I went to Thailand with my mother, my uncle, and his wife to visit families. My mother has a older brother living in a 200 families village in the Chiangrai province. We have not seen him for 20 years.
We arrived at Chiangrai air port around 6 pm. My uncle, his children, and some other relatives from their village were waiting for us outside the air port with three Toyota pickup trucks. I was sleepy most of the way to my uncle's village. I woke up to find us going up the steep mountain. The road curves like a snake going up hill and down hill. The road is carved out from the side of the mountains. I joked with the driver that I know why the Thais called Hmong a the hill tribe now.
The people in the village is mainly made up of former refugees from Laos and those whom had migrated from China years ago. Many of the elders left the refugee camp and came to live in this village hoping that one day Laos would be free of communist control and they could return to Laos. Many of these elders had passed away and their children remain this village. The village has improved a lot from how it was 10 years ago. The Thai government has built cement roads to their village connecting them to the outside world. Before the cement road, it was near impossible to get to the village by car in the rainy season.
Almost every family farms. There are no jobs in the village. The young left the village to the city to find work leaving the elders, and children in the village. They come home once or twice in a year. The cost of living is high and the cost of labor is cheap. A person working person makes 130 baht (a little over $4) a day. That's enough to buy a kilogram of pork. Farming is not easy either. The land requires a lot of fertilizer and chemical to keep the weeds from taking over. They mainly grow corn, rice, and cabbage. They would sell corn, rice, and cabbage to make some money. But sometimes the cost of the fertilizer exceeds the money the crops generated.
We toured a few places. We visited the famous cliff – Phu Chifa. The other side of Phu Chifa is Laos. It's very beautiful in the morning when the clouds are low. We also visited one of the former refugee camp – Chiang Kham. There's no one living inside the old refugee camp. It was divided and given to farmer to grow crops. The fences and the trenches around the camp to keep refugees from getting out can still be seen.
The temperature in Chiangrai was in the 80s F and when I arrived in Milwaukee, it was the lows 20s F.
Photos:
My uncle's village. It has about 200 families.
Children keeping themselves warm.
Rice field.
A view from Phu Cheefa.