During my short trip to Chiangmai, i manage to have a day tour to Karen Long Neck Village organized by www.hotelthailand.com. With a minimum cost of 900 baht/person, you will have a English speaking and friendly guide, travel with a air-con MPV, all the entrance fees are included. Lunch provided too!
Highlight of the tour:
Enjoy the tour to the northern most point of Chiangmai and on the way stop at orchid and butterfly farm. Take some nice photos of orchid and make sure you don’t miss the cocoon and the vibrant colourful butterfly. Experience Chiangdao cave where you can walk through about 700 meters to see stalagmite and stalactite inside. Enjoy best view point of Golden Triangle at Thaton temple. You can meet many different kind of hill tribe people such like Hmong, Karen Padaung (they are originally came from Myanmar), Ahka (they call themselves Akha. the Shan name for the group is Kaw, the the Thai call them E Kaw. Akha settlements have remained concentrated north of Kok River in Chiang Rai Province), Padong and Long Ear people. They living in a very simple life and a basic bamboo shelter.
ORCHID FARM: If you are orchid lover you will love this place. Other than the history and know how of orchid. The most important you will given a chance to learn how to plant orchid. All the souvenir selling there is made by the real orchid flower. Pick your favourite colour that suit your dress. All the price there is nett. There is also a small butterfly park where can see more than 100 of different species there. For macro photography lover, get ready with your macro lens.
CHIANG DAO CAVE: It takes only about an hour to reach Chiang Dao by car from Chiang Mai. The mountain is the third highest in the country, and there are five interconnected caves that make up the Chiang Dao Cave complex. The two main caves that are easily explored on one’s own are Tham Phra Nawn and Tham Seua Dao, as they are electrically illuminated. Both these caves contain many religious statuary and sacred Buddha images. Near the entrance is a large white chedi surmounted by numerous little towers, and a spring-fed pond, home to the temple fish. The sacred caves are filled with Buddha images and other ancient statuary belonging to Wat Tham Chiang Dao. Probably the most beautiful images are the formations of crystals from thousands of years of water dripping through the rocks.
According from our guide, there is a Thai legend story of this cave. That says the Tham Chiang Dao Caves served as the home of a ‘reu-sii’ (hermit sage) for a thousand years. According to the legend, the sage was on such intimate terms with the deity world that he convinced some ‘the-wadaa’ (the Buddhist equivalent of angels) to create seven magic wonders inside the caverns: a stream flowing from the pedestal of a solid-gold Buddha, a storehouse of divine textiles, a mystical lake, a city of nagas, a sacred immortal elephant and the hermits own tomb.
The locals say that all the magic wonders are very deep inside the mountain – beyond the furthest illuminated areas, so cannot be found! The locals also say that if anyone removes even a singular small piece of rock from any of the caves, they will forever lose their way inside the passageways.
MAEKOK RIVER & THATON TEMPLE: Back on the mountain road we came to the village of Ban Thaton, which has had a turbulent history. The village changed hands between Thailand and Burma several times, and until the end of the 19th century, the northern bank was considered to be in Burmese territory, the southern bank Thai. The latest border change took place less than 100 years ago with the official border being moved 2 kms upstream. The village is nestled on the slopes of the densely forested mountain range that separates the northernmost part of Chiang Mai Province and neighboring Burma, in the Mae Kok River Valley. We spent a short time at Wat Thaton enjoying the vistas and the temple complex, with statues in typical Thai style showing Chinese influence.
Karen Padaung Village: Basically you will notice almost 99% of them are female, the rest are young kids. The ladies do sell some nice and very cheap souvenirs and handicrafts. These ladies make a good living from visitors. The Padaung are a sub-group of Karen (Bwe Group) living in Kayah state of eastern Burma on the Thailand border. They number less than 40,000 people in total. The Padaung call themselves “Lae Kur” or “Kayan”. They have their own language which belongs to the Kenmic group in the Tibeto-Burman language family. The Padaung women famously wear brass rings around their necks. This distorts the growth of their collarbones and make them look as if they have long necks – which they don’t. This row of brass rings do not actually stretch their necks but in fact squash the vertebrae and collar bones. A woman generally has about twenty or more rings around her neck. This neck ring adornment is started when the girls are 5 or 6 years old. The rings on the arms and the legs are not quite as prominent as those on the neck simply because the neck rings are so pronounced. However, these rings are just as important. The rings on the arms are worn on the forearm from the wrist to the elbow. Those on the legs are worn from the ankles to the knees, and cloth coverings are kept over most of these rings, from the shins down to the ankles. P/S: Never forget to bring along some stationary, balloon, biscuit for them. For your information the kids love balloon.
While the way back to Chiangmai, we stop half way and visit this local “ROADSIDE PASAR TANI” (wet market) to hunt for some exotic fruit. You manage to see some local favourite vegetable and fruits that you never seen before. Due to over excited and keen to try different fruit, this is the only photos that i manage to snap over there. So regret!!! Should get some closed up photos on the vegetables and fruits that I had try.
