Sheenah and Jodie were on a whirlwind tour of northern Thailand, and so elected to take a one day trek as opposed to the 2- or 3-day options which were available. I was interested in a longer trek, but figured what the hell, and joined them for the day. I hadn't really sorted out what I wanted to do yet, and besides, it was cheap.

The first stop was to visit some hilltribes, including the famous long-necked and big-earred tribes. The various hilltribes are relatively nomadic groups originating in China,Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar, and the umbrella term "hilltribe" comes from their choice of mountainous locales to live. The culture and language differs quite a bit from tribe to tribe, however. I had read from Lonely Planet that some of the tours out of Chiang Mai are touristy and commercialized in this regard. I'm afraid that I now know what the book was talking about. We arrived at the village, and we led straight to a blanketed market strip, where there were a couple of long-necks side by side with the big-ears (so much for separate cultures). A couple were weaving, while others posed for pictures, and I began to feel as though I was taking pictures at a zoo. Furthermore, the handicrafts for sale were prepackaged in plastic. After a quick stroll through the market, we were herded back onto the bus without a chance to explore the village or interact in any other way.

We ended up hitting three other villages that day, two of which were essentially being forced into more markets where we were harangued by the vendors selling the same pre-packaged goods as the previous village. The one exceptioon to this rule was a village without a market, essentially just a crossroad, where it was pointed out to us that all the houses had TVs and DVD players, as well as the village Nissan Pathfinder.

I'm not deceiving myself that I'm pushing cultural boundaries, or anything but a sightseer, but still found this bit quite contrived, and wondered what the impact of being put on show like this had on the culture of these people. Within me a clash between wide-eyed curiousity and the disgust that I'd been a part of it.