Journey to the World

January 30, 2007

That day I went looking after the Long Neck Karen tribes. I rode on a motorcycle in the lovely Mae Hong Son area. I visited a small natural park and kept riding toward Huay Sua Tao village on a road crossed by streams of water, which later on turned into a trail loaded with dust and sand. I checked a hot spring and a waterfall, after which I took a turn from the main road to watch local women working in rice fields and drove to a remote village far in the mountains.

I woke up late at 9:00 AM and took a shower. There is hot water but you have to take a course in order to make them work. This was the first time I’ve seen a boiler operated by gas. First, you have to get outside to open the gas faucet. Next you need to turn two buttons on a device that has four different buttons whose reason for existence is unknown. The advantage of a gas boiler unlike other electric boilers is that the water are not just warm, but hot. This is much better.

Looking For The Long Neck Karen Tribes

I drove out of Mae Hong Son toward south in order to get to the long neck Karen tribe. According to a map I have, there are two different villages in this area. One of them, Niam Pang Din, is 30 kilometers far away. When dealing with remote villages you should know that a large amount of those kilometers are comprised of steep inclines and declines, or worse from an unpaved dirt road, so it’s not exactly a typical highway.

I arrived at a place which offers a boat tour to this village, but the price (700 baht) was better suited for a group, not for one person. After talking to a local girl I realized this village is actually quite small. There’s no point in getting there. Furthermore, the other village is bigger and more impressive. I took the advice and kept on riding toward the second village. This is a good time to mention that I still don’t have the Lonely Planet guide to Thailand, so all my knowledge about this area is based on a map I received in Pai which contains very little information about the Mae Hong Son area, another low quality map I got in a travel agency in Mae Hong Son, but mainly based on a lot of help and tips that I received from locals.

Natural Park On The Way

On the way to Huay Sua Tao I stopped in a small natural park. You can walk there or ride a motorcycle inside.

A Lovely Rural Road

The rest of the road toward the village was lovely. As you get closer, the way is turning greener and greener. Fields colored by all shades of green, wooden huts showing everywhere. Everything is inside a deep jungle. You must be there to comprehend how beautiful it is out there. After I’ve seen the amazing views of the mountains in Vang Vieng, Laos, I can say that the landscapes of Mae Hong Son are different but their beauty is not falling from if not better than those in Vang Vieng.

Streams Cross The Road

Close by to the village, there’s an elephant camp. The price for one hour ride is relatively expensive to Pai (500 baht). Just after you pass the elephant camp, an interesting phenomenon appears. Every ten to twenty meters, a stream of water cross the road. In order to keep riding you have to cross the stream with the motorcycle in the water. It is not wise to break or accelerate when your wheels are inside because the rear wheel starts losing control, so you have to be careful. After a dozen of streams and a dirt road I finally reached the entrance of the village.

Big Snake

When I wanted to enter the place, a nice girl asked me to pay 250 baht. She explained this is how it works in all Karen tribes. There is no global ticket for all of them. The price looked a little expensive to me, while the road, or to be accurate – the dirt road, kept on going beyond the village. I asked the girl where this road leads to. She told me the village ends in a few hundreds of meters and something else unclear. When I told her I want to check the rest of the road and get back later, a man standing near her shouted at me: “careful, big snakes”. That moment I was certain he was laughing.

I continued riding on the motorcycle. It was just like the girl said, the village ended, but the road kept on beyond the village. It was a dirt road made of mainly stiff sand with potholes along the way. I drove through the first incline, saw a man walking by foot toward me and thought to myself, how far can it be…

After twenty minutes of off-road riding between rocks, potholes, inclines, declines and a lot of dirt, I finally realized what that man was talking when he warned me about the big snake. Well I didn’t see any snakes, but the road itself was a big snake that didn’t seem to have an end. I came to an incline that managed to frighten my small 125cc motorcycle. The slope was very steep and the incline was made of thin white sand 10 to 20 centimeters high instead of the stiff dirt I was used to up to that moment.

In a decision of the moment I climbed the hill while thinking if it’s so difficult to get up, how I’m going to get back down… It wasn’t clear. After I reached the top I decided that I’ll find another way to get back.

The road kept on going toward the mountain peaks. Mostly the speed was 20-30 km/h. The motorcycle could barely keep 10 km/h in some parts of the road. After driving for 40 minutes I saw a donkey standing in the middle of the road, which marked me something is getting closer. I arrived at an army barrier after the next bend of the road. Two Thai soldiers marked me to stop but did not understand a word in English. No matter how much I requested to continue driving and look for an alternative road. I was sent back to the same road from which I came. I could only understand by the sign language communicating with the soldiers that I came too close to the Burma border, or possibly this was an army base.

