Just before Christmas we decided to take a vacation from traveling and go to the mountains in Northeastern Thailand for Christmas, leaving most of our stuff behind in safe keeping. Wow traveling light is amazing! This also coincidedwith the need to make a border run to extend our visas. We went to Mai Salong, a little town resting on a moutain ridge high near the border with Burma. The town is mainly Thai Chinese and the surrounds are full of some seven different ethnic tribal peoples. The area grows teas and coffee and was once an area of concentrated poppy farming. It is stunningly beautiful to walk in the valleys ringed with terraced plantations. You can spend your days walking to many of the villages to see how people live and if you're lucky you get to play with the kids and eventually that leads to interaction with the adults. Many of the adults chew betle nut (I'm not sure if that's how you spell it) and have reddish brown and rotted teeth. They get a mild euphoria from it and the older generation find it attractive!
The days are lovely and warm and the evenings refreshingly cool bordering on cold. In fact I wore every warm piece of clothing that I brought in the evenings....
No comments:
Post a Comment