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Hello again :0)
It's been a really nice week spent up in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand visiting hill tribes and riding an elephant, bamboo rafting down a gentle river and wandering around the many Wats (temples) in the town, not to mention the plethora of colourful markets selling fruit, vegetables, hilltribe crafts and of course the ever popular street food carts that keep us coming back for more.
One of our day trips was to see the Hilltribe villages and a cave temple.This was a really interesting day as our guide enabled us to have a chat with a few of the villagers and ask questions we would not normally be able to ask due to the language barrier.I loved seeing the different costumes they wore, peeking into their bamboo huts, playing with the little kids and seeing their animals (usually pigs, chickens and water buffalo) rolling about in the mud under the houses.The long neck Karen tribe were interesting as they stood out as a really beautiful tribe but their village seemed to solely exist for tourism - kind of like a human zoo whereas the Palung, Lisu and Akha tribes functioned in a more traditional sense - growing crops and raising animals.
The hilltribes have grown in such numbers now (they are essentially refugees in Thailand escaping civil wars and communism in neighbouring Laos, Burma and China) that they are having to integrate more into Thai life as there is not enough sustainable jungle for them to survive in.Many of the tribes live a slash and burn lifestyle in the jungle so it is fast disappearing.The Thai government are resettling some of the tribes on lower ground and teaching them how to grow crops such as peanuts and rice (instead of their traditional opium for trade in the golden triangle).Since the hilltribe people are refugees and therefore not Thai citizens, they are being issued identity cards which entitles them access to schooling and some medical assistance.This means a better lifestyle for the tribes but also a decline in their traditional ways - I was sad to see that many of them have embraced the "t-shirt" in favour of their traditional hand made clothes.
We also did a day trip where we went for a ride on an elephant at an elephant farm which looked like it was run by a bunch of bandits.The place was wild and dusty and the mahouts (elephant drivers) were rough and dirty - I loved it!They seemed to be looking after their elephants though and we fed our elephant a massive bunch of bananas thinking that would fill her up for a bit - apparently not - elephants eat around 200kg of food a day!!!We came off the hour trek in the hills covered in elephant snot (ours liked to turn her trunk around and blow snot at us) and dust.The perfect answer to this was bamboo rafting down the river where we got drenched but clean!
The rest of our time in Chiang Mai was spent visiting the local temples and markets - we stayed in a really lovely place called "Sarah's Guesthouse" which had a nice tropical garden with trees dripping in mangoes and durian fruit, an English owner and a couple of really soppy dogs - see the photos of the hairy one who liked to sit on my shoes outside our room every day.He carried a tennis ball constantly in his gob - he was quite adorable.The other dog was very old, very dribbly and sat around panting in the heat.Not much else for a dog to do in 40 degrees!
Last night we caught the empty train back to Bangkok - what an eerie trip that was.Bangkok is very quiet right now - the Red Shirt protesters have a hold on the city and at this stage we're just watching the news to see where they are and try to stay out of their way before catching our flight to Hong Kong on Saturday.We did see some demonstrations in Chiang Mai and they were setting tyres alight at an intersection on our way to the train station but it seemed to be a peaceful demonstration at this stage and the locals make sure you don't wander into anywhere you shouldn't be.Lets hope they keep the airports open as we are about to embark on our next part of the trip - Hong Kong and Japan.More later, hope you are all well.
Lots of love and sunshine :0)
Kerry and Brian
xx
- comments
Brett Be careful, K & B! What a time to go to Bangkok... Try to wear a blue shirt, that seems neutral. :^)
rod caldwell Hope you are both well and sound like having fun can you send an elephant back to ru wild on our floor we have changed desks which was fun thats about all of our excitment Kind regards Rod ps hope you got out safely xxx
meagan ahh kerry sounds beautiful...i loved Chang Mai! guess what? i've spontaneously decided to go to Malaysia for 3 weeks, leaving in like 10 days. most spur of the moment decision ever, found the cheap flights yesterday. so i'll be hanging out and travelling in asia for a bit too! be careful in bangkok and have fun...meagan xo