On the tourist trail

Riding an elephant

We all have the same Lonely Planet guides. We all visit the same places, take the same tours, stay at the same hotels, and eat at the same restaurants. So it's no wonder that it's all touristy wherever I go. Even the Lonely Planet guide warns that the hill tribe villages specialize in Coca Cola and souvenirs. Still I underestimated the tourist factor when I booked my hiking tour.

I only wanted to go hiking. I can’t go alone into the jungle in a remote place so I had to book a tour. There were dozens of tour options to choose from, none of them just for hiking. When I asked the agent for a tour with “no elephants, no rafting”, she dug through the many leaflets and all she could offer was a visit to the orchid farm. While I’m not generally opposed to orchid farms, it’s not the kind of hiking I had in mind. In the end I had to choose one of the tours that included elephants and rafting in addition to hiking.

I’m not much of an animal lover so I decided just riding an elephant was enough, rather than also feeding, training, and bathing the beast as some tours included. I’m not much of a water sport fan so I wanted to avoid rafting. But all the hikes go up the mountain to a hill tribe village and descend by way of water one way or another. Rather than whitewater rafting I chose bamboo rafting which seemed calmer. It’s just a raft made of bamboo poles tied together and it floats on the final leg of the river where it’s very flat and shallow.

Long neck woman

The tour included a side trip to what they call the “long neck” village near Mae Raem. The village is populated by the Kayan people of Burmese origin, whose women wear rings on their necks. According to the Wikipedia, the village makes a living self-sufficiently on tourist revenue. I have to say they do their jobs well. The entire village reminds me of a Hollywood movie set, all prettied up and ready for filming. The people in the village, including children, are dressed in what I believe to be costumes. Whenever a tourist points a camera, they immediately snap into a smiling pose. Each house sells souvenirs such as hand woven shawls or jewelry and they also demonstrate how it is made. There is a school in the village where children sing happy songs (a performance for the tourists rather than a music lesson was my impression).

Children in the long neck village

I don’t know what to think about the situation in this village. In a way, I find it fortunate that the people take advantage of a source of income that allows them to make a living, even if it means being on display for tourists. On the other hand, is this really an authentic village, where everything is staged to look pretty and happy?

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There was one more tourist related incident on this trip. Our group stopped for lunch in a restaurant before we started hiking. Another group of tourists came along and they were making a scene. We could tell they were English guys, totally plastered and it was only lunchtime. To ensure they wouldn’t run out of fuel, they each carried a plastic bag with extra cans of beer.

Raining again (yes, an elephant is passing by)

As luck would have it, it started raining during lunch. Both of our groups had to get going because we were on a schedule, so we bought raincoats from a vendor outside the restaurant and got going. One of the guys in the drunken party decided he didn’t want a raincoat and just stripped naked, displaying a large Arsenal tattoo on his back (he also displayed his entire front obviously, but I thought it best not to take photos of that side, I don’t want my blog to be flagged as a site with inappropriate content). 

Drunk Arsenal fan

We laughed at first, but we were hiking through a village area where local people could observe the wonderful tourist behavior which was far from funny. The guide frantically tried to get the guy to put on pants, to no avail. Someone from the village must have called the police, because eventually a policeman on a motorcycle caught up with us. Our group continued our hike while the drunken guys had to deal with the police. I don’t know how it ended, I can only say that once again I am disappointed at the impression tourists leave when they visit foreign countries.