Given the interest in certain 'characters' of northern Thailand expressed following my report "ON THE TRAIL OF A 'MULE' - A Drug Run Through The Golden Triangle" I've travelled further down the Thai-Burma border from Mae Hong Son through Mae Sariang to the area around Sop Moei to meet a character of a different sort.
The journey is south of Mae Sariang along R105 via the small village of Sop Moei (intriguingly there's another settlement down by the Salween River that carries the same name - inhabited by the Thai military conducting inspections of traffic passing along the river.)
From Sop Moei turn west towards the Karen village of Mae Tola, is the only directions I can give you - the area, regretably, lies south of the topography covered in the GTR Mae Hong Son Map & I can not find any indication of this road on any other map I have studied; indeed the area appears as one vast seemingly inaccessible & uninhabited zone. It matters not, however, as it is not possible for tourists, indeed anyone without 'reason', to travel the full length of this road - due to constant unrest, the area is a strictly controlled military zone.
Views from the access road back over Mae Sariang:
& across the mountain tops to Burma:
Almost 60 years ago two American missionaries, a doctor/surgeon & his wife, working in southern Thailand gave birth to a son. Kent Gregory grew up in Thailand before returning to the USA for his secondary & tertiary studies in public health. He met & married a Swedish child-psychologist/ child-maternal health specialist before they returned to Thailand in the mid 1970's determined to apply their skills to the welfare & advancement of the hill-tribe people of northern Thailand.
They were looking to find a preliterate tribe who'd had little if any contact with westerners & the search led them to a still isolated area along the Thai/Burmese border near Sop Moei. Basically Kent met a by-chance a Burmese man in Mae Sariang who just treked (fled) for many days through the jungle from Burma into Thailand. On the way he had encountered a Karen tribe living near the Salween River where it divides Thailand from Burma. Kent got clear instructions, found a guide & then walked for almost 3 days through the mountains & jungle to find the tribe. He remembers the leopards & hundreds of gibbons he saw, as well as the leaches.
By 1977 Kent had spent sufficient time amongst this & neighbouring tribes to have become sufficiently fluent in their language to be able to negotiate with village leaders to be able to stay - he actually used a card system to compile a dictionary over several years which unfortunately he did not maintain/publish so that to date still no dictionary exists for these Karen people (the Pwo). The Karen being animists conditioned their agreement on the couples staying on the basis they installed themselves in an abandoned, former village site nearby & not in the existent village.
The road down took around 4 hours. We moved through other Karen villages & across streams (you can get down as far as where these photos were taken & I anticipate improvements in the road, as a 'Royal Project' has been established just before this crossing):
We ultimately arrived at this absolutely magnificent corner Kent calls home. It has something, a soul, that springs from it's occupying a former village site using existing access mechanisms, water supply, building materials & so on, transformed through the sheer beauty of the garden that Kent has established over almost 35 years. To be awoken by the 'choir of a 1000 birds' is special. This is not a millionaire's house where money has secured the 'chosen' block & planted out the 'designed' garden; its the 'no choice' block that has been transformed into that of which millionaires dream. The house/s are open in style with large verandahs, built of local teak logged by Kent himself, rooves thatched from local leaves. There is no electricity, no telephones; 'ofuro' style bathrooms. You are in complete tranquility resting at home or walking about the gardens, exploring the surrounding streams, orchards he's planted, rice paddies & so on:
A 'peculiarity' of the place is the 'visitor's book' - a support beam in the visitors 'hut' photographed here where the King of Sweden, his wife & children signed:
When Kent & his wife arrived there, their goal was to set up a maternity/child care/nutrition service for neighbouring tribes. It was a difficult task initially with village priests being resistant to such intervention. For many years Kent & his wife moved between what grew to become 17 Karen villages carrying their medical supplies on elephant. There were no roads, no shops; Kent would walk once or twice a month to Mae Sariang, the closest town, a journey of around 80kms, where the rise & fall of the track ensured a walk of 18 hours each way! It was a 'task' despite the spectacularly magnificent scenery afforded across the tops of Thailand & Burma. The elephants would join him in town before returning laddened with supplies (Kent always walked as it was faster than the elephants moved). It was an area not without danger where gunfire eminating from Burma could be heard regularly - Kent told me of a time a guide came by with 2 German & a French treker; they asked for directions to a certain camp where the heads of the Karen armies fighting the Burmese government had installed their families for reasons of safety. Kent advised them of the way to learn later that the guide had been murdered, his body thrown in the river & the trackers returned to their starting point down river!
