Any who, we've been hanging out in Pai (pronounced more like bye than pie!) This is le destination for hippy folk who prefer to do mediation at 'the womb', play music at 'the edible jazz cafe' and grow their dreads to their bums rather than engage in city life. It's an idyllic little town, set on the river bed and surrounded by mountains. Apparently in high season its teeming with noisy travellers and can be a bit full on, but for us our stay in our miniature bungalow (bit like a cardboard box!) at a place called Breeze of Pai, was peaceful and chilled.
A real uniqueness about Pai is how much the Thais and foreigners mix together, its one of the few places in the land of smiles where everyone eats, drinks and chillaxes under one roof. This may be because Pai attracts many Thai tourists too (due to a film 'Pai in love') or maybe because everyone has a shared love for its flourishing music and art scene, either way it made a nice change. Another Pai perk is its scrummy food. This is probably owed to its large expat residency who have settled for a while in Pai whilst taking a break on their 10 years plus travelling trips. You can buy lasagne on the street from the Japanese rasta, falafel from the Israeli Mama or dine out at the Thai Burger Queen a sure rival to the Burger King himself.
Besides eating we did actually do something whilst in Pai, we went to see the 'long neck and big ears village'. Sounds interesting eh?! So we packed ourselves into our tour guide Mr Dae's (as in ice cream sunDAE) sister's pink car and set off for Mae Hong Son, which is right on the Burmese/Myanmar border. It took a few hours to get there due to all the hair pin bends, but luckily we shared the trip with a small Argentinian couple and Mr Dae fed us full of information along the way.
We eventually arrived at the village, well actually it's a refugee camp, and it's hard to describe what we saw next and how we felt about it as many conflicting thoughts come to mind. So instead I'll bullet point what I learnt and you can make up your own mind:
- the main reason to visit this place is to see the ladies with their long necks due to the heavy winding metal necklaces they wear. At the camp there is also another tribe where the ladies wear earrings the size of a 50p pieces to enlarge their ear lobe.
- We heard four different reasons why they originally wear these neck garments, our guide said it was to keep the bad spirits away. But others believe that the tradition would have worn out had it not been for tourist interest and it's only for the chance to make a pretty penny that the tribe now keep it up.
- Either way the young girls also wear the garments and pose for photos.
- This is a refugee camp, it's a pretty nice one, but the people here can't travel far out (there are police check points all along the route checking no one is being stowed away)
- We had to pay a fiver each to get in, this money apparently goes only to the 'villagers' and therefore besides selling their wares, is their only chance of income.
- The women don't seem weighed down by their lives (we met a 62 year old with 5kgs of rings round her neck). In fact quite the opposite, they are smiley, engaging and happy to show the world their faces. We got the impression life in Thailand is better for them than their homeland of Burma.
We left the Karen long neck people a little lighter (as we'd given out balloons and pencils to the kids) and a little more thoughtful about what we'd come to learn. On our journey back we stopped at temples, for a natural spring mud mask, a waterfall and ample panoramic views, including the Burma border!
To recover from our 11 hour day trip the next day we did little else but sit by the swimming pool and again eat our way around the world.
All in all Pai was a yummy, relaxing and an interesting getaway. Now we return to Chiang Mai for a night before making the journey back to the South.
One week today we'll be flying to Australia...ahhhhhhhh.
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