Day 4: Karen Village

After Lalitta cafe, our driver drove us to one of the villages belonging to the long-necked Karen tribe (หมู่บ้านชาวเขากะเหรี่ยงคอยาว).

There are actually 5 different tribes living in a cluster of villages - altogether there are more than 200 villagers living among the mountains; Akha, Lu Mien, Lahu, Kayaw, and Longneck Karen.

Of course we mostly came to see the long-necked Karen tribe, who have had a long and complicated history and relationship with Thailand. They call themselves Padaung, and some say they originally came from Yunnan Province, central China but then migrated to Salween River Basin in Myanmar. In 1995, there were approximately 25,000 Padaungs living in Myanmar. They mainly live on traditional agricultural activities. After political incident against the minorities in Myanmar, Padaungs have evacuated from Myanmar and some of them have reached Thailand. They have no legal status in Thailand and cannot earn a living so they survive by selling their handicrafts to tourists like us.

We felt obliged to buy some goods from them, and they seemed pleased to sell to us, so I guess it is a fair exchange. I can’t help but feel sorry for these people, and that their culture is dying and their way of life is being turned into a tourist attraction. I learnt that the Thai govenment have actually moved all the hill tribes into this place in order to preserve their cultures and traditions for cultural tourism purpose and ultimately to support development of Chiang Rai Province’s tourism industry.