Chaingrai

We started out Friday morning by coming back from Chaingkong to Chaingrai. I was sad to leave the place that we were staying. After so much urban/touristy business, it was nice to be out in the middle of nowhere for a couple of days. I’m definitely more of a city person (or at least not a rural one) but I also am not out constantly crossing the city, seeing everything there is to see. So waking up and getting to sit next to the Mekong River while drinking a mango smoothie for breakfast was pretty amazing.  The owners of the B&B also were wonderful. We ate breakfast there (obviously) and a dinner and after each meal they’d bring out fresh fruit (that they’d grown themselves) to share with us as a dessert.  They were wonderful people.

Chaingrai has been, as I said, really fun also. We’ve really had such a good time here. Yesterday we went to talk with Mr. Seng to talk about education for the hill tribe people and various aspects of human trafficking that happens throughout Thailand. It was helpful to hear about some of their literacy and advocacy work.  And it is wonderful to hear about the things that are community members are doing to stop the trafficking. It mainly happens with Thais taking children/teenagers from the their home villages (or sometimes their parents give them with the hopes of giving their children a better life and not knowing what is really happening).  It’s a huge problem here, and it’s good to here about the efforts to stop it.

After our meeting, Jut, a friend of Cathy’s took us to the village of Pui Kham which is a Lesu tribe.  There are lots of different ethnic groups here that are here in the mountainous regions of Thailand. They mainly come from Southern China, Burma/Myanmar, and Laos.  Some are indigenous to Thailand, but it seems to be the case that most are not. Most have similar stories to our American Indians in that there are several instances of forced relocation and “reservation” types of stories.  However many of their stories are more recent (last few decades).  We talked with a few members of the village. First we stopped and talked with a woman who shared some of their customs. She was working on a traditional dress and talked about the need to where it on the Chinese New Year, because that means good luck and good fortune for the rest of the year.  It reminded me of my Grandma Dore’s rule that you had to where a new item of clothing on the New Year or you wouldn’t get any new clothes during that whole year (it was an embarrassingly long time before I realized how much control I had over getting new clothes that year, and that it didn’t really have anything to do with wearing new clothes on a specific day). 

Granddaughter of the woman we talked to, I never did catch either of their names.

Our driver, and all the kids flocking to him. They were curious about this new stranger.

This is how the store water in the rainy season.

Cathy and our interpreter. And all the kids following along as he showed us the village.

After we talked with her for a little bit, we walked around the village. While the adults were more tentative, it didn’t take long for us to have quite a following of children.  It was funny how they gravitated towards the visitors and there curiosity was driving their actions.  We also went up to talk with a leader of the village. Pui Kham is close to Chaingrai (obviously because we visited it while staying in Chaingrai), but far enough that most people leave them alone.  However it also makes them prime targets for storage for trafficking drugs.  This also helps subsidize the economy a little bit too, because most young people have to leave the area to find work. This often means that they leave their children with the grandparents, and they go to the southern part of the country to work on shrimping boats/factories.  They can only afford to come back once a year, and the rest of the time they’re working and sending money back to their families. 

Rice paddies, these were much more wet than most we saw.

That night we decided to check out the Night Bizarre of Chaingrai.  This is a night market, primarily for tourists, but there were some Thais there too (mainly at one of the food courts). They had a couple of places with live music/performances, which was pretty cool. One of them, where most of the Thais were, was set up so you could buy a pot of broth with a little fire-type thing to keep it warm and you could go around and pick things out to put in your broth to make a soup.  A lot of families seemed to pick this option. This is one thing I’ve yet to figure out, Thais eat soup constantly. No matter how hot it is outside, they are always eating hot soups. I suppose if you live in a place where it never cools off, there wouldn’t be a chance to have hot soup when it’s cold, but this is such a different concept to me that it makes me laugh every time. 

We opted for a restaurant, mainly because the food you bought at the food court was sitting out (for who knows how long), which wasn’t very appetizing, and probably not really safe either, and I’d rather leave Thailand without a food poisoning story. (I know; I’m so high-maintenance).   The performances were fun while we ate. First it was a girl and guy duo and then there was some Northern Thai dancing, complete with costumes.  It was great to see some of the old, traditional culture.