I keep saying I have to retire this pink blouse but I think it has a few more adventures in it . . . today was certainly one of those! Jake has invited us to go with him on this all-day tour which will take us to the northern-most part of Thailand with several stops along the way. So at 7 a.m. we're waiting outside our hotel for the van. I am so grateful we were the first of 12 passengers as we got to sit right behind the driver and guide, and I got to sit in the middle. (Colin had warned us that it was a carsick-inducing ride up the mountains and he was spot on!).
First stop, the hot springs. The parking lot reeks of sulfur and we're told we can 'soak our feet' and 'take a shower' - huh? With 14 of us (including driver and guide) in the van, sulfur would not be my choice of air freshener. We opt for coffee (wretched) and Jake bargains with a bracelet seller and ends up with adorned wrists!
On to the White Temple. Think Walt Disney meets a demented wedding cake designer who's had way too much espresso and suffers from delusions of religious grandeur and has had really bad dreams of dragons for years . . .
Actually, the pink is a lovely counterpoint to all this white!
And there is one golden structure - a temple?
and what I can only describe as silver ornament tree/shrub things. A picture of one . . .
Each one of these wee dangle things is an ornament (a couple will adorn our tree in 2016). View from underneath . . . when I look at this now I'm thinking bats!
Tim and Jake checking out the grounds . . .
This was one decorated tree I really didn't get . . .
Next stop the Karen Hill Tribe village. . . a wee bit of history about the hill tribes of No Thailand. There are approximately 30 distinct tribes, each with their own language, customs, religious rites, etc. and a good many of them are refugees from neighboring countries like Myanmar. To their credit, the Thai government is doing the best they can to offer them sanctuary, including putting places like this on the tourist circuit.
But their persecution long predates the unrest in Myanmar, and, in fact, the US military has a particularly poignant chapter in their story. The Hmong, one of the hill tribes, lived in Laos (which we're very close to at this point on today's tour) and parts of Vietnam and cooperated with the US against the Viet Cong in the 60's and 70's. Once the US left SEA, the Hmong were considered enemies of the Vietnamese government and applied for political asylum in the US. Here comes the remarkable part of this history lesson - it wasn't until George W. that they were granted asylum and approximately 250,000 came to the US!! Most of them settled in Sacramento, thanks to the efforts of then-Governor Schwarzenegger. The rest went to a lot of cold places in MN and SD. Amazing!
Here's the actual village area (don't know why this is coming up so dark) and following is the tourist plaza.
We've heard that Thai tourism had failed off but this is so sad . . .
Our perpetual consumer, Jake, is doing his best to bolster the local economy! I'm beginning to think he's got a bracelet fetish :)
No, you can't wear a brass neck collar Jake!
About these collars - they are solid brass and weigh a ton! At age 5, every Karen tribe girl has a collar put on (your basic 5-ring starter kit) and one ring added each year until she reaches puberty.
This is incomprehensible to me - it almost never comes off! I read a posted monograph by a Belgian orthopedist who spoke the tribe's language. Here's roughly what he wrote: the collar does not elongate the neck, it makes the shoulder muscles collapse (he had a photo of a young woman who had the collar removed and then one 6 months or so later which showed the (slight) rise of her shoulders. ) But most remarkably, it changes the structure of the rib cage. He took x-rays of 'collared' rib cages and the ribs had moved downward and grown at an angle. They appeared to have an added growth where the ribs attach to the spinal column, allowing the ribs to slope downward.
The Karen women are famed for their weaving . . .
I couldn't find an explanation for the brass rings around the upper calves . . .
There's another group living in this village - I think they're called the Nayah. They've skipped the brass neck collar and gone for big earlobes . . . really, really big earlobes!
Two pink blouses across cultures!
This photo won't show what we were seeing . . . this young woman was texting while weaving!! She slipped the phone off to the side when she saw us approaching.
Our tour guide didn't have a satisfying explanation why/how this brass collar thing got started . . . all you mothers reading this, can you imagine yourself agreeing to be the first one to offer up your baby girl to the brass collar experiment?? I couldn't figure out how the first Mayan mother was persuaded to have her baby's head put in a wooden vise to make it long and pointy!!
Anyway, I leave you with these photos of the village . . .
Next stop - The Golden Triangle. This is actually an island, in the Mekong River, between the Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar, and it's a no-man's land. It's not a part of any nation and was a haven, until recently?, for drug smugglers who didn't use any currency except gold, hence the name (and the island is shaped like a triangle)!
You can just make out the island in the enlarged inset on the lower left. And the red in the big map is China!
A number of people on our tour opt for the one-hour boat ride on the Mekong and a stop at the island. We take the time for a wander around the GT tourist area.
And, finally, we almost get to Myanmar. Our last stop is the customs house on the border between Thailand and Myanmar. The ornate arcade says it all!
We try, unsuccessfully, to make our way across the bridge and set foot in Myanmar . . .
We have to satisfy ourselves with a walk through the stalls at the customs house and are stopped in our tracks by this display . . .
Yes, these are avocados!! Definitely the biggest we've ever seen.
We head home - a 4-hour drive back to Chiang Mai with, mercifully, a potty and snack stop at - are you ready? - a 7-11!! Thailand is full of them and we are very grateful. Tomorrow will definitely be a kick-back day for us. Jake is headed to Hanoi and a couple of weeks in Vietnam. We say goodbye at 11 pm and are grateful for having had such a delightful 'playmate' in Chiang Mai and Northern Thailand - happy travels, Jake!
