We started our trip very early on Sunday morning and stopped in the town of Mai Rim to have breakfast and look at the local market. I love these markets. I can’t say more than, “Sawatdee Kaa,” as I offer a smile but somehow I found a way to connect to the women selling freshly fried insects or the man grinding coconut to make coconut milk. I am always so curious about what every thing is and how it is used but mostly the market was a visual collage. Shay had fun photographing the café owner’s daughter as I wondered around and I purchased a couple of sweet treats for the journey.
After our little breakfast we drove up a very step road. The road was paved but we were glad to have four wheel drive at several points along the journey. We saw many rice fields which were dried up and had animals grazing in them. It had not rained in several months and the new crop of rice had not yet been planted. As we reached higher into the foothills we saw crops of garlic planted where the rice will later grow. In some areas there is enough water to plant two crops of rice a year but here they only planted crop a year. We passed a cowherd with his animals walking along the road. We passed a very pretty little lake with a fish farm along its shore; I wish I had stopped to photograph. In some areas along this road we saw tea growing. The hillsides often had bamboo groves. There were always banana trees growing on the hillsides. I began to think of their giant leaves as large green windmills flapping in the breeze. It seemed at the higher altitudes that pine beetles may be wrecking their damage but the guide didn’t confirm this. A man drove by on a motorcycle with a complete little ice cream stand attached as a sidecar to his bike.
This reminded me of a similar man I had seen driving in Chiang Mai with a complete shaved ice/snow cone stand attached to the side of his motor bike. These people are just so adaptive! Many of the little villages we passed seemed to have a small cottage industry making brooms. These were lovely brooms that I would have collected had I enough room.
After a time along this road we turned off on to a very rough and unpaved road. We all got pretty silent because often we were not entirely sure that the little four-wheel would make it’ it was that steep. After what seemed like a really long time we reached a Karen village. We knew immediately that this village was Christian because there was a little chapel next to where we parked but only about 30% of the Karen in Thailand are Christian. I believe that most Karen live in Burma but about 280,000 live in Thailand. Their language has roots in Tibet or Burma. As we began to walk around I saw a woman spinning fiber into thread and she indicated that she had woven the skirt she was wearing. The colors were different than those I had seen years before indicating that they no longer use plant and organic material for dye. We wandered around and soon a very old woman came out of a house. She was bent over with age with dark brown teeth from chewing betel nuts. None of the younger women had this discoloring because it is no longer fashionable. This woman seemed so friendly and wanted us to take a photo of her. As we left the little village we noticed that most of the women and children in the village had gathered on the steps of the chapel and allowed us to take photos.
Our guide didn’t speak a lot of English and didn’t speak the language of Karen so we couldn’t really ask a lot of questions. I was a little disappointed not see many people making fabric or other handicrafts nor were any of the men making silver which is a traditional art form for the Karen men. This village may have seemed a bit sleepy because it wasn’t planting season.
After returning to the road we drove on the Pai and had a lunch at a hotel with about 50 Germans on a tour bus. This was not what we had expected but travel requires flexibility. The food was fresh and well prepared though not at all spicy.
We drove on to a few different villages but a high point was a Lisu village where the young children were practicing a dance performance that they would take to Chiang Mai. As we drove pass we saw a group of children in a gathering hall and asked the driver to stop. It was really thrilling to watch the children practice and Shay got to take lots of photos of siblings who were not dancing. Then some of mothers and grandmothers allowed her to photograph. One older woman with betel stains on her teeth sat next to Shay and was photographed then she almost grabbed the camera from Shay and motioned that she wanted the photos. Shay showed her the digital display and it was obvious she wanted the photo. We arranged to send all the photos of the children and elders, exchanged addresses and everyone seemed happy. In another place in this village women were making the clothing for the performance and another woman was making the hats traditionally worn by Lisu. A woman watching the practice session was making colorful yarn balls, little circular tufts called “chicken intestines” I think. The Lisu use a lot of color in their clothing.
We spent so much time in this village that it was time to head down the mountain. Our guide really wanted us to stay the evening so we could see how Pai changed at night but his description of it over run by foreign tourists and what he called “hippies” didn’t sound that appealing to us.
We got back to Chiang Mai early enough to go to the Walking Market in the old part of town along the road to the west of the Tha Pae Gate on Ratchdamroen on Sunday evenings. (I think there is another walking market on Saturdays on Wualai Road but we did not go to this one). The sunday walking market is from 2 until 10 p.m. and the entire street for blocks and blocks was turned over to crafts and food. In the temple compounds along this street there were many, many food vendors. I was in heaven. I tried a drink that was green with little worm-like noodles. The liquid was coconut milk and the noodles made with rice. It was fantastic. Somewhat like bubble tea texture. I purchased a green mango salad tossed with peanuts and cilantro and tiny dried shrimp. The smell was wonderful from all this food cooking. It was a communal picnic; there were hundreds of people eating in the streets. The clothing and craft offerings were much nicer than the night market near our hotel and the prices were very reasonable. I realized why many people in Singapore said that they loved to shop in Thailand.
It was here that I met a man who had a gallery in town who was selling an antique Akha woman’s hat with a very large crest or back board of sterling. I was surprised because this was not a hat made for tourists rather an old, well worn original. I began to talk to him and found out that his family is from Burma and he has connections to the Akha. He said that the Akha way of life is still quite vibrant in Burma and offered to take me to see the Akha in Burma. I may have to return to do this!
We walked for hours until heading back to the hotel in a tuk tuk but not before discovering a wonderful looking hotel right on the same street as the Walking Market called Tamarind; it looked very nice!
