QUESTION PLEASE!
Has anyone taken any tours in Northern Thailand, touring
the hilltribes and elephant safaries? Anything good out of
this, can you also refer anyone to me please?
Thanks in advance..
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These tours have been a bog-standard part of every
tourist's itinerary for the past 20 years. Forget Thailand.
Nth Thailand is very beautiful (especially the train trip
from Bangkok to Chiang Mai). It is very hard though to get
away from the tourists and find an authentic hill tribe
village that hasn't seen any tourists.
The further north you go the less touristy it seems to get.
I ended up doing a private 4WD tour with the manager of the
guest house I was staying in in Chiang Rai. The guest house
was called YA HOUSE and the manager was FIN. The tour was
good value and the hill tribe village was very out of the
way although not untouched by other travellers.
Basically shop around and try to do something different.
Many of the villages have been majorly exploited especially
a Karen village near Chiang Rai where you go elephant
riding. Its sickening to watch rich tourists pile out of
their boats, dripping in jewellery, take their photos and
leave.
Think about the impact you're having on these villages.
Happy travels.
Suzie
Only good if you're into going to a human zoo. The hill
tribe people of Thailand, Laos and Vietnam are all
exploited by the respective governments of these countries.
They get little benefit from the money brought into the
area. If you go please remember to ask permission before
taking photos. As for hill tribe people asking for $ for
their photos I believe in giving as it is their image that
you are taking.
chiang mai is a very touristy place, true, and so are the
trekkings, but we had great fun on one of julie guesthouse.
now, one of the good things about it was that the
hilltribes-part actually was not important at all on her
trekking, and the only way theminority people are involved
is that we use their villages as a stop for resting or a
drink (indeed ..., they come with cocacola and chips, but at
least the village life goes on as it does daily, and they
dont all have to go and put on some costume they never use.)
the guide was good, both informative and interesting, and
julie/ette is ofcourse the most crazy person in whole of
chiang mai.
if you want to see some REAL hilltribes, my advise is sapa,
vietnam. the minorities there are real, not to mention
interesting to talk with and friendly. besides is sapa the
loveliest place in vietnam
one more thing. please stop giving people money for taking
pictures. there nothing wrong with giving them money, but
the link picture-money is just wrong! not to mention the
impact on their way of thinking and the way they'll soon
think and feel about themselves... this counts both for
north of thailand and north of vietnam.
I was in Sa Pa 2 years ago and then it was already on the
back packer circuit. The hill ttibe people were friendly but
already were in to the tourist business selling clothes etc
and the kids had discovered the fine art of asking for
sweets.
I preferred Bac Hai, the people there were very different -
self sufficient, dignified. Their costumes were much more
colourful than those in Sa Pa and those I recall seeing in
Thailand many many years ago. I was enamoured with the
little ponies in Bac Hai - hundreds of them there on market
day.
I think the only thing to consider with treks etc is to
consider if it is exploiting the people and to be conscious
of the fact that you are in their territory.