Mae Hong Son was a neat little place where I could walk into town from the air port. I had some trouble finding a place to stay because most of the budget guest houses were full. There weren’t really that many tourists around though. *shrug* There was an important festival going on so maybe it was relatives and culture vultures that were coming into town. I finally found a place and crashed for 13 hours.
In my planning I was intrigued by Mae Hong Son because of its proximity to exotic, unreachable Myanmar. But Myanmar is totally reachable and I met several travelers throughout my trip who had been. I don’t know anything about the traditional and vernacular architecture of the area so I couldn’t tell if the houses and shops looked Burmese but the temples were definitely different than the other Thai ones. These were Shan, specifically, rather than Burmese. The tiers of the roofs are different, the style of embellishments are different, the inside decoration is a bit different.
I just wandered around mostly. I saw the two major temples, went in some shops, walked around the night market. The festival going on was the Poi Sang Long. It’s where the young Shan boys are about to be initiated as novices in the temple. They’re about 7 years old, give or take. They’ll do this in towns all over the area but there’s bigger ceremony in the larger towns like Mae Hong Son and Pai. The boys get all dressed up in fancy “princely” clothes complete with makeup and they’re paraded around town on the shoulders of a relative or on a truck or horse (so that they can’t touch the ground) accompanied by relatives banging drums and gongs, and a sort of decorated parasol. There are several stages of the goings-on, like cutting of the hair, absolution from the local abbots, partying with the family.
I woke up early the second day to see the big procession around the town. It was a gorgeous sunrise and everyone started to gather around the two main temples in their best clothes it seemed. They strap the possessions the boys will take with them to the temple onto poles which the women carry. There was a pickup truck with musicians and middle-aged ladies dancing. There were other offerings and gifts and drums and gongs. Everything brightly coloured. It was really neat to see everyone lining up. Finally they were off for a circuit or two of the town.
I’d arranged a motorbike ride to a “Longneck Village.” I recoiled a bit at the signs advertising tours to these villages because they don’t use the name they call themselves. They are part of the larger Karen group which has three major groups within it I think. The village I visited, Huay Sua Thao, was mostly populated by Kayan (that’s what they call themselves). I suppose tourists who haven’t looked into it at all wouldn’t know a Kayan from a hole in the wall (nor would I were she not a woman with rings on her neck) but I think the tour companies could have a bit more tact.
You pay an entrance fee (there’s an explanation about what the money goes towards, but I’m not convinced that it all goes to the village) and the sort of polite way to go about things is to buy something from their stalls then ask to take their picture. Most spoke enough English to talk about prices and say what items were. Not all of them are their own handicrafts but one woman had had a professional photographer take a number of pictures of her and some of the other women and she sells prints of these. I’d seen her face on postcards around Mae Hong Son too. There was one frustrating episode with a Thai man (I think?) who was barking at one girl who’d just gotten off a motorcycle. He wanted a better picture of her on it or near it or something. She didn’t oblige him but she looked pissed off.
At one point a small procession came by with men carrying logs, some gong and drum banging and girls followed with bowls of water which they were sprinkling at everyone. It was close to Songkran so I thought that might be something to do with it. We followed them up to these sort of totem poles, or rather poles with a small sort of temple on each. There was a foreigner there who was making a documentary about a village outcast and he explained what he knew about it (and then on the way out I noticed a board with explanations of different aspects of their culture).
In their creation story the earth lacked density so the creator deities planted a post and as the post grew, so did the earth and it became firm. The post is venerated and is called “Kan Htein Bo.” Each year they plant a new pole, preferably made of Eugenia tree, the first tree created. The old ones stay up but (as I saw when I was there) if there’s one that has rotted and fallen, they remove it. The part at the top has pieces to represent the Sun, Moon, a sanctuary for the deities, a streamer as a ladder to connect heaven and earth, and a spider’s web which humans must pass through to get to heaven (also a reference to their belief of the interconnectedness of all the parts of the universe).
When I was there they were just making preparations, building the new sanctuary thing for the top, etc. I was really lucky to see it though. Usually the tourists stay where the stalls are I think and don’t get to interact within the daily life and traditions of the village.
On the way to the village I saw some elephants meant for tourist treks. The scenery was nice, and the road was crisscrossed by streams and the pavement covered in algae under the water. Even though the driver always slowed down and took care at the stream we took a spill once. No one was hurt, and we were dry again by the time we left the village. My camera was completely submerged, though only briefly, and it survived. That camera took a real beating throughout my trip but it’s no worse for wear except the water stains on the inside lens and scratched viewing screen.
That afternoon I got the bus to Soppong.
