Mae Hong Son hill tribes

Hi all

We are now just 20km from the Myanmar (or Burma to all you oldies...LOL) in the most picturesque town of Mae Hong Son, nestled in the northern Thai mountain ranges. We arrived last night and had dinner by the lake washed down by a few Chang beers....

Today we managed to secure a guide who took us to visit some of the local hill tribes. Our first stop was a temporary refuge centre managed by the UN. This camp has been was set up approx 20 year ago to house the fleeing Red Karen tribes from Myanmar & they have been there ever since!

Within the Red Karen tribe we saw two three sub tribes which you will see below are all quite different! The first are the 'long necks' and all the traditional women wear these incredible brass rings around their necks some of they weigh up to 5kg not only that but they also have a similar arrangement at the tops of their legs, which means they can't run or even do much bending, which I suppose puts scrubbing the floor off the list of chores... Another tribe was the 'big eared' Red Karen who you've guessed it have big earrings......

The tribes are not really allowed  to work as they are not Thai citizens so make their money by selling small trinkets and woven clothes to Thais to sell on to tourists in Chaing Mai. The UN is working on a program of relocating the refugees around the world, but they have to give up their traditions and culture in order to be eligible, which seems a little harsh to me. However the people we did meet were so lovely and warm and the children followed us around all morning watch us from a distance.

This afternoon we headed south a little and climbed and climbed up into the mountains. I have never ever seen such steep roads, but we chugged our way up to visit a Mong tribe. The Mong are generally the richest of all of the tribes and certainly seem to work their socks off! The tops and sides of the mountains are covered in cabbages and other soft leaved veggies which won't grow down in the extremes of the valleys.

We visited the school first and helped a small group of children who were playing scrabble to help them with their English!! We then walked down into and around the village and visited a lovely really old lady who showed us around her house. Lets just say Bijou is really stretching it when you have 12 people living in one house,which is only one room. I really hope none of them snore like Dean!!!  This is the lady who ran the village shop where we sheltered from the afternoon downpour. what you cant see in this phone is how small she was (about our chest height!) but she was so sweet and actually welcomed us to take shelter without wanting us to but anything.  Finally we visited a White Karen village and had a go at threshing some rice which was really hard work and we were put to shame by the old women who demonstrated it to us............. More Pad Thai for us then. Tomorrow we travel to Pai and visit a couple more tribes which I am sure will be equally interesting...

So thanks for looking and will catch up with you when we get to Pai.......