Me myself and the Longnecks

---

Ok Ok
So after being in Pai for a while and basically creating my own little home away from home, I felt like I needed a little break. I packed my small backpack with the essentials grabbed my honda 125cc motor scooter and headed the 108 Kilmoteres North To Mah Hong Son. My back was so sore from the 3 hour ride that all I could do was get a room and fall asleep.
Randomly bumped into this Canadian guy that i had met at a bar in Chang Mai. He's trying to go do medical Aid in Burma, but to bring medicine into Burma you have to sneak across the border and he and some other volunteers were caught by some guy with and AK-47 and kindly escorted back.

The next day I woke up bright an early hoped on my scooter and went off to find the Long neck village before all the tourists arrived. The road was pretty bad and i had to cross all these little rivers to get there. As I approached the very first river i hit the breaks and skidded down the hill landing in the river perfectly saturating my whole right side of my body. If that wasn't bad enough, when I looked up about 20 Thai guys from the elephant park were staring at me, trying not to laugh at the stupid tourist. I got up tried myself of and continued on my way...

Arrived at the long neck village around 9:00 payed my 250 baht fee ($6), which supposedly goes to the villagers but I've heard they don't get much of it.

A little background on the long necks (giraffe women). They are originally from Burma, but about 10 years ago they escaped and now live in Northern Thailand. They are refugees from Burma but, are considered Guests and aren't allowed to have jobs, which is ridiculous. They actually can't even leave Mae Hong Song, which makes me even angrier. I think of all the refugees in the states and how we treat them and how poorly these people have been treated by the Thai government. Even if one of the Kayan people marries a Thai person, they can't leave the city. Pure bureaucratic bullshit.

OK back to the story,

I arrived in the village bought my ticket and slowly made my way to village. It's a rather uncomfortable experience paying to basically go and stare at these women. They know whey you're there and you know why you're there. My first encounter was a littler girl, maybe 8 or 9 sitting at a table playing wither her siblings. I looked but tried not to stare. I kept going and came upon this nice women playing the guitar. Listened to her for a bit, bought her CD and her husband took a few pictures of us. Tried to talk to her but she didn't speak much English. Move on. Began to slowly make my way around stopped but didn't' buy at a lot of the little huts. Made my first loop and then came upon this guy and girl playing a gambling game. Long story short I started to play with them. The police came. We picked up our money and sat down off to the side. The girl was Thai and was friends with one of the families. We started talking, she asked me if i wanted to join her and some of the tribe members on a walk to thee other village and go swimming. Umm Duh, I'll go.

Myself, two Kayan boys, the Thai girl, 3 Long neck teenagers, and a "Big earing" tribe girl all headed out on the hike. I felt really bad for the girls as they were wearing about 18lbs of brass each around their necks and legs, but they sucked it up and made the journey.

We got to the other village after about an hour. Jumped into the river. The girls didn't know how to swim so I tried to show them how to "doggy paddle." That didn't work at all but we swam, splashed, played tag, and threw river seaweed at each other for a good two hours.

They bought me lunch, I tried chewing beetle nut, which is this nasty seed that all the women chew on which makes your mouth red. It was terrible. We napped until about 4pm and then headed back to their village where, Laqui (the village boy) let me borrow his Football Jersey, that surprisingly fit. He asked me if I could play volleyball. I said sure why not. We went out to the court and he began to set balls to see if i could spike them. It took me a few times to get the hang of it (I've only played in Mexico). but pretty soon I was spiking the hell out of the ball, dominanting the court.

We played five on five. The very first point the other team served to us and it went down perfectly bump, set to me, and SPIKE!!! the whole village went up in screams OHHHH!!!!! we won the first point. It went on like this for a good half hour. My team still lost but it was a blast.

The head woman of the house Mamma, invited me for dinner and asked me if I wanted to spend the night. I had a room in town but how could I pass this opportunity up? We ate an awesome dinner, Mamma made me my bed and then they brought the local rice wine, copious amounts of Burmese cigars, and of course the guitar.

Every single person in the room EXCEPT for me could play the guitar. Throughout the night people would hand me the guitar, but everytime I had to decline. Yet another thing I have to learn when I get home. They sang Thai songs all night. Such a special experience.

We went to bed around 11pm. Mamma saw that I had cut my foot and brought out some medicine for me. I put the medicine on, even though I had no idea what it was, and went to bed. But not before Mamma and I took a few pics together (you can see on of them).

Woke up early, ate some eggs, donuts and coffee. Mamma requested that we take a picture together so she can hang it on her wall, and then Laqui, the Thai Girl (Jane), and some other guys headed off to go fishing. I decided to join them for a bit before I left. They put on their scuba masks got into the river and started gathering snail shaped things. I also helped. All in all we gathered about 20 or 30 POUNDS of snails, plus a few crabs, and some small cat fish. Cool cool cool

I've done three treks on this trip where I have paid to go into villages just like this but never have I before had a more legitimate experience of interacting with the natives. I don' t think I could have planed this day better myself. Thank you
signing off,
Adam

---