Karen Village

Brittany fell sick in Mae Hong Son, and what we had thought would be a one night stay turned into two. It could have been food poisoning, bad water, or maybe the smoke. Neither of us could put a definite finger on it, but when it rained ash in the city, Brittany and I were forced to hide behind face masks. Unfortunately, because of the smoke, we wore them for the rest of our motorcycle trip... When Britt was feeling better we ventured out of the city, and into the mountains, to track down a remote Karen Village.
In a tradition I had mistaken to be exclusively African, the Karen people adorn neck elongating binds. To me this was as fascinating as it was surprising, but in the village, the dichotomy of new life vs old was more depressing than intriguing. The Karen Villages have become a tourist attraction. Each day their culture is psychoanalyzed, and each day their life is put under the microscope by more tour groups than I cared to count. Van-full after van-full of photo snapping tourists... Brittany and I were relieved to not be on a tour through the village, but even traveling as individuals rather than in a group, we still didn't feel comfortable pulling out cameras.
It was our first side trip to go undocumented through the lens of Britt's D-90 or the D-50 my sister lent me, but looking back I am glad we walked the high road on this one. They are people. The tourists snapping away, over-analyzing their every move, made me think that the outside world is loosing sight of that fact. Every flash takes with it a memento of Karen culture, but at the cost of the Karen village's soul I am afraid.
After a tour that had been in front of us spun on their heels and left, a middle aged Thai man, clearly not Karen, realized we weren't part of a group and marched over to us. "Where are your tickets?" he said.
"Excuse me? Wait... We need tickets for the village?"
Apparently, tickets to wander through the Karen Village, cost 250 Baht. Annoyed and deeply unsettled, Britt and I decided not to feed a parasitic economy and agreed leave rather than pay. We had come to submerse ourselves in an exotic culture, not to see traditions paraded around as though they were the main event of some freak show. The whole thing hurt my heart. Even now there is a bad taste in my mouth... Or maybe that's just the smoke.