During this period they had a daughter, but sadly Kent's wife passed away - a mole was removed but no biopsy was performed which proved fatal. It was not an easy existence for someone widowed early bringing up a young child; indeed he brought up & continues to raise several other Karen children in most cases where a mother dies during child-birth. He also ensures the on-going education of many tribal children who otherwise would not have access to secondary or tertiary education.
After a period of time Kent realised that despite his efforts & relative success the tribal children still lacked an acceptable level of nutrition. It was apparent to Kent that he had to initiate a commercial system within the villages, something that would generate revenue so as to enable the villagers to purchase the additional nutritional needs of their children. Kent knew that for centuries Karen woman had weaved textiles & the men baskets - 'Sop Moei Arts' was born:
Weaving baskets (one weaver fled Burma some 17 years ago but still returned from time to time to Burma I was told on insergency missions):
Some of the products weaved whilst we were there:
Some baskets are smoked:
A number of buildings scattered amongst the gardens accommodate the weavers who come from close-by villages, some of whom live on the property. Weaving centres have also been established in several other out-lying villages. Its easy to pass the day amidst the hand-made teak looms watching the women work clad in their finest creations - the patterns & colours tell you a great deal; whether the wearer is married, for example:
The woman are often tatooed although I don't know the significance. Some smoke hand-made pipes - a great sight:
We dined one night with one of the women (photographed below), her husband & some of their children - they had 6 children & despite the mother being only 43 her eldest was already 28 years old!
Food remains traditional - a local vegetable on this occassion mixed with a paste derived from crushed (after boiling) jackfruit seeds mixed with dry fish & chillies; (Kent had prepared an accompanying meal derived from freshly picked bamboo shoots, washed down from coffee grown, roasted & ground on the property).
Apart from the weavers there are several others at any given time who scour the countryside for various materials required in weaving, for the repair of looms & so on:
(To be continued.................................)
The journey is south of Mae Sariang along R105 via the small village of Sop Moei (intriguingly there's another settlement down by the Salween River that carries the same name - inhabited by the Thai military conducting inspections of traffic passing along the river.)
From Sop Moei turn west towards the Karen village of Mae Tola, is the only directions I can give you - the area, regretably, lies south of the topography covered in the GTR Mae Hong Son Map & I can not find any indication of this road on any other map I have studied; indeed the area appears as one vast seemingly inaccessible & uninhabited zone. It matters not, however, as it is not possible for tourists, indeed anyone without 'reason', to travel the full length of this road - due to constant unrest, the area is a strictly controlled military zone.
Views from the access road back over Mae Sariang:
& across the mountain tops to Burma:
Almost 60 years ago two American missionaries, a doctor/surgeon & his wife, working in southern Thailand gave birth to a son. Kent Gregory grew up in Thailand before returning to the USA for his secondary & tertiary studies in public health. He met & married a Swedish child-psychologist/ child-maternal health specialist before they returned to Thailand in the mid 1970's determined to apply their skills to the welfare & advancement of the hill-tribe people of northern Thailand.
They were looking to find a preliterate tribe who'd had little if any contact with westerners & the search led them to a still isolated area along the Thai/Burmese border near Sop Moei. Basically Kent met a by-chance a Burmese man in Mae Sariang who just treked (fled) for many days through the jungle from Burma into Thailand. On the way he had encountered a Karen tribe living near the Salween River where it divides Thailand from Burma. Kent got clear instructions, found a guide & then walked for almost 3 days through the mountains & jungle to find the tribe. He remembers the leopards & hundreds of gibbons he saw, as well as the leaches.
By 1977 Kent had spent sufficient time amongst this & neighbouring tribes to have become sufficiently fluent in their language to be able to negotiate with village leaders to be able to stay - he actually used a card system to compile a dictionary over several years which unfortunately he did not maintain/publish so that to date still no dictionary exists for these Karen people (the Pwo). The Karen being animists conditioned their agreement on the couples staying on the basis they installed themselves in an abandoned, former village site nearby & not in the existent village.
