I'm camping in the topics
or traveling in the tropics
like Philippines and here in Thailand.
There's our trusty porter.
Strongest hiker I've ever met.
Able to carry 50 kilos a day, five days a week
up this mountain.
(man speaks in foreign language)
Sweetie.
What you cooking, sweetie?
Tuna and noodles?
Only about 300 milliliters of water in there.
(man speaks in foreign language)
Here's a group of porters coming through now.
Interesting strategy they have for carrying gear
with these bamboo wooden frames on their back.
Very strong.
- Hello.
- [Man] Hello.
(man speaks in foreign language)
And there's our backpack on the bottom just there,
on the bottom of the bamboo frame.
One, two, three, four, five backpacks
all on one man's back.
Well, look on the bright side of things,
he doesn't have to carry water back down now.
There is a water stash halfway down the mountain.
- [Woman] Water.
- [Man] Shhh, go that way.