Day 1- Unexpected Achievements

We set off to Chiang Rai very early in the morning today. Learning that it was almost a three-hour drive from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai made me a little happy as I could sleep on the journey there. However, Peter, our tour guide told us on the bus that we would have a mini stop over at a Hot Spring on the way there. I was a little disappointed as I was tired and wanted to stay on the bus without getting off anywhere. Little did I know that the Hot Spring would prove to be a very helpful location for our research project. This is because there were many Chinese tourists who were similarly having a stop over there with their tour groups.

 

Hence, my group and I jumped at the chance of conducting interviews and gathering information. We first interviewed the owner of a fish spa with the help of our Thai student from CMU, May. Considering that this happened to be our very first interview, I was proud that my group and I managed to ask the questions that we wanted although much of the success should be attributed to May. From the interview, we learnt that he changed jobs from being in the media industry to owning a fish spa at the Hot Spring and also that he feels the Chinese tourists are very good for his business. He mentioned that the Chinese come all year round unlike the Western tourists, who only visit when they are festivals in Thailand. This made me wonder what are the motivations of the Chinese tourists to visit Chiang Mai/ Chiang Rai. I fathom that they might enjoy visiting Thailand because there are several cultural similarities between the two countries. In my opinion, things would be very much different should they visit a country like Malaysia.

 

We then left the Hot Spring and headed to Wangcome Hotel. We were supposed to have a walking tour of Chiang Rai but my sub group decided that we would all go to the hill tribes instead. We were a little hesitant at first as the entrance fee was 500 THB. However, in the end, we decided to go for it and right now, I am really glad we did as we got valuable footage from there too. We interviewed the long neck Karens and the Yao tribe women. Honestly, when I was there, I could not help but feel sympathetic towards them.

 

I felt bad that their way of living is a tourist attraction just because they are different from us and they happen to dress differently from us. I think we should give them the same amount of respect we give to others and let them live as they always have just like how we would expect others to treat us. Of course, at the same time I understand that they might be benefitting from such an arrangement but somehow to me, helping them must not involve compromising with their prestige as a community. I was also discussing with some of my group mates what actually happens to the entrance fee that we paid. It is my sincere hope that the money is being used for the development of the villages and the advancement of its people.

 

We then got back to the hotel after dinner and decided to visit the night market near our hotel. This night market was smaller and less crowded than the one we visited in Chiang Mai when we landed. Although this was the case, we managed to interview a fellow fruit stall owner and we obtained her views about the growing number of Chinese tourists. Looking at how hard she works made me realize how truly lucky I am to be a part of this amazing opportunity.

 

Day 1 was really better than expected.