Northern Thailand: The rural area

After spending some time in Bangkok we headed up north to Chamgmai. Here we spent a day at an elephant reserve, which I will detail in another post. We then spent another day touring the Northern region. We were able to go to a traditional Thai dinner and a show. We explored more temples including one created to look like heaven and hell. At the Wat Rong Khun, you start our in hell with hands reaching out of the ground and you cross a bridge to get into the temple. The temple itself was even stranger. There were pictures of superman, transformers, and star wars characters along with George Bush and Bin Laden. The idea the creator wanted to get was that all these so called heroes would not be able to save us. Outside the temple in another area were ceramic heads hanging from a tree and placed on the ground. By far the strangest temple I have ever seen.

We then stopped by where Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand met for lunch. Sadly we could visit Myanmar but we did cross the river to visit Laos. Later that day we visited the long neck tribe. They fled from Myanmar years ago but were not granted refugee status in Thailand. So they built their own village and started making scarfs to sell to tourist to support themselves. The rings they wear on their neck is a solid piece of brass or bronze that is coiled up. As they get older they receive a longer piece of coil. We picked up one and it was quite heavy, nearly ten lbs I believe. It does not make their necks longer but instead weighs down on their collar bones to generate an illusion of a longer neck. They take it off once every two years to receive a longer coil. They can choose to permanently take it off as their necks will not break without it as some people believe. The reason why they wear it in the first place is up for debate. Legend said it was to protect the women from a ghost tiger that would bite them. A more realistic reason is that raiders would often come so the women would wear all the gold they could which later turned into the coils. Now it is part tradition and it is partially as a way to draw in tourist as it is their only source of income. If you have any questions please leave a comment. Thank you.