The Way Back

With one foot and one hand on the breaks I turned around and drove back. The road was now a steep decline on a sandy trail. It is not possible to break in the sand while driving fast because the rear wheel loses control. All you can do is drive in first gear while your shoes are inside the deep sand. From the same sandy incline, which was now a decline, I came out with shoes painted in white. After I came back to the entrance of the Karen’s tribe my palm were aching from holding the handlebars in the steep declines. Overall, the ride both sides, although it sounds horrible, was a great experience. I took another lesson in off-road riding on a motorcycle. The same nice girl told me that I reached another Karen village up there in the mountains. That one didn’t have long neck women. She didn’t know why the soldiers couldn’t let me go inside. I can only assume it was because of the short distance to Burma.

Huay Sua Tao Karen Village

The long neck Karen tribe in Huay Sua Tao village isn’t so big, although it’s bigger than the one I’ve seen near Chiang Rai. There are twenty seven houses in the village. A stand for selling products and souvenirs that were probably made elsewhere. Most of the hand-made products are scurfs weaved by local girls of the tribe. Wooden dolls which the girls wrap with metal rings are also common there. The village itself is very nice. You should go there only to see the view on the way. If you want to take a photograph of the women you have to ask. Most of them are trained to stand up and freeze for the photo. You will be asked to approach the stand and maybe even buy something, which is the least you can do after taking a photo.

Hot Spring

I drove from the village to the south. I had some time so I went looking for a hot spring and a waterfall that appeared on the map on some unclear location.

The hot spring realized to be a boiling pool of water to which you’re not allowed to enter. You can bath there in mineral water coming from the spring. Price for half an hour is 50 baht. This wasn’t what I wanted to do so I went out looking for the waterfall.

The Waterfall

The waterfall is located right in the end of the village. The sign is written in Thai so it’s hard to locate. I used locals to find the place. Entrance is free. It’s a high waterfall but not so impressive. It’s attracting mainly high class Thai people who build their houses nearby.

Amazing Rice Fields

I didn’t have much time left. It’s getting dark in an hour and a half. I continued driving south toward Khum Yoam, distanced over 60 kilometers, knowing that I will not get there. Meanwhile this green appears everywhere. I turned from the main road to follow it. Two women working in a rice field caused me to stay a little more than what I have planned, and so the photo-shooting break grown longer… My camera’s zoom played an important role since there was no way to get close-up shots without getting into the flooded field.

Meo Microwave Village

Driving back to the main road I saw a sign pointing to Meo Microwave. It’s a strange name so I went to check what’s inside the village. The narrow road got longer than what I expected. It went up and up to the mountains peaks. It’s already 6:00 PM so it started to get dark and the road still doesn’t take me anywhere. After riding twenty kilometers I arrived in a village with an unknown name. Villagers were surprised to see a foreign man. One of the common, but weird signs in the Mae Hong Son area shows a message which looks like: “Be careful, deers are running away from fire in the woods”.

Back To Mae Hong Son After Dark

The narrow road kept on going from the village far away to the Burma border, but I had to go back to avoid getting down from the mountain in complete darkness. There was no light along the entire road. The way back was bone freezing. My angora shirt and my wind coat helped a little, but combined with the speed in which I was driving on the road back it was very cold and already 7:00 PM.

On the way back I passed by the hot spring and decided it was a good time to check the water. The price for half an hour bath is 50 baht, and the water are hotter than usual when it’s cold outside. The mineral water comes directly from the spring, and the sulfur makes you dizzy. I left after half an hour, my head span and I was hungry. It’s not a good idea to go riding after such a bath

I took another half an hour to refresh and eat something and I was on my way back to Mae Hong Son. The main road has two lanes but in complete darkness. Someone forgot to turn on the street lamps. Another one forgot to install them.

This article was originally written in Hebrew. It was translated to English at a later time.

 

This article was published at 30-01-2007 Time: 10:05 and belongs to categories Motorcycle, Soldiers, Far East Travel Journal 2007, Villages, Mae Hong Son, Elephants, North Thailand, Long Neck Karen, Rice fields, Thailand. You can follow comments to this article using the feed RSS 2.0. You can post a comment, or trackback from your website.