A trip within a trip....

A Trip Within a Trip

Here are the pics from our 3 day trek in the North. We visited hilltribe villages, rode the river separating Thailand from Burma, and rode elephants through the forrest. Needless to say, it was amazing.

Sittin' Pretty

After Pai we headed to Mae Hong Son, small town with beautiful views and especially vibrant celebrations. We were lucky enough to experience the festival celebrating the entry of boys into novice monk hood. Almost all Thai men enter the monk hood for sometime during their lives, perhaps for a few weeks or more. This is of great importance not only to the individual, but for the family as well, as it is thought to benefit all.
In Mae Hong Son they celebrate with a massive 3 day festival, where the little boys are dressed like 'princes' and paraded through the streets on the shoulders of their fathers. I suppose that 'princes' get a little gender bent, as the celebration involves lots of face make-up, flowers for hair, fans, umbrellas, and glittery sparkle. We watched for days as the novices awoke at 4am and paraded from temple to temple, mostly looking hot and tired. Some were definitely tiny, maybe 7 or 8 years old.

The main event was a parade through the whole city, with family carrying offerings and all essentials to the different wats. Needless to say, neither Rick or I had seen anything even remotely close to this, and there were very few tourists on hand to witness the spectacle. The town itself was very nice, lovely lake and friendly people that invited us to bang the gongs along with them.
The only drawback of this leg of our travels is the immense amount of smoke billowing from the hills all over the northland. Farmers are preparing their land for rice planting in a few months by burning massive quantities of underbrush. Soon the monsoon season will start and these will be green rice patties, but in the interim the hills apprear to be out of Dante's inferno.