Tribes
Bangkok, Boot trips, Landscapes, Ruins, Monks, Temples, Statues, Elephants, Fish harbor, Summer palace, Floating market
In the round trip in the north we visited several villages and refugees camps. A lot of Burma people passed the border for a better life. The men leave in the morning passing barbed wires for work in the surrounding, while the women and child's wait for the tourists. I don't like child's very much. But the women in the group do. While the tourists are hanging around the life go on. A pig is slaughter. A women takes a shower fully clothed. Above the story of the giraffe women.
These tribes, refugees from Burma, developed a remarkable beauty contest. By one tribe the earlobes are stretched out to get a big colored surface. With the giraffe women they crane there necks with rings. Very bad for health of the neck. It are refugees indeed. But they will never leave again. Daily the tourists come to take pictures. They sell souvenirs and become obviously very rich. They visit the yearly festival in Mae Hong Sen and are a main reason for tourists to come to the north of Thailand...
Thais like nice food. Everywhere you see food stalls on the street. For almost nothing you can eat there very well. We never had the courage to do so. For just some what money more we entered tourist restaurants. We took when possible a bottle of wine. That is rather brave. It were bottles with all kind of nice labels. But it seems to us that we always get the same wine. It was the type of wine you can call: "Best selection of all countries of the European Community."
We notices that it tokes a lot of time to get the bottle on the table. In Chaing Mai we find out the reason. The staff doesn't have experience with the opening of bottle with wine. They are rather afraid to damage something so expensive. I always have a corkscrew with me. So I toke the bottle and start to open him. From one moment to the other the complete staff was around. They were with more then twenty people. They want to see with admiration, how I did the trick...
Ton Frijters and Jose Ramakers make a lot of pictures of locals. Often this concern traditional clothing, child's and typical faces. You get the impression, that Ton visits more villages then we did. On the meeting point of the three countries on the Mekong River is walking around in traditional clothing become some kind of industry for the youth. Beneath a boy with nice souvenirs, that doesn't want to understand, that the tourists has more interest in him, than in his merchandise...
