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Asia » Thailand
December 11th 2006
Published: December 12th 2006
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Mental Notes


1. Become a millionare.
2. Stop writing mental notes.



Sodahead took the liberty of renting us a jeep for 5 days to travel around to see and experience things outside of the city.


Day One-Southern Chiang Mai Province



While driving through the roads with no particular destination we made the decision to visit a silk factory for the day. As we entered the building each of us were given a silk flower as a souvenir and complimentary tea and biscuits.

Silk originated in China and was a "secret" for over 2000 years before other countries learned it. In 200 B.C., the Chinese migrants introduced sericulture (the raising of silk worms for the production of raw silk) into Korea and it has since spread into to other Asian countries. In addition to this story, two Nestorian monks smuggled silk eggs to Byzantium by hiding them in the hollow of their canes. Eventually, the silk traveled to Italy and was produced there during the period of the second Crusade in the 13th century. With regard to Thailand, it is unknown whether the first piece of silk was produced locally or imported.

The silk filament consists of the protein substance "fibroin" which is discharged from the head glands of the silkworms, the protein "sericin" helps to attach the two filaments. As a matter of fact, the worm always spins two filaments at the same time but they stick tightly together like one. A silk cocoon is generally oval-shaped with white or yellow colour depending on the genetic type. The silk yarn essence is shaped as a triangle, not like other filaments that are round. Therefore, silk yarn has a better quality of reflection. The silk reeling process begins with baking fresh cocoons and boiling them in hot, clean water in order to melt the sericin substance and loosen the silk filaments. The cocoon becomes swollen. A small forked paddle is used to gently push down the floating cocoons. When the cocoons float on the surface of the water, the tip of the paddle gathers several filaments of delicate silk strands. The silk thread is then transfered to a wooden pulley, which is attached and secured to a pot, before it is placed inside a nearby basket. More fresh cocoons are added and are reeled out completely until only the pupa is left. I was fascinated by this and spent a large portion of my time watching the women performing this task.

Day Two-Southern Chiang Mai Province



We visited a factory outside of Chiang Mai city that produced a wide variety of wood products including statues and buddhas of every size, furniture and household items such as tables, beds, shelves, desks, screens and cabinets. They carried all manner of decorative handicrafts--carved bowls, animals, planters, and wall hangings. We watched a group of carvers in the process of creating large statues--the first set of workers created a rough outline which was then passed to a second set which worked on the finer details of the piece It was an extradordinary operation to witness and gave me a greater appreciation of their work.

The completed objects are then sent to women who do the delicate task of decorating and painting. They roll out and apply strips of lacquered paste on the carving in whatever decorative pattern it calls for. Then it is dried and shellaced before being painted or covered with gold leaf.

Day Three-Chiang Rai Province



The three of us drove through Chiang Rai stopping outside the city for lunch at a small outdoor cafe before continuing up an extra three hours to the northernmost town of Mae Sai. It's a lovely spot to observe border life, as Mae Sai is one of the few official overland crossings between Myanmar and Thailand. In 2001 Mae Sai was evacuated due to being fired on by Burmese forces who were apparently in pursuit of Shan State Army rebels. It closed again between May and October of 2002 following a policital spat between the government. At the moment I'm almost positive it's still open but who knows, by the time I finish typing this sentence it could be closed again.

We parked the jeep and walked through most of the town settling on Mae Sai guesthouse which is built directly on the edge of the river bordering Burma with the porches actually extending over it.

The night was spent here and the guesthouses don't quite deserve the degrading title of a hut, a plain bungalow seems to be a more adequate label. I assured myself whilst intently staring at the small holes in the bamboo that there were worse places, and the spotless bathroom tile floor indicated that this was as good as a four star hotel. With the exception of a minor ant problem (which my locally purchased insect repellent quickly sorted out, I will not be surprised if scientists discover that it causes cancer) I found it positively quaint. However in the later part of the evening, a fast moving black thing was cause for alarm. The squeals of panic over a cockroach smaller than our thumb exasperated Sodahead to the point where he left his room to come into ours and carried out the duty of killing it with a shoe.

We learned that after you turn the lights off you don't want to turn them back on.

We awakened from a less-than-full nights sleep freezing. The temperature was at a mere 10 C., completely shocking when you've grown accustomed to 27+. Hoodies, jeans and coffee was a necessity that morning.

