Mae Hong Song Loop Pt 2: Mae Hong Son: Daytrip Masterpiece

Welcome back, and please enjoy the follow up to last week’s action-packed post on Part 1 of our first trip to Mae Hong Son Province (Pai withstanding), as promised. There is less action then we’ve come to expect from recent posts, but I will compensate with lots of pictures. Without further ado (fancy word right?):  Part 2

After a run-of-the-mill (yet comfortable) bus ride through the baffling scenery and terrain of the North-westernmost region of Thailand, we arrived at our destination of Mae Hong Son (the town) in the late afternoon. We took a tuk tuk from the bus station into the center of town, a journey that was easily walkable, showing our inexperience with the area, which we generally try to avoid. Embarassment quickly forgotten, we started walking around in order to get acclimated and find a guesthouse. We eventually settled on a cheap little number by the man-made lake at the center of town, and set off quickly to make the most of the remaining hour-ish of sunlight. We saw a temple on a hill at the edge of town, so we went there. Turns out it’s a fairly big deal. Also turns out you can drive up… no one told us, so we walked. Worth it though, I would say:

We headed back down the mountain, excited to get out and about the following day to explore the landscape we’d just lusted after. On the way back down, we happened upon a collection of very old monk statues that I think are funny enough to include at this point:
(pictures and further adventures after the jump)

The Red-Eyed Monks of Mae Hong Son

 

I wonder what these guys were using to achieve enlightenment...

Dude… the monastery is out of Funions…  not cool, I'm pretty sure munchies are an essential part of the 8 Fold Path…

Back in town, we grabbed some Shan-style food (Burmese influence), and got to sleep early, having had a big day of bike rides, bike structural malfunctions (see Part 1), temple viewing, and hill climbing.

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We awoke fresh and early the next morning, ate some food and rented motorbikes, and we were ready to hit the road. The map we got from our guesthouse had some good detail, but was very much not to scale, so it was hard to tell how long it would take us to get from place to place. However, using a few other resources, we determined that our goal was to reach the isolated border village of Ban Rak Thai, a Chinese settlement that had still maintained much of its original culture and way of life. So with that our end point, we set off into the wild blue.

We soon reached a nearby attraction by the name of “Tom Plah,” or Fish Cave, for those of you who don’t understand Thai (how long am I going to have to translate all this for you?). The aptly named Tom Plah is home to a large community of fish who, for some reason, swim in and around the opening of a small cave, constantly swimming against the current is some sort of crazy perpetual water treadmill. Tourists feed them, and they are believed to be sacred, so eating or fishing them is forbidden. Pretty easy life these dudes live.

Feed them, and they will come

As we moved on into the winding mountain passes, we happened by a Karen Hill Tribe village, and decided to stop in. **Quick bit of background: Hill Tribe people are the largest ethnic minority in Thailand, and are made up of many different tribes, the most common of which in the Northwest are Karen, Lisu, Lahu, and Hmong. Because the location of different Hill Tribe settlements have little to do with modern international borders, many of these tribes have been relocated, refugees in their own land. The ancient cultures are slowly disappearing, succumbing to the pressures and comforts of the modern age. Remind anyone of Native Americans? Indigenous tribal life can be tough. Lesson over** We walked around town a bit, and eventually befriended a gaggle of Karen children, who most likely had not seen very many white folks in their lives. They were nothing but adorable. So adorable, in fact, that they get 2 pix in this entry (I'm goin crazy with the pix ya’ll! Givin’ em out like they's free!):

Songteaw Clubhouse

Following from a safe distance

A bit further down the road, we came across a sign that said something about a “Royal Project” which basically is an environmental project staged in various climate extremes around the country. This being the northernmost, deciduous extreme, we assumed there would be some interesting stuff to see. There was, but aside from some assorted animals (ie. Deer, horses, and sheep) the place was deserted; there was a large complex of buildings that appeared to be a Mountain Getaway-like camp/resort, complete with rose garden and helipad, but there was not a soul inhabiting the place. So we got some flowers and headed out, and found ourselves in Ban Rak Thai about an hour later.
The village has a small man-made lake in the middle, presumably used as a reservoir, and was surrounded by tea farmland. We came to sample the tea, the culture, and the food, all of which had a strong Southern Chinese influence. For lunch, we shared a grilled fish, and I was bestowed the honor of eating the choicest morsel of the meal: the eye.

Erbody like a little fish eye

With our, appetites for a little piece of China sated, we left Ban Rak Thai, and decided to take a detour a few kilometers down the road (I don’t even remember how to use real measurements of distance anymore, sorry…); on the way in to town, we saw a sign for another Royal Project, which included a picture of a big lake and pine trees. We said “I want to go to there”, and so we did. The drive was a good bit further than I expected, it was raining again, and it was getting late in the day, but we’d come this far so we continued on.  We eventually came to the Royal Project area, and were given what we were promised.

The ground isn't actually curved, little fish eye effect for ya

Pretty stuff. On the way out, we passed the intoxicating scent of coffee beans actively being roasted, a smell that required us to stop. As we sat, sipped coffee, and talked to the man who grew and roasted the very beans we were enjoying, it began to rain. A lot. We sat for a while hoping to outlast the weather, but the dusk was rapidly approaching and the rain didn’t seem to have any intention of letting up, so we decided to tough it out, and made our way slowly, surely, carefully through the mountains and back to Mae Hong Son. We arrived soggy and satisfied, and got a well-earned night’s rest.

The next day we puttered around the outskirts of town for most of the morning, without seeing anything of particular note, aside from an obviously over-touristed Karen Village, and then this sign:

Then this:

Hooray! Elephants! We rode them, which I still have mixed feelings about; It was cool because it was the first time I’d been on an elephant, an animal I truly adore; it was less cool because these particular elephants were not in their natural habitat, and clearly not being treated with as much care and respect as they deserved. Elephants are widely respected yet somehow also widely abused in this part of the world, and that is a trend I never want to contribute to. When it comes down to it, I may or may not have effected these elephants’ lives for better or worse, but the next interaction I have with these glorious and intelligent animals will be a positive one, of that I will make sure.

Later, with considerable difficulty, we boarded an overbooked bus headed back for Chiang Mai. I sat next to a talkative but unintelligible man from Pai who showed me a tiger’s claw that he kept in his wallet, which was certainly a first for me, and probably illegal. We arrived home later that evening without further excitement, and were back to the daily grind the following day. Avoiding being a casualty of Hill Tribe brawling one day, eating fish organs the next, riding an elephant the next, and back to teaching kindergarten the following. What a country.