Living with the Long Necks

Location:
Thailand

Burma Refugees Longneck

By Lisa Rodan

The village of Huay Pu Keng on the Thai/Burmese border was a strange mixture of tourist circus, refugee camp and communist living experiment that would have made Lenin proud. About 23,000 Kayan and Kayaw Karenni from the Karenni State in the mountains of Burma are living in various camps around this border area, unable to return to Burma and forbidden by the Thai government from venturing any further into Thailand. The Karenni guerilla army are fighting a 50 year old civil war against the Burma Army in Karenni State and many of the people I met there had escaped by walking 3 days and nights through the jungle- in the case of Ma Pai, my adopted Karenni mummy, pregnant. (She gave birth to her daughter on the way)

Huay Pu Keng gets most of its income from tourism- although a massively significant portion is siphoned off to local thai boatmen first- the main draw being the infamous "long Neck" Karenni women more commonly seen on the front of National Geographic. Contrary to popular opinion, the ladies do not die from collapsed lungs when the rings are removed- there were quite a few girls there who were ex ring-wearers and were none the worse physically, other than their necks being rather more gazelle-like than usual. Nowadays most women wear the rings purely for tourism and are given a monthly "wage" to keep them on.

Teaching in the village school there was unlike any other job I´d ever had- a series of bamboo huts with dirt floors into which snakes would occasionally slither, combined with a twice daily influx of thai and western snap happy tourists.

The "new village" next to the main village of Huay Pu Keng was a lot more basic and still being built when I was there. The women wove scarves to sell to tourists, but being further from the boat stop on the river Pai, had less business from visitors. Most of their food comes from the land and various cooperatives and budding farming schemes were being set up to make them self sustainable. The village elder, a 24 year old ring-wearer called Ma Lo was permanently stressed over dwindling rice supplies and could often be seen scolding the cowering gun wielding thai soldiers whose presence was attributed to "protection".

The women of the village, as well as being the sole source of income were clearly the movers and shakers of the community. Most of the men seemed to have a hopeless addiction to home made rice wine and, as the evenings wore on, rice whiskey, which was most often drunk to the haunting guitar melodies of John Denver, although the Beatles occasionally made an appearance. The main drug of choice though was betel nut, a hallucinogenic seed wrapped in lime leaves and chewed until the characteristic bright red spit was created after which it´s owner would be content to sit the rest of the evening grinning happily with this mystery gum packed hamster like into his cheek and occasionally ejecting gobs of red goo inbetween renditions of "take me home country roads". If you haven´t been allowed to stray any further than a 50 house village for the last 20 years who can blame them really!

Huts were avilable for tourists to stay in overnight, which combined with rice based alcohol, and karenni dancing under the stars made it a one in a million memory. Feed the men enough whiskey and they´ll start to recount their own squirmishes with the Burmese Army too!

Further Information

Travel tips: Stay overnight in one of the tourist huts or better, volunteer for a week or 2 as the people can be really welcoming and interested once they trust you.

Must see/do at this place: Play volleyballs with some adolescent long neck girls. Go to the New Village and help Ma Lo with the harvest. Get one of the teenage boys to take you into the jungle from the new village (for a tip!) and see the view into Burma from the top.

You should avoid here: Be aware of the current political situation