Day four-Chiang Rai Province



On the morning of our departure the three of us recieved the opportunity to cross the border to Myanmar, in other words payed a ludicrous amount of money just to step over a bloody bridge. The instant you pass the official gates mobs of locals hit you shoving trays of cigarettes and switchblades at you excitedly. After the first few persistent 'no's' they more or less left you in peace. We wandered through the darkened market alleys as people yelled out prices for sunglasses that made me wonder why I didn't buy my faux Chanels there. The three of us, more than once, stumbled upon stores that carried exclusively illegal animal products and signs scrawled with the words 'NO PHOTO.' Money skulls, tiger and leopard pelts, various forms of carnivorous teeth, anonymous hoofed legs, hollow antlers and horns, and bizarre unnamed things in pickling jars. After experiening this, um, ecclectic part of Burma that left us mildly disturbed, there was an unmutual descision to hop into a cramped substandard form of a tuk tuk and travel a few kilometers up a hill to a Hill Tribe and "Long Neck" village. Years ago, I had flipped through Sodahead's massive photo album of previous trips to Asia and found pictures of these women and was quite capitvated by them and have since wanted to meet some. After a ride that all three of us thought would result in a cause of death: rolling down a steep hill backwards on an old tuk tuk with an even older motor, we arrived at the village! When a woman demanded we pay a wad o' cash for "tickets" my suspicions flickered that this wasn't going to meet up to my expectations of seeing these women in the villages they'd spent their lives in. Following a steep climb up stone stairs a pair of teenage girls offered us a Fanta. My hopes were dashed to say the least. Walking through their community I felt a sense of embarrassment as though we were simply barging into someone's backyard to gawk at brass wound around their throats.

The "Long Neck" women wear a continuous coil around their necks and occasionally the limbs starting at the age of 5 or 6. The coils can stand as tall as 30 cm and most commonly weigh about 5 kg but can go up to 20 kg! The coils depress the rib cage and collarbone giving the impression that the neck is abnormally stretched. A popular myth claims that if a woman was to commit adultry, the coils were removed and the woman's neck would collapse and she would suffocate. In reality, these women attach and remove their coils willingly with no such complications. No one knows for certain how the coil custom came to be. One theory states that it was so tigers wouldn't carry women off by their throats. Another says it was meant to make the women unattractive to men from neighboring tribes. The custom of wearing coil rings was dying out, but unsurprisingly money from tourism has led to a resurgence in the practice.

Living in this northern region are tribes who are are called (go figure) "hill tribes." Each tribe has its own language, customs, mode of dress, and spiritual beliefs. They are primarily of seminomadic origin, having come from Tibet, Myanmar, China, and Laos during the past 200 years or so. The tribes likely to be encountered by visitors fall into three major linguistic groups: the Tibeto-Burman (Lisu, Lahu, Akha), the Karenic (Karen, Kayah) and the Austro-Thai (Hmong, Mien). Hill tribes sadly have the lowest standard of living, and although it's easy to compare this with traditional lifestyles, their situation is compounded by lack of Thai citizenship. Without the latter, they don't have the right to recieve minimum wage or own land, and they may be refused education and healthcare. But recently efforts to accept hill tribes into society via free education may have improved the lot of minority of tribes people, although ironically, further Thai assimilation will threaten their cultural identities.

Returning to Thailand safe and sound we hopped into our vehicle and began the journey in the general direction of "home." When our stomachs began to rumble we parked the jeep in the tiny town of Tha Ton for a bite to eat. Over our frozen coffee's Sodahead mentioned Wat Tha Ton, a Chinese Shrine with a gigantic white Buddha on the mountain. At the time it seemed like a good idea, a thing to do. But after the fifth flight of extremely steep ant infested stairs I was getting exhausted. We had reached the shrine but the Buddha was higher still. So what else was there to do except continue climbing? So we did. We took another flight of stairs, two steep hills and we reached it! Bloody worth it is all I can say. It's impossible to put into words how incredible the view from there was, not to mention the sense of accomplishment.

On the other hand, the drive back to the city in the dark was not so bloody incredible. The road was made up of sharp curves and for the majority of the way we drove behind a double decker tour bus which looked as though it would spill its contents of people all over the road. Muti and I expressed our terror through high pitched squeaks whenever we found it appropriate.

But here I am, limbs still attached. All ten fingers and ten toes. Two eyes and two ears. And my silk flower has remainded pinned to my shirt.





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