26 November - 1 December 2007

I am fed up, Peter commits adultery and necks are stretched

Kum, our Thai host, wakes us at a quarter to five. Outside it's pitch black and it will remain like that for another one hour and a half. The disadvantage of staying with locals: going to sleep too late, and an even earlier start.
At dawn we say goodbye and thank Kum for his kind hospitality.
And then it starts, the Thai don't shy away from anything. One climb after the other awaits us, and every climb seems to be steeper than the previous.
A Belgian tourist in a car, a fanatic cyclist himself, asks us how in heaven's name we are able to cycle here. Even his car, in first gear, barely manages to reach the top of the hills.
Well, we actually don't know, we just do it and sometimes we have to walk. What can we say, it's hard labour.

The jungle gets even wilder. We cycle, we walk, in between man-high ferns, flowering bamboo and lianas the size of a man's upper leg. Big red squashed millipedes lie on the road; when we accidentally cycle over them it feels like going over a bump in the tarmac.
After 39 kilometres of climbing and descending we have made over 1500 altitude metres, and it doesn't seem to change soon. I am completely fed up and the three of us step into a saengthaw, a small bus with long seats that takes us to Mae Sariang. Some time ago I promised myself: enough is enough. Like climbing 1000 metres on a single day. This time it was enough.

In Mae Sariang we rest for a day in the lovely Riverside Hotel, lying on chairs and couches with a river view.

But then it starts again: we have to continue the series of climbs and are just a little bit distracted by fields of wild sunflowers, Jane's and my shouting at the charging and loudly barking dogs, torch flowers metres high and the devouring jungle.
The landscape is tremendously beautiful, but it's not easy to enjoy this, sweating like a pig at four kilometres per hour. The disadvantage of the bicycle.

Today I've had enough after seventy kilometres; the remaining thirty I take a ride with a small truck. Peter is in a bad mood because of having to hitch a ride again, but he shows his solidarity because he understands my predicament. Jane tries to reach Khun Yuam by bicycle before dark, and succeeds. This is great, she covered one hundred kilometres and a lot of mean climbs. Although she carries far less luggage, it's still hard work. We spend the night in another old traditional teakwood house, only this time it's a hotel.

The 29th of November is a special day on our five-year-worldtour: we travel separately. And it's even worse: Peter travels with another woman: Jane Willdigg!
I have found another means of transportation to conquer the steep hills: I take my stuff on a bus. I am totally done for, have to go easy on myself once in a while. Peter doesn't agree, but once I made up my mind he is absolutely unable to stop me, and he knows it. I think there are too many too steep climbs, and I'm going to take my chances.
So, Peter is cycling with another woman, who also thinks the hills are steep, but doesn't really mind.
Exciting? Hmm...

Jane and Peter do have the same pace on flat terrain and whilst ascending she always follows him closely. In the descents she gets out of sight: as soon as it goes down she squeezes her brakes.
Today the hills are not too steep, they never have a 20% incline. On the way they visit a temple and arrive in Mae Hong Son early.
Whilst Peter commits adultery I skin yesterday's snake and write my diairy, completely relaxed. Then I take the bus and join my two tired friends again. No problem at all.

Mae Hong Son lies in the extreme north-west of Thailand, surrounded by jungle and uninhabitable roads. Until some twenty years ago Mae Hong Son was to Siamese government officials what Siberia was to Russians. Being sent to Mae Hong Son meant a long journey of at least some weeks. Partly transported on elephant back, they had to cross the green jungle with dangerous snakes and spiders, to an area of nothingness, with bandits and strange tribes who spoke an incomprehensible language and carried the malaria virus. Winter nights were cold and mornings clogged by an impenetrable fog.
The climate remains, but nowadays everything else has changed. Except for the tribes, which are an important part of Thai culture and draw a lot of tourists every year.
Like us.

Sitting in an old pickup truck we bump over narrow zigzagging roads into the inland, where the villages consist of traditional wooden houses with roofs made of reed or the leaves of the teak tree.
One of the tribes in the border area of Thailand and Myanmar is the Kayan, or Karen-tribe. Originally they are from the former Birma, which they fled for a safer life in their new motherland.
On a steep dirtroad, which is absolutely inaccessible during the rainy season, we descend the last bumpy part to the village. We leave the car behind and pay the entrance fee of 250 baht per person. The money is supposed to be go to the Kayan and their political party, which strives for an independent state within eastern Myanmar. A ridiculous ambition for a tiny population like theirs, but who are we to question it. Even in Europe we have miniature countries, like Luxembourg and Belgium, which actually should be part of the Great Kingdom of the Netherlands.They then would be forced to assimilate and learn our language, otherwise we'd send them to Syberian France, where one has to drink dry red wine.
Back to the Long-Necks, the Kayan. The architecture of the village has once been original, seeing the dilapidated state of the wooden houses. Now, next to the mud paths, the thoroughway is shattered with stalls where Kayan people sell their features and souvenirs. Although no more than 1500 tourists visit this village every year, nobody is hungry.

In the streets we see mainly women and girls; they are the attraction. Around their necks they wear brass coils. At the age of five a girl gets her first coils, every following year one is added. Adult women are adorned with about twenty coils around their necks, tight under the chin so it looks like the head is way too far above the torso. The idea of a very long neck arises but in reality the coils depress the collarbones, ribcage and vertebrae.
We look at the enchanting women and are convinced that their necks, which are concealed by the coils, must be about thirty centimetres long.
For one reason or the other the Kayan women all look alike. At every new stall I think: hey, this is the same woman I saw half a minute ago! But it turns out to be someone else every time. This is the same feeling one has with the flute guys from Peru at the Dutch train stations: didn't I just see them in Rotterdam and give them some money, and now they're here? How do they do that? And should I give them something again?
Amongst anthropologists the origin of the Long-Neck-culture isn't clear and like always they disagree with one another.
Some say the women would be easy recognisable after another tribe had stolen them. Others are convinced that their necks made them unattractive, so the other masculine guys wouldn't even think about stealing them. Others again believe the custom originated to protect the women from tigers: their jaws can't get a grip when they try to drag their prey by the neck.
Whatever, it's not so important; just like the Himba tribe in northern Namibia this is an intriguing and spellbinding people, with totally deviating habits.
And, don't we all want to be different, a special person, not like all the others?

The Kayan have made it.