authentic hill tribes

Hi all,we will be back in thailand after a 20 yr break!! When we were there last time we were able to hire a driver/guid to take us to some real hill tribe villages after we had done the ones on the tourist route and hated it. we love seeing the hill tribe people going about there normal day.I was woundering if antone knew if it was still possible to do this (go off the normal tourist track) or can someone recommend some less touristy experiences with the hill tribes. Thanks

authentic hill tribes

Amy:

We have visited some authentic Hill Tribes in our trips to Chiang Rai. We visited some between Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai and some north of Chiang Rai (also some in Burma). We of course encountered some of the ';tourist Hilltribe'; experiences also, but didn%26#39;t find them as enjoyable. Several Hilltribes we went to required riding in the back of trucks.

Check out the posts on the Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai forums under ';Broder%26#39;s Trip Reports'; as I have more detail there.

We used a guide (Jermsak)who was raised in a Hill Tribe in Chiang Rai and his information is on my posts.

Have a good trip.

Broder

authentic hill tribes

Hi Amy,

We visited an Hmong hill tribe village last December with Sergeant Kai, it was fabulous and we were the only tourists there.

Here is an extract from my trip report from our day out with SK:

The next day Sergeant Kai collected us at 8.00am for our trip. First stop a local market, this really was an eye opener, everything imaginable was on sale including rats and frogs on a stick (we wondered if they were ready for BBQ鈥檌ng?). It was really colourful and the sights and smells were great.

Onto Wat Chedi Luang, really beautiful and worth a visit. It was so quiet and so interesting, we learnt an awful lot about Buddhism and meditation from Sergeant Kai.

Onto Hmong Hilltribe. I really cannot put into words the experience that we had. The place was so serene with gorgeous friendly people. All of the women were sewing their NYE costumes, the intricacy of their needlework needs to be seen to be believed. We were welcomed into one persons home and it was quite unbelievable in one corner was a complete mess, everything piled high and looked like a tip, in the other was her husband sitting on a raffia mat with huge bags of fresh spices, packaging them for the markets. Needless to say we bought some. These people live off the land and sell their produce to the markets, they live a basic life but boy does it make you think about your own. This place has left a lasting impression on me. There we no other tourists there and I think that made it all the more special.

We then drove the countryside before hitting the main road. We stopped off at Huen Huay Kaew restaurant just by the waterfall of the same name. This is a wooden restaurant built on stilts above the waterfall. It had lovely views but unfortunately the waterfall is a shadow of it鈥檚 former self. It has eroded over the years due to the water being re-directed to use in large houses (so we were told). The food was really good and cost 445 baht. Sergeant Kai was such a gentleman he would not allow us to pay for his.

We carried on up the hill to Doi Suthep. It cost 50 baht per person entrance fee which included the ride in the venicular to the top. The views of CM from here are fabulous and the Gold Stupa in the sunlight is just stunning. We were lucky enough to be blessed by a monk and would highly recommend a visit.

There are some photos of our day out here:

http://community.webshots.com/user/Balimoon17

Sarah

xx