Mae Sai

[monkeygirl]

Been to Mae Sai twice and it's a dump. Did get haggled by some guys selling tours to see the long-neck hill tribes. Would like to do that this time around. Has anyone gone? Did they slit your throat or rip you off? Anything else worth seeing there? I'd like to make it an overnight trip if it's worthwhile. Hate wasting a whole day's driving.

[Captain Chaos]

I went to some of the hill tribe villages, but as part of a 'Golden Triangle' day trip from Chiang Rai. Included Mae Sai, which I agree is not the most charming place in Thailand.

Hill tribe villages are quite isolated so bound to take a fair amount of driving to get to. They neither slit throats or give you the hard sell routine. They do have the usual 'ethnic' trinkets they'd like to sell you for a few Baht. They were quite hospitable but in the same way that anywhere else that depends on tourist income is!

The 'villages' are really reservations, as few of the inhabitants are able to farm. So all they can do is sit around and wait for us to go stare at them & buy their wares. The Karen 'longnecks' are the most photogenic (20 baht) for the obvious reasons, and also seemed generally the most energetic (least depressed?) of the people I saw

It is worth a trip, to see peoples who I suspect will quickly lose their identity, even though it was a bit depressing to see them with so little apparent future.

[Limbo]

Maesai is Sodom and Gomorra at the same time. If you are not the salty type, stay out after sundown.

It is a sinfull city and that it is!

The lovely people (and there are a lot of them) won't go out after six o'clock.

Only the lovable ones do. The angles of the night so to say. But you never know what they are hiding under their wings!