long necks

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It was the morning after the night before...the night that we decided to take 'easy' and get a fwe beers and chill out because it was to be another long day ahead. There is something addictive about Thai beer. We got chatting to two girls in the computer room of the hostel and that was that! Good craic and we ended up going out for more beer after calling it a night at I don't know what time.

Sonny woke us at 6.30am for a wake up call and said we had 40 minutes to get ready. It was one of those ones....40 minutes...sweet I'll just close my eyes for another 5. 40minutes later and the phone went again ''Hi Claire your guide is here for the day''. We jumped out of bed and made it to the bus....our heads banging! It was to be a day of driving...we didn't realise how much driving though!! we hopped into the minibus beside the driver and took off. The first stop was a ''butterfly'' farm, well thats what we heard. We went in didn't see any butterflies so went, crashed on two seats and got a cup of coffee. Then it was back on the road. The thing we were most looking forward to was to see the women with the long necks, twas basically the only reason we took the tour. But that was later on in the day.

The next stop was a cave to see the reclining buddhas and a message that the queen had left on the inside of the cave over 20 years ago. After a lot more driving we eventually came to the tribe...up this dirt road up and down hills. We all got out of the mini bus and to be honest it's not what I was expecting. The tribe was a line of market stalls each with hand made scarves and carved out women with the metal rings put around their necks. Behind the stall you could see their houses where they slept and their children playing. We were told at lunch if we wanted to take photos of the children we had to buy sweets in order to bribe them to take a photo. When we got there Conor and I just ended up giving the sweets to the children regardless of whether we wanted to take photos or not. It was sad to see that they were just bein exploited but at the same time that was there way to make their money and it was their life. These women did not speak Thai, the tribe had their own language and their husbands were in the Burmese army, never returned to Thailand. They loved their make-up and it was so interesting to see their interpretation of what make-up was, with never seeing into the real world. They had colourful flowers on their cheeks and dots on their forehead. Things like that. We got a chance to feel the weight of the rod that was burned o fit around their neck, it was extremely heavy. We were told that the rings get changed every 3 years and the amount of gold that is put around depends on each of the women. It was fascinating and really enjoyable. The children of the tribe were so well behaved and it was lovely to see them play with each other and share out the sweets to make sure everyone had an equal amount.

When we had finished at the camp we had a 4 hour bus ride back to the hostel, the day was enjoyable although tiring when all we really did was sit on the bus all day. We got back to the hostel with a quick stop off at a market, where I tasted the freshest and nicest bananas I ever have done. Still feeling delicate we had a easy night, beer free! Went out for dinner and when we came back to the hostel we checked our e-mails, only to find that we had booked a hostel the night before for a place called kanchanaburi. The e-mail said that: ''upon our arrival our elephant will be waiting for us at the bus stop''. We both just looked at each other and thought...what the hell have we booked!

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