Mae Hong Son

Well what two excellent days we have had in Mae Hong Son (MHS).
We met Sak and our driver at 8:30 Saturday and drove into town. MHS is a small town of around 25,000 people. Tourists come here mainly for the many trekking options there are around the area in the jungle and along the river. The town is interesting for having the runway of the airport bisecting it. The airport has been described as one of the most dangerous to land due to all the hills around it. Strangely it only now receives three flights a week, all from Bangkok.
Our first stop in the town was the market. Plenty of fresh vegetables some of which were new to us. The meat is predominantly pork or chicken though we did see some squirrel on sale! Thai’s eat the whole of the chicken with nothing wasted. Fish in this area is in short supply. Cat fish from the local rivers is available but sea fish, due to the distance to the nearest coast, 2000km, is rare and therefore expensive. All other food throughout the market is remarkably cheap.
First thing in the morning it is quite cool up here and overcast but by around 9am the weather clears. There is an advantage overnight being cooler no need for the air conditioning.
Left the market and visited a couple of temples, Buddhist of course. In this area the people are either Shan or Karan and both worship at the temples. There is another temple high on a hill overlooking the town that we drove to. This is a relatively new build. Excellent view here to see the town and airport runway.
Returned to our hotel late morning for an afternoon by the pool, hot but enjoyable. We also had another all body massage. One hour excellent massage for £12.
Hotel is very comfortable and the staff without exception are so cheerful and friendly. They are all drawn from the local community and are all Karan people. The ladies all dress in the local style with long skirts and head coverings. If they are married they wear blue or red but white if single.
Last evening we took the complimentary hotel shuttle bus into MHS for dinner. There was a food street market which was fun to wander around seeing the various cooked food.
A quiet town in stark comparison to Hua Hin.
We were collected once again at 8:30 this morning, Sunday, by Sak and our driver SS. We drive out of town for about thirty minutes to the River Pai. Today is going to be an active day.
Boarded a longtail boat that sped us down river to Long Neck village and on the way we spotted a few kingfishers, a rare sight. Arrived at the village which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere! We walked through the village where outside peoples homes they were selling local products such as shawls and pashminas and wooden pieces. It was fascinating to see the local ladies weaving and the men wood carving. However the most fascinating aspect here were the ladies who in the main were wearing brass rings around their necks. They do this all their lives from the age of five and wear them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As the child gets older new rings are fitted and the weight of these for a fully grown woman can be as much as 5kg. Astonishing! Photo below of Jane with a girl wearing one. Apparently if you are born on a Wednesday when it is the full moon you are special and wear the rings.
Whilst this is a predominantly Buddhist country there is a Catholic influence and here, in this tiny village, is a Catholic Church and with it being Sunday a service was taking place and we could the hymn singing. There is also a school for children here up to eleven. Schooling is free until 11 but after that you have to pay.
The classrooms were remarkably similar to our own.
From the village we set off to walk along by the river. The first thing that Sak did was to brandish his machete and chop a bamboo cane for us to help with the walking! Hello, what’s in store for us! The walk was great fun though a bit arduous in places as we were walking on narrow paths with a steep drop down to our left to the river. At one point Sak had to use his machete again to chop a way through the jungle for us to get through!
The local people use the area adjacent to the river to grow crops and we saw marrow, chillies, tobacco, green beans, bananas and pineapples growing. Quite wonderful to see how self sufficient people are here. They may appear poor but in so many other ways they are rich.
We continued to walk, or stumble in some cases, and eventually came to another village and here we were close to the border with Myanmar and the people here were refugees from that country. They have fled for a better life. In Thailand they could earn 500 baht(£12) a day, in Myanmar just 3 bahts a day. This area is quite dangerous as there have been some military skirmishes between the two countries.
Just beyond the village we came to the end of our three mile walk. We had to cross the river via a rudimentary bridge and were told by Sak that the area to our right and for two kilometres had a number of land mines which had been placed by both Thailand and Myanmar. Scary.
We crossed over the bridge and were pleased to see our longtail boat to take us back down river.
We have had a wonderful, interesting and fascinating couple of days that reinforces our love of travel.Read more