The road down took around 4 hours. We moved through other Karen villages & across streams (you can get down as far as where these photos were taken & I anticipate improvements in the road, as a 'Royal Project' has been established just before this crossing):
We ultimately arrived at this absolutely magnificent corner Kent calls home. It has something, a soul, that springs from it's occupying a former village site using existing access mechanisms, water supply, building materials & so on, transformed through the sheer beauty of the garden that Kent has established over almost 35 years. To be awoken by the 'choir of a 1000 birds' is special. This is not a millionaire's house where money has secured the 'chosen' block & planted out the 'designed' garden; its the 'no choice' block that has been transformed into that of which millionaires dream. The house/s are open in style with large verandahs, built of local teak logged by Kent himself, rooves thatched from local leaves. There is no electricity, no telephones; 'ofuro' style bathrooms. You are in complete tranquility resting at home or walking about the gardens, exploring the surrounding streams, orchards he's planted, rice paddies & so on:
A 'peculiarity' of the place is the 'visitor's book' - a support beam in the visitors 'hut' photographed here where the King of Sweden, his wife & children signed:
When Kent & his wife arrived there, their goal was to set up a maternity/child care/nutrition service for neighbouring tribes. It was a difficult task initially with village priests being resistant to such intervention. For many years Kent & his wife moved between what grew to become 17 Karen villages carrying their medical supplies on elephant. There were no roads, no shops; Kent would walk once or twice a month to Mae Sariang, the closest town, a journey of around 80kms, where the rise & fall of the track ensured a walk of 18 hours each way! It was a 'task' despite the spectacularly magnificent scenery afforded across the tops of Thailand & Burma. The elephants would join him in town before returning laddened with supplies (Kent always walked as it was faster than the elephants moved). It was an area not without danger where gunfire eminating from Burma could be heard regularly - Kent told me of a time a guide came by with 2 German & a French treker; they asked for directions to a certain camp where the heads of the Karen armies fighting the Burmese government had installed their families for reasons of safety. Kent advised them of the way to learn later that the guide had been murdered, his body thrown in the river & the trackers returned to their starting point down river!
During this period they had a daughter, but sadly Kent's wife passed away - a mole was removed but no biopsy was performed which proved fatal. It was not an easy existence for someone widowed early bringing up a young child; indeed he brought up & continues to raise several other Karen children in most cases where a mother dies during child-birth. He also ensures the on-going education of many tribal children who otherwise would not have access to secondary or tertiary education.
After a period of time Kent realised that despite his efforts & relative success the tribal children still lacked an acceptable level of nutrition. It was apparent to Kent that he had to initiate a commercial system within the villages, something that would generate revenue so as to enable the villagers to purchase the additional nutritional needs of their children. Kent knew that for centuries Karen woman had weaved textiles & the men baskets - 'Sop Moei Arts' was born:
Weaving baskets (one weaver fled Burma some 17 years ago but still returned from time to time to Burma I was told on insergency missions):
Some of the products weaved whilst we were there:
Some baskets are smoked:
A number of buildings scattered amongst the gardens accommodate the weavers who come from close-by villages, some of whom live on the property. Weaving centres have also been established in several other out-lying villages. Its easy to pass the day amidst the hand-made teak looms watching the women work clad in their finest creations - the patterns & colours tell you a great deal; whether the wearer is married, for example:
The woman are often tatooed although I don't know the significance. Some smoke hand-made pipes - a great sight:
We dined one night with one of the women (photographed below), her husband & some of their children - they had 6 children & despite the mother being only 43 her eldest was already 28 years old!
Food remains traditional - a local vegetable on this occassion mixed with a paste derived from crushed (after boiling) jackfruit seeds mixed with dry fish & chillies; (Kent had prepared an accompanying meal derived from freshly picked bamboo shoots, washed down from coffee grown, roasted & ground on the property).
Apart from the weavers there are several others at any given time who scour the countryside for various materials required in weaving, for the repair of looms & so on:
(To be continued.................................)