CHIANG RAI - Day 1
We visited the Golden Triangle region where Thailand, Myanmar and Laos come together.
We visited a small village which raises and sells water buffalo. The village is not on the tourist route. No one spoke English, there were no vendors selling their wares, no bathrooms for visitors.
The buffalo live about 25 years, and are used for food. This particular village is sponsored by the royal family; the villagers send photos and reports to show that the buffalo are healthy and well-cared for.
The four-day old white calf is rare and will not be sold
After breakfast the water buffalo are herded into the water where they swim off for the day until returning at night on their own.
The villagers requested a group photo for a report. I think they found us pretty naive. We overheard one of our group asking them, and I kid you not, how do they tell the male water buffalos from the females since they both have horns. (The response, involving an apparently universal gesture, needed no translation.)
Longboat Cruise on Mekong River
The Mekong River runs almost 3,000 miles from the Tibetan Plateau, through China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It’s one of the few remaining large rivers that still has a naturally (monsoon generated) active floodplain, and in fact flooded badly here a month ago. Its basin is one of the most biologically diverse on earth.
Across the river from our Sop Ruak boarding pier in Thailand is Laos, a poor country where Chinese infrastructure and investment are fueling great expansion. There are hotels and casinos.
A short distance up and back across the Mekong from Laos is Myanmar. They, too, have a casino. Tourist longboats used to be able to land here but due to current geopolitical tensions, this is as close as we could get.
In keeping with their Buddhist national identity, Thailand does not have casinos.
Burmese workers come to work in Thailand where they can earn $10/day compared to $3/day in Myanmar.
Four days upriver is China. South is Vietnam and Mekong delta. But you can’t cruise that direction.
Fisherman shacks on the Thai riverbank
The fishermen sleep during the day and go out around 6 pm to fish for Mekong giant catfish and other fish. The giant catfish, critically endangered, is one of the world’s largest freshwater fish species. They routinely reach up to 10 ft and 440 lbs, with the Thai record at 646 lbs.
The “limousine” to take us to our lunch place in the forest.
This young entrepreneur was selling his carefully curated artwork. Mark bought me a portrait of Winnie the Pooh
After lunch we visited the Hall of Opium, a small museum about the origin, methods and tools used for opium production and use.
For centuries, hill tribes in the Golden Triangle cultivated and refined poppy-to-opium production. Then China came to dominate the market. Two 19th century Opium Wars with the British and abuse in the 20th century led communist China to ban opium in the mid 1900’s. The Golden Triangle seized the opportunity to consolidate the lucrative opium industry.
The museum was simple and effective with signage in Thai, English and Chinese. They had displays showing farming and harvesting techniques and a nice collection of tools, weights for commerce, opium lamps and pipes.
This is one of the few places we were not offered samples.
CHIANG RAI - Day 2
I’ve been wrestling with what to say about our trip this morning to visit hill tribes near Chiang Rai. This is a popular tourist excursion here, and optional for our tour group. G, M and I had originally planned to skip it and travel on our own to visit a couple of temples, but the timing was inconvenient and Kay had thoughtfully added in the White Temple to our original itinerary. So we opted in to visit the hill tribe village.
We were so uncomfortable.
The moniker village is misleading. There are Burmese refugee families of 5 different ethnicities who have been relocated (voluntarily, we think) into one forested area. It’s a massively successful tourist opportunity, but as we learned more about the origin and restrictions placed upon these people, it felt like a government-indentured human zoo.
Once live here, you have to pay a hefty fee (2500 baht) to leave or return. Going into town is impossible for the long neck Karen, though others may go for short periods.
Some tribes get along and intermarry. Others most definitely do not; as we passed from one of those later communities to the next, they called out and gestured at us to be sure we passed under a type of gate to leave the evil behind as we approached the new area.
The women in the long neck Karen tribe start wearing heavy metal coils when they are 5 years old, adding more as they grow. The illusion of long necks is created because their shoulders and rib cages are crushed down by the weight of the rings. The mutilation leaves their necks unable to support their heads without the coils. Traditionally, this started to protect their necks from attacks by tigers after several Karen women were killed; today it is a cultural thing.
2.5 kilogram = 5.5 pounds
The women sit alone in little houses, weaving and patiently, shyly smiling as the tourists shuffle by and take their pictures. Their handicrafts hang nearby, offered for sale. The men are nowhere to be seen.
…except this little man
One older woman was pointed out as National Geographic famous. (I’m still debating whether to post her photo)
This long-ear woman wears leg coils. Her chick was totally devoted to her and kept scrambling onto her lap.
It felt exploitative to wander along the pathways, seeing impoverished, exiled people trying to eke out a living by letting people, however generous their intent, stare at them. In theory their children can go to public school, but only if they speak Thai. So that is self-limiting. We saw a tiny little open air classroom with 5 five-year-olds, but attendance is haphazard and not obligatory. The communities are safe, in a way, as they cannot return to Myanmar under current conditions. But there is no path to self-improvement.
Return to the White Temple
The world’s most ornate men’s bathroom
Mirrors embedded in the whitewash make the buildings shimmer
Greg finally able to channel his inner Bert Lahr.
And on we drove to Chiang Mai, where we’ll spend 3 nights.
Things we tried: Thai coffee, kuaytiaw Sukhothai, all kinds of pickled vegetables, bitter melon with egg, sour pork sticky rice (!), barbecue chicken, fried and sautéed morning glory.
And did not like: pickled bean curd
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