Total Miles Traveled: 45,309
Chiang Mai is surrounded by mountains – mountains that are home to over half a dozen different indigenous tribes, called “hill tribes,” well, because they live in the hills. Most of the hill tribes have migrated to the region over the past 100 years – though some as recently as 3-5 years ago, from places like Burma, Laos and elsewhere in central Asia. They have largely preserved their traditional ways – including their indigenous religions and languages, making them a fascinating cultural study. They prefer living above 1,000m, and shy away from the outside world.
We were excited to see these hill tribes in person, so we went on a full day tour. Our first stop was at a ‘local’ village about 90 minutes outside of Chiang Mai. The village had a mixture of Lisu and Akha tribes.
Most of the housing was pretty basic and the people lived very simply, farming and raising animals for food.
Interestingly, some huts were much more well constructed, using teak wood instead of bamboo. What did these people do, we wondered? Well, one hut had a bunch of baskets and basket weaving materials underneath it. Sounds like the owner found a product people wanted and started making it!
What village is complete without fun and adorable animals?
SIDEBAR: When Tony and I left the US, we brought with us lots of small Disney items that I had collected over my years of working at the Mouse House. We figured we could give them out to the kids we met along the way. Well, 10 months – and a lot of luggage carrying – later, we still had all of the Disney items. So we were very excited that we remembered to bring them with us on this adventure and finally “spread the word according to Disney.”
Here are 2 adorable kids who we met on our first stop. Check out their smiles when we gave them Mickey Mouse stickers.
After a brief stop at the village, we went to visit a HUGE cave system – the Chiang Dao cave and temple. The cave system is massive and extends over 7 miles into the interior of Thailand’s third highest mountain.
The cave’s entrance is part of a large Buddhist temple. So sprinkled throughout the cave are various Buddha carvings and statutes.
At the back of the cave is a river. Sometimes the river overflows – flooding the cave. But it makes for really neat rock formations that show the sediment layers.
After a quick lunch, we headed out to my most anticipated part of the tour…. visiting the Karen long neck and big ear tribes from Burma. I had read about these tribes when I was young (thanks to my aunt and uncle who gave be a subscription to National Geographic each year for Christmas). The photos I had seen as a child mesmerized and slightly appalled me. Now I was going to be able to see them in person.
What’s so special about these tribes? Let’s take a look at the Long Neck tribe.
At the age of 5, girls start wearing brass rings around their neck. They start with 5 rings and every few years they add more rings. This little girl below was really cute. She wouldn’t smile when Tony first took her picture so I stood behind him and started waving my arms and saying “booga booga booga”… Check out the before and after photos.
Going back to the rings… by adulthood, women can have as many as 21 rings. Although they can remove the rings, typically women, eat, bath and sleep with the rings on.
I had once heard that the women would die if they removed the rings because their neck muscles atrophy and they would not be able to support the weight of their head. I learned this is NOT TRUE! Although it looks like their necks are being stretched – it’s an illusion. Their shoulders actually grow lower (similar to women who wear heavy hand bags on one shoulder which causes one shoulder to stretch lower than the other). The neck muscles don’t atrophy – contrary to belief – and the women can take off the rings without issue (save shoulder pain). Although girls are not required to wear the rings, many do it as a fashion statement. I never understood how other women could regularly wear really uncomfortable stiletto high heel shoes… I guess this is the neck equivalent!
The other tribe we saw is the Big Ear tribe.
Interestingly, the big ear fashion seems to have been adopted by young hipster westerners and the backpacking type. As you can see from the photo, the women make a hole in their ears and insert large rings that stretch the hole.
A final note on visiting this tribes… we didn’t really ‘visit’ the tribes. Rather we visited an area where the tribes’ women have created small shops. It’s actually rather sad to see the women just sitting around, all selling the exact same items.
Our last stop of the day was the butterfly and orchid farm. We had fun taking lots of photos – mostly of colorful orchids. Fun for us at the time, but rather boring to look through. Therefore, we will spare you… below are just a couple of highlights.
See the complete set of pictures:
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