Thailand Round II

So we had a four day weekend here in Shenzhen and Greg and I decided we would stay put for the weekend, see some of the town and save up our money. However on Friday afternoon at 4:30 we found out that our 4 day weekend was changed by the government to a 5 day weekend. So a group of us jumped on the computer and started hunting for cheap tickets to anywhere in Asia and we found some for Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. This is the first city Greg and I visited in Thailand on our last trip where we feel in love with the city. Last time we did zip lining through a jungle, cooking course and an elephant orphanage.
This time we decided to stay a hostel that cost more than 3$ Canadian and get a place with a pool (it was only 10$ Canadian, SO CHEAP!!). Greg went to the same zip lining place again with our friends and had a blast. Some of the lines were a bit different, so it wasn't the exact same. While he was there, I went some of our other friends to visit the northern tribes of Thailand. We visited about 4 different tribes
Northern Thailand is home to interesting and colourful ethnic minorities, known as the hill tribes. These add an important element to tourism here and you may visit. Since most are rural and poor, any sales they can make to tourist are welcome.
Most of the hill tribes have come in the past 100 years from outside of Asian and have largely preserved their traditional ways, making them a fascinating cultural study. They prefer living above 1,000m, and shy away from the outside world.
There are seven broad hill tribe groupings, however. Each hill tribe has its own customs, language, dress and spiritual beliefs.
Most of the hill tribes living in the remote upland areas practice subsistence farming. They were pretty much left alone until the 1950s, when the increase in their numbers, and became really poor until the government decided to help out.
Growing opium brought the tribes a lot of money and the government worked hard to get rid of the crops and get them to grow vegetables to make money instead.
We went to visit several tribes the first was the Karen tribe. The Karen wear woven v-neck tunics of various natural colors and turbans. They are skilled weavers and the most environmentally conscious of the hill tribes. We then visited the Akha tribe which is originally from Tibet. They are the poorest of the hill tribes, resisting to mainstream Thai culture. They are, however, the most fascinating and colorful of the hill tribes and can easily be visited. We also visited the Lisu tribe. Their women are distinguished by their brightly coloured tunics, worn over long pants; some of the older generation continues to wear tasselled turbans on their heads. Unlike other hill tribes, they don't usually live in stilted houses.
The most fascinating tribe was the Long Necks. As you can see in my pictures the women of this tribe wear rings around their necks in an attempt to make them longer. Starting a very young age they begin to wear them as years go on they add rings, stretching this neck until it is as long as they can get it. It is a tradition in their tribe that has gone on for years and it also seen as being very beautiful. The sad part is that some have stretched their necks so much that if they were to take the rings off their neck could not support itself. Also some women have bugs that crawl instead the rings and they can’t get them out. Many Thai people have tried to convince them to stop wearing them, but they won’t listen. It was also sad to find out that they don’t belong to any country. Their tribe originated from Burma, but was kicked out (I don’t remember why). So they live in the northern hills of Thailand, but they also won’t give them citizenship. So they really don’t belong anywhere, they keep moving every couple of years to where ever they can. I felt very sorry for them.
On our trip to the tribes our group also got to eat a great Thai buffet beside elephants and then check out this 360m long ancient cave. At the end of the tour we visited this beautiful orchid farm.
Our Sunday night was spent at a HUGE night bazaar (market) where I bought waaaay to many things for cheap and then went to a Chinese market where I spent even more. Greg and I also stopped for a hamburger on the way home and saw a baby elephant being used for money on the street. It was very sad to see after we had visited the elephant orphanage last trip. I desperately wanted to save him.
Other than that we went to this Tiger zoo called Tiger Kingdom where we each paid less than 20$ to visit a tiger for about 10 minutes. Most were sleeping, or playing in the water. They are quite lazy animals and live a great life in this zoo. All they do is eat chicken, swim, sleep, and get belly rubs from tourist. Sounds like the life! It’s awesome to say that I’ve cuddled a tiger!
The rest of our vacation was spent in our pool in 40 degree weather, hanging out with our friends. It was a great trip and even though we didn’t save any money, I’m glad we went back to Chiang Mai and would recommend it to anyone!!

These are not wierd to us

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/16-products-they-only-sell-at-chinese-walmarts