I am currently on the shadiest airplane I’ve ever been on, and we’re going toward Luang Prabang in Laos. We decided to fly because it’d take two days to get to Luang Prabang by land, with nothign terribly interesting in between. This should give us more than enough time to be in Angkor Wat, but we’re still not sure about the border from Laos to Cambodia, hopefully it’s open.

The night market in Chiang Mai is really neat, but it still suffers the everyone-has-the-same-wares problem. We all bought stuff, mostly clothes, though we kept our expenses fairly low.

The other big thing we did was a tour that took us up to the long-neck Karen tribe near the Myannmar border. We stopped along the way to see some things like a cave and temple. It was sort of anti-climactic. When we arrived, it seemed to be set up not like a vilage but like a shop. It was something of a human zoo, ad was kind of sad. I didn’t buy anything, but Lora bought a scarf, which were probably one of the only things there that was handmade. I still looked, to be polite and at one of the huts I picked up and looked at a small wooden box. The girl came over, baby on her back, and told me it was 100B. I told her I didn’t really want it and she didn’t say anything. When I started to walk away she said 80B, but I just shook my head and left. After reaching the minibus again I decided I wanted a picture of her, since, of the people there, she seemed to be the prettiest (partly because of her youth, partly because she didn’t chew the Betel nut that so many of them did, which would eventually turn their teeth black). I went back and asked if I could take a picture (miming more than speaking), and she helf out the box and indicated my camera, then said 70B. I said I didn’t want the box but could I take a picture anyway?60B. I don’t want the box, I just want a picture, okay? Nod. I took the picture, then gave her 10B, nodded and smiled, then left. The whole tour lasted from 0700 to 1730 or so.