The winding road clinging to the mountain sides opens the journey to Mae Hong Son and has 1,000 curves. I have this on the highest authority, well from Bea's friends' cook. There is nothing I can say to dispute this as at the start of the journey in the small mini van all the locals took a sleeping pill.
So to the long necks, no it's not a Thai branch of fat face but a hill tribe just outside town still practicing the controversial and now tourist fuelled undertaking of women wearing heavy metal coils around their necks. Through years of tourism their stalls are now adorned with long neck carved mobile phone holders and fridge magnets. Is this progress? Even the sleepy picturesque town has a Kentucky fried chicken!
After visiting a Hmong village, a Chinese settlement just next to the Burmese border and a Lisu village I felt like I'd had a whistle stop Bruce Perry style 'tribe' experience. These people have no Thai citizenship and as in most cases villages are populated by the old looking after the very young, whilst the middle generation flock to the large cities in search of employment opportunities. Life is simple, but life is hard and marginalised, with permission needed to work and no access to education and health care. These people are a million miles away from the upwardly mobile city slickers riding the sky train to work in Bangkok.
No comments:
Post a Comment