Long-Necked Women

Bridget:  Last night we found a little travel agent outside our guesthouse.  It was around 9:30pm when we discovered it and seeing that the lights were on and there were people inside the little hut, we decided to see what they had on offer in terms of activities in the surrounding area.  We were in for a little surprise:  Mr Puk Thip, the Tour Operator himself, along with about 10 of his mates were gathered around his desk gambling (which is banned in Thailand and considered a great crime!) and quite obviously enjoying one too many Chang Beers!  Business had obviously been slow for quite a few weeks but Mr Puk Thip was quick to sober up and offer to take us on a tour to the Long-Neck Village for just 2 litres of fuel for his scooter!

We met up with Mr Puk at 8am sharp and headed out to the Long-Neck village.  What and INCREDIBLE experience!

The tribe originally came from Burma but fled across the border during the war.  Their village consisted of a few bamboo thatched huts where they slept and ate and the rest was a little tourist alley of huts where the long-neck ladies sat and wove pure silk and cotton scarves, table cloths and other items of linen.

All the ladies were extremely friendly and welcoming despite having to pose for tourists cameras every few minutes of every day.

We arrived around 9am and were the first 4 tourists of the day, but by the time we left at around 10:30am, there were already 2 buses and 4 jeeps full of French and German tourists arriving.

We learnt that girls start wearing their first brass neck rings at the age of 5 and further rings are added every year after that until they are 21.

The lady explained that the reason for wearing the heavy brass rings around their necks and on their calves was because in the jungles in Burma, where their settlements used to be, tigers were their main predator and if they were ever attacked, the brass rings would help protect the tiger from suffocating them at the throat or biting into their main arteries in their legs.

The rings, over time crush the collar bones and shoulders downwards with their weight and therefore make their necks seem longer.  If younger women who are heavily pregnant are seen to have strong neck muscles, they are allowed to remove the rings until after they have given birth.  Elder women will never be able to remove their rings as the muscles in their necks would have weakened over the years and would simply snap and break if they removed them.

From there we drove along some lovely deserted roads along the mountain ridge that separated Burma and Thailand.  We found a viewpoint high up in the clouds where an army base was kept.  Trenches and cement bomb shelters lined the ridge, but we were allowed up to view Burma just across the fence and down into the valley.  We took lovely photos from up there.

In the late afternoon the road wound down the mountain to Thailands most northern city, Mae Sai.  We stayed in lovely little bungalows right on the Mekong River called Mae Sai Guesthouse.  Unfortunately on the other side of the river was Burma and its shanty border town where people are clearly very uneducated and seem to think the only way of disposing of garbage and sewerage is to dump it into the river.