Cats who teach me to fly…

We visited the long neck tribe in Chiang Mai. We actually intended to visit one in Chiang Rai but the distance from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai is too far. It takes seven hours to travel to and fro and we felt that it would be a waste of time to spend so much time traveling on the road.

This is the life of a woman in the long neck tribe. The set of rings around their neck weighs 4kg. They start to wear it at the age of 6 or 7. The initial reason for wearing the rings on their neck was to protect tigers from biting their necks.

Besides such information, I have also learnt from our tour guide that these long neck tribe came from Burma (Myanmar). They are refugees and they are not allowed to work in Thailand. Their main source of survival is through donations and selling handicraft.

Although they are not allowed to find jobs, I feel that the government of Chiang Mai is kind enough to keep them.  Electricity is provided at the villages we visited. Water was kept in a tank for them to use. I asked the tour guide about the children. Since the children are born in Thailand, aren’t they allowed to work in Thailand too? I am glad to hear that children are allowed to attend school. Well, at least there is hope for the children to get out of the village to seek their path.

Look at how adorable and innocent the children are. The picture on the right shows a little girl who was putting on make-up and she did so herself beautifully.

The people led a simple life. They used wood to cook and lived in huts that are made of wood or bamboo.  They had to depend a lot on donations for health care.

I hope they all can lead a fruitful and good life when they grow up.

I wish them health and happiness…

We visited the butterfly and orchid park the next day. Mel took a few good photos of the butterflies. What was I doing while she was taking photos? Probably walking around impatiently.

The butterflies were so busy and the photos taken are crystal clear. Mel’s photo shooting skill has improved somehow with her new camera.

The butterfly on the left is dark in colour and has a few white spots, while the one on the right has some light blue spots.

However, all these butterflies are commonly found in Singapore as well.

The orchids that we saw were common too. Our national flower is the Vanda Miss Joaquim, a type of orchid. Hence, we are not new to orchids. We can see such orchids in Singapore too.

Besides the butterflies and orchids, the parks were also selling souvenirs such as  costume jewellery. Butterflies are preserved to make into a beautiful pin or hair pin. You can also find preserved butterflies in necklaces, chains and any other jewellery you can think of. We did not buy anything as I could not imagine putting a preserved butterfly on my body!

After a day at Doi Suthep, we checked into Mountain Greek resort. The place was difficult to find and transportation was a problem. However, the resort does provide transport service for us and we just had to pay them a small fee.

We had a cultural dinner and dance show in the evening at 7pm. Mel took some photos of our dinner, which consisted of local Chiang Mai cuisine.

Mel should have taken a close-up on the dishes :p! Never mind. There was a dish of fried pork skin which tasted like crackers. Fortunately, there was a familiar dish – fried chicken which we also have in Singapore. Other dishes included pork, raw and cooked vegetables, soup, sour chicken bits mixed with vegetable and my favourite chilli. Oh.. and their sticky rice. The fried bananas were tasty too. We had a Heineken beer to go with it.

Do you know which dish I like most? It’s their chilli. I bought a bottle home.

Mel and I ate and commented on the age of the dancers. They were all very young. We also noted that those from Northern Thailand had white rather than yellow skin and those from Southern Thailand had a darker skin tone.

I don’t know why Mel took the picture on the right. Perhaps it looked like an UFO or maybe she was testing her camera. No matter what the reasons were, it tells me these lights are from Chiang Mai.

After dinner, the dance show began. What I like most was their costumes.

There were a few dances and it all came with different types of attractive costumes.

In Thailand, there are different tribes of people. Perhaps these dances represent every one of them.

Mel and I visited Chiang Mai last weekend. It was a fantastic trip. I just love the cool weather, the rich culture and the resort hotel which we were staying.

We were staying away from the hustle and bustle of life in Chiang Mai City. The name of the resort is Mountain Greek Wellness Resort. Below are the photos of our room.

The resort is surrounded by mountains. The weather was cool early in the morning. Even with the sun high above, the wind was cool.

Our first trip was to Doi Suthep. It is a temple which is situated away from Chiang Mai City and is located on a mountain. Below are the pictures of Doi Suthep.

We were told by our tour guide that by making wishes and ringing the bell, our wishes will come true. So Mel and I made some wishes and rang the bell. I have not asked what wishes Mel had wished. She heard mine definitely haha… Hopefully the sound travels all the way to Singapore so people will visit Red Maple Florist.

Chiang Mai city can be viewed from a vantage point near Doi Suthep. Below is one of the pictures that we have taken.

We climbed 300 steps of stairs to reach Doi Suthep temple. Compared to 1000 steps which I had to climb at Blue Mountain, Australia, this is considered nothing.

The photo on the right shows the flight of stairs which we had to climb before reaching Doi Suthep. It was tiring but I was not exhausted.

While I was climbing, I saw a sign hanging on a tree which read ” A willful man will have his way…”.

Yeah… A willful man will have his way… with a lot of effort,  hard work, intelligence and wisdom…

Many Buddha statues are placed all around the temple. Devotee pray for what they want. Flowers like lotuses were being offered and I offered a white lotus to Shakyamuni Buddha for the knowledge that I have gained from Him.

Mel had made a small donation and she was sprinkled with holy water by a monk and was given a white string to tie on her wrist. Guess the string is for blessings.

I volunteered at the Singapore Association for the Deaf today. Basically, the children that I was interacting with weren’t hearing impaired children. There were children of low intelligence. Most of them look normal like any of us. Some were even better looking than many of us and we can’t really tell if they are of low intelligence.

They were a bunch of friendly, very friendly children. They greeted me politely and talked to me like any old-time friends. Honestly, I like the way they behave. I don’t feel a distance between us.

We gave them pictures and asked them to spot the differences between pictures.  I think they were capable of that, even more capable than me. They were also given a crossword puzzle. All they need to do was to find the words given to them. They can do it, just that some were tired, impatient or even lazy. The whole session lasts for one and a half hour. I enjoyed their company so much. They were young and have so much energy. I was so energised by them. It was completely a different feel with the elderly.

I played table games with the Elderly every Tuesday. I love interacting with the elderly and undeniably, I enjoyed every moment with them. When I had games with the children today, my energy level went up. It was totally a different feeling. I just love those children. They were responsive and not shy at all. All of them were trying to show us their intelligence. Of course, we always ace them.

One even tested our intelligence by playing hangman with us. He made a sentence for us, volunteers, to guess. His hint was “food and drink”. The sentence was “Australian Pepper Steak With Gardenia Salad”. See! Of course, we volunteers no matter what, have to make it right and keep the hangman alive. It was fun!

I really love communicating with them. I’ll be going back again. Simply because, I enjoy being with the children.