Karen village Mae Hong Son

Today we went to visit some hilltribes in the area north of Chiang Mai with an Australian teacher called Mac (another invite to visit in Oz, score), a transvestite called Ne-Ne and an ex-monk called Dom. Good crowd ;o)

The Karen tribes are in fact refugees from Burma, having escaped over the border during unrest. They originally are from …

Our plan was to night bus it back to Luang Prabang in order to catch the slow boat to the Lao-Thai border. However our bus broke down twice taking several hours to fix it both times so the nine hour trip took over twelve. So we booked ourselves on another night bus (groan) that night from Luang Prabang to the Thai border, another thirteen …

... villages had slash and burn areas up to 5 kms away from the village itself and many other hillsides cleared for crops... the Karen village on the other hand was nestled discreetly in the jungle, and utilised lots of wild crops from the jungle itself. ...

... a sweat, although as we got further up the mountain it became a bit cooler, and there was a little stream running through the Karen village at the end of the trail which was really nice to cool down in. Unfortunately we didn't spot any monkeys, just ...

... town which has amazing views of the valleys in almost every direction, including into Myanmar. They sometimes call Mae Hong Son the Switzerland of Thailand and you can see why espcially well from up there. It's surrounded by relatively tall mountains. ...

... jobs do we?" Sounds familiar? Well, in a nutshell Stephanie was tragically killed in a traffic accident 7 years ago near Mae Hong Son. Beryl and Steve continue to teach the refugees and help to run the charity programme. Personally, they are particularly ...

... for a celebratory hug, hand shake, thumbs up, peace sign exchange, etc. As the title of this entry suggests, my time in Mae Hong Son has been a bit awkward. When I first arrived at the airport I was followed to my tuk tuk by a Japanese guy ...

... guide called Piak and a guide from a Karen village called Su. We began the trek in Su's Karen village. Karen is the largest hill tribe group in Thailand and they originate from Myanmar. Su's village was pretty big and they had lots of land growing all ...

... bin ich bereits einige Zeit in Mae Hong Son: Ich habe wenig Zeit alleine verbracht, da man dauernd jemanden antrifft. Was in Mae Hong Son so los war, erfahrt ihr in ein paar Tagen. English Version: With an entertaining 6h ride in an orange pickup I ...

Mae Hong Son is surrounded by mountains and Friend guest house is situated next to a large lake and beside the lake is a 200 year old Temple, Wat Jong Kham, where last night 2 fire lanterns were lit and floated away into the night sky. I woke to a ...

... . I took his advice and stuck on my hoody which id only worn to Heathrow back in December. The Karen Long Neck village was about 16 miles west of Mae Hong Son on the Burmese border. By 9.30 the fog had cleared as promised and we were passing bannana and ...

... bath downstairs. The Hostess was kind and beautiful. Full of life and so playful and sweet with her equally joyous daughter. I was in Mae Hong Son. Woke up and went to the expansive Day Market North or my guesthouse. Managed to only almost get hit by the ...