Out to see the Hill Tribes

see all photos »

The morning dawned clear and sunny, Lily and I had breakfast at the hotel and I tried everything I could think of to stall. “You sure you just don’t want to hang around the hotel today, sweetie?” No chance. She was ready to go. The guy from Budget came to drop off the rental car. There was no GPS. The street signs were not even written using the Roman alphabet, but rather an alphabet that appears to be comprised of a set of random squiggles especially when lost and traveling at 50 miles per hour. And, the steering wheel was on the wrong side of the car.

see all photos »

A look of panic crossed Lily’s face as I tried to enter into the passenger side. “You’re not serious” was all she said. So with my trying to drive down the same side of road as the rest of the traffic headed in our direction, and with her navigating we started off. She is actually a remarkably good navigator and totally got us where we needed to go without the help of any street signs. We did end up taking a loop or two around the old part of the City thanks to a series of one way streets, but other than that we were driving like locals.

Tea farms terraced into the hillside
see all photos »

About a ½ hour north of Chiang Mai we started to climb into the hills. We had passed miles of rice paddies along the low lands. Each plot neatly tended and sectioned off by a series of irrigation ditches. Most of the fields were fallow with just their brown husks standing a foot or so over the ground showing the evidence of last falls harvest, but every once in a while we would see a recently planted plot that had sprouted in the most vibrant shade of green I have ever seen.

As the terrain started to change we past hillsides that looked as though they were plucked from those Chinese paintings. Soaring peaks of granite that seem to have been impossibly thrust up to such heights with such steep slopes all covered with jungle growth. As we climbed higher and got closer to the border with Burma we came upon hillsides covered with bamboo. It’s the 1^st time I’ve ever seen natural bamboo habitat like this. Forests of the stuff for miles. Then right near the border we came into across the tea plantations. Miles of terraced rows cut steeply into the hillside. I got the feeling that the farming here was similar to Sonoma, in that each different farm was planted with a different variety of tea and that drawing upon generations of experience each was as carefully tended as the vineyards back home. The drive was beautiful and just seeing the scenery would have been worth it.

This is how they stored the hay. they stack it in a circle and then build this cool sloping roof. Too bad you can't just live there.
see all photos »

By then it had grown dark and we were hungry and tired. We spent the night at hillside resort designed for Chinese tour groups. The setting was beautiful, the décor was garish, and then time we spent here was limited. In by 8pm and out by 7:30 the next morning.

Back in the car, we completed the trip up to the border town of Mae Sai for breakfast, walked through the local street market, and headed into Burma which has a totally different vibe. You can just feel the police state presence. Going through the passport check where you had to stand in line, not cross the paint marks on the floor, have your passport held by the federales, and have your picture taken gave you the feeling of not being in charge. Perhaps it was just the message they intended to send to foreigners, but after the gentleness of the Thai people it seemed harsh and unwelcoming. We didn’t stay long. We walked past the street market, got accosted by locals selling Viagra and bootleg cigarettes, and headed back for Thailand.

Spices for sale in the street market at the Burma border
see all photos »

Our goal was to find the local hill tribes. These are a group of 10 or more local indigenous tribes who have lived in this area for hundreds of years. Over time they have been persecuted politically or needed to move for agricultural reasons but they have always lived in this region and currently the Thai government is hospitable to their plight. Each tribe has its own customs, farming practices, culture and dress. They make money by selling handicrafts and offering tours of their villages. Some have looked with distain on this practice as it is not really authentic, but Lily and I felt that it is their way of supporting themselves and being able to keep their culture intact and live in their indigenous ways as much as possible in today’s world, so we were happy to visit and support them. We particularly wanted to see the Paduang which is the tribe that wears rings around their necks. The more rings you have the more wealthy you are. We found the first village pretty easily as the sign on the road was written in English, but we couldn’t find the Paduang village. We finally ended up going into the town about 20 kilometers away and hiring a local taxi driver to take us there.