This breakfast almost happens in heaven.

This is the South West region of Thailand.

Thanks to “Pooh Eco Trekking” (a genuine eco trekking agency in Chiang Mai, be careful because there are many fake ones), we did a 3 days trek in and around some Karen villages of Thailand, with a genuine impression of not disturbing neither nature or culture. This, because the guides are all Karens and have a deal with the villages: a good part of the money they got was used for the community (school, hospital etc.). You are a very small group (we were 4). The family you stay in is the village is different for each group, so each family has a chance to earn some money welcoming people for a night.

This in our first night in the village, around the fireplace, set in the house we stayed that night:

We knew from the guide’s explanations that Karens would eat what was available around them. It means mainly rice, wild plants and in terms of meat: mice. This was surprising but actually quite understandable. To protect their fields, the Karens had set up very efficient traps to catch the mice that would otherwise eat their harvests.

So mice were the easiest meat to catch around there. Of course, there was other meat to eat, but less often: pork and buffalo mainly.

So for this first breakfast in the Karen village, we did not know what to expect.

It ended up being 2 breakfasts: the one for tourists like us and the one for Karens. The good thing is that we could try both.

So here is the first one : a shrimp and rice porridge, omelet and pineapple :

You can notice the Heinz sauce on the left, a sign for us not to feel totally lost in another world!

The rice porridge was deliciously aromatised with a bouillon.

Here, the brown mix is the mouse curry. It was really spicy but actually very good (for those who tried):

A trekking eater:

And another one:

After breakfast, we played with the children of the village, on the other side of the house.

The girl wearing a pink jumper on the previous picture took this reallly good shot: