The Long Necked Karen Tribe and The Holey Ear Lobe Tribe! by Helena

Today we set off to visit the long-neck, Karen tribe, who live in a small refugee village in the North of Thailand.

The village is high in the mountains.

There is a big market there where you can buy lots of different postcards, jewelry, cloth etc.

The ladies who sell these objects have long necks with bronze rings around them.

This makes their necks really long because it presses down on their collar bones.

Today this attracts tourists (like us!) but originally there are many reasons why they started wearing these rings around their necks.

One is that it made it more difficult for tigers to bite their necks and carry them off into the jungle!

Some of the ladies crush up bark off trees and put it on their face - they think it looks attractive plus they use it as sun lotion.

We bought some things from the ladies - I bought a bronze ring for my neck.

We bought a little something off everyone we took a photo of, or we gave them a small amount of money.

We didn't give that much money because they actually looked quite well off compared to the people in Hoi An!

If you looked carefully many had mobile phones and motorbikes behind their stall.

These people do well from tourists and you have to admire them for doing so.

Something we learned in Hoi An is to get off the tourist trail.

It was interesting though to walk down the side streets and see how the long neck people really live - compared to how they just sit and pose for tourists.

It was interesting to see how they build their houses out of woven bamboo. Many houses had tv's inside!


Across the river is a different tribe, the ladies have gigantic holes in their ear lobes. We thought this looked horrible but they obviously think it looks attractive! Different people think different things. They think it rude to show their shoulders!

---

---