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Long Neck Women – Chiang Mai

March 6, 2009 By James Clark 3 Comments

Long Neck Woman

The long neck women are from Burma/Myanmar, and many live as refugees in Thailand. The long neck women are known as Padaung, a sub-group of the Karen tribe.

Long Neck Woman

The Karen tribe villages are near the Thai-Myanmar border, but there are also “villages” near Chiang Mai. I say “villages” as they are really just market stalls set up for the benefit of tours from Chiang Mai.

Long Neck Market Village

The long neck is actually an illusion. The brass rings don’t stretch the neck, it’s the weight of the rings pushing the collar bone down.

Opinion is divided on these tours. Some say it is a like a human zoo, while others say that the money raised in the markets is money that these tribes wouldn’t have otherwise got.

My conscience wasn’t helped by a story about the plight of the long neck women that was continually aired on BBC World the week I was there.

It seemed to me though that both the tourists and the tribe are willing participants in this bizarre tour.

Long Neck Girl

Filed Under: Travel Blog Tagged With: chiang mai, thailand, tours

About James Clark

James Clark is the founder of Nomadic Notes. He has been a digital nomad since 2003, and Nomadic Notes features trip reports, train travel articles, and where to stay guides. He writes about transport and urban development at Future Southeast Asia. Subscribe to the weekly travel newsletter.

Comments

  1. ashlee says

    May 18, 2009 at 6:24 pm

    I didn’t know these women still did this – it always seemed to be like something out of an old documentary.

    Reply
  2. becky says

    January 12, 2017 at 6:32 am

    Striking pictures

    Reply

Trackbacks

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Hi, I’m James Clark, and I've been travelling the world since 2003 while running a location independent travel business. Nomadic Notes is a travel blog featuring travel guides and notes from my travels.

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