The Revered Land is a tribe of northern Thailand
Inherent traditions. Nowadays, as people seek
More pyrotechnic lifestyle,
Here, people are becoming more and more cherished
The intrinsic connection between man and the land.
Nimmanhaemin in Chiang Mai, Thailand, is already full of cafes of all kinds, crowded with digital nomads from all over the world. Pai, where hippies hide, has also been transformed into over-commercialized. For the artist, Bangkok's reinforced concrete bushes are too monotonous, too limited, and the pace of life is too fast. So they fled to Chiang Dao, a rural land in the northern Himalayas, in search of a quiet place of their own. Some just stayed for a few weeks, and some never left. This valley town, north of Chiang Mai, is about an hour's drive away and is surrounded by tree-lined limestone mountains. It has long been popular by word of mouth in bird watching and caving circles; today, it is becoming a curious stop for the general public traveler.
On a chilly November morning, I hitched a ride on a horsepower Royal Enfield motorcycle and sped down a mountain road lined with cornfields and banana groves. A cloud of smoke suddenly drifted to my face, and it turned out to be a field burning straw. Driving the motorcycle was William Le Masurier, a 29-year-old Chiang Kaido man. He has lived in Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo, but sees the greatest potential here. William's mother was Thai, while his father was from England. When he was young, they would always travel the world because of their father's work, but every summer they would return to their huts on the banks of the Ping River. After he left his brand manager in Shanghai, he converted the house into a homestay. Today, four years later, he manages a dozen exquisite villas and runs a fledgling travel company.
Our first stop was Chiang Dao Blue, located on a hillside on the outskirts of the city. After living in Hokkaido for 17 years, Siripohn Sansirikul, the owner of the indigo dyeing studio, moved here with her Japanese husband five years ago and regularly holds tie-dye classes in addition to growing plants in the garden on weekdays. In her opinion, the green mountains and rivers of Qingdao have given her a lot of creative power. Also settling here is the potter Juthamas Thanusan, who turned a dilapidated house on a lonely dirt road into a studio, accompanied by three cats. Following a winding road into the mountains, Thamarat Phokai's woodcarving workshop sits right next to a babbling brook. We ended up with a stop at Hoklhong Café, where host Tierrayut Chantachot moved from southern Thailand to grow coffee beans and bake them on a wood fire in clay pots.
Qingdao is a land of abundance. As William said, "Throw a mango into the ground and it will grow on its own." "Here are leeks, garlic, star fruit and peaches, people support the tree with bamboo poles, and heavy dragon eyes hang from the branches. People returning from the big cities are full of fresh thoughts about the future. They return to the farm run by their parents, grow organic avocados, and sell them to city people on social platforms.
Like most of the countryside in northern Thailand, the mountains around Chiang Dao are tribal villages large and small; the Lahu, Lisu, Karen, and Akha retain traditional customs, dresses, and lifestyles. Every Tuesday, they come down from the mountains to exchange gold for currency and sell their handicrafts. The old-fashioned citizens would call such young people dek doi (meaning "wild children in the mountains"). William saw the word as an honor and used it as the name of his company. "What they know about the land is something the internet can't tell you." He said. They know what happens when ants move (it's going to rain), or when the flowers of the mango tree are extraordinarily blooming (the rain is going to be heavier). Long before environmental protection became a fashion trend, they were advocating for sustainable living.
On the last night of the pilgrimage, I was invited by Chanthihot to visit his house. Following a dirt road away from street lights through the Longan Orchard, there are two bare huts made of teak wood. A lukewarm Chang beer can is passed by a campfire, and songs from The Velvet Underground come from an iPhone speaker. Overhead, silhouettes of towering trees dot the night sky, reminding me that "clearing the way" means "star city", accompanied by the white noise of crickets in the distance. Thankfully, the city's popular popular breakfast turmeric latte and berry bowl will take some time to appear here. However, William's bar will soon open, serving a privately brewed herbal spirit ya dong and organic wine. Bangkok's chefs are also planning to launch pop-up restaurants in the region. That morning, we also met the owner of Soi Nana, Bangkok's coolest nightlife venue. William said: "People don't come here to make a lot of money, they just want to live enough, they just want to return to the original Thai way of life." ”
A few days later, I drove a dilapidated Mazda pickup all the way south along the rice paddies, accompanied by a Shan textile artist, Saksaran Duang-in, and we were about to arrive in his hometown of Doi Tao. I've seen Saksaran's work at raya Heritage Hotel Chiang Mai and bangkok markets – a casual shirt in natural tones and indigo with loose shorts, apparently handmade on an old loom. In a village with whom he worked, we walked into a tall teak house where a woman dressed in traditional Karen embroidered costumes was spinning cotton on wooden wheels. In the next room, vats of bark and fermented berries bubbled with deep red and dark blue bubbles, and freshly dyed yarns were left to dry in the sun. Opposite, another woman was working on a harness loom, her hands dancing swiftly with the cotton thread. Duang-in said it was a one-stop family workshop. The husband harvests cotton from his own field, and the wife makes it into a wrap skirt, a V-neck tunic, and other clothing. Their clothing brand Satu also works with them regularly, and he came to discuss his new designs: a kimono sleeved hooded vest and a crotch-length pants that doubled as a T-shirt.
"Some people still think that preserving these crafts means sticking to traditional designs and ways of working, but I believe that we can only keep the craft alive by adapting them to the modern environment." Duang-in explains, "Sometimes it takes a little effort to convince them, but when they see celebrities on TV wearing clothes they make, they're always the first to call me." "I asked him if he wanted to help the local community, but he thought I had reversed the relationship." Without them, I am nothing. My business was gone. ”
Back in Chiang Mai, I visited Jirawong Wongtrangan, another craftsman who lives in the heart of the old town, and his ceramic coffee cups dot the trendy cafes of Bangkok, with rustic bowls and plates on top of those Fine Dining tables. Jirawong Wongtrangan opened a clay studio Studio In Clay in the backyard of his sun-stained home. He specializes in grey glazing, a centuries-old technique imported from China and adopted by craftsmen across Thailand. While scraping the worm-like clay from the new teapot, he lamented to me: "Thailand's traditional craftsmanship is more accessible and sustainable than industrial-scale production." We do not destroy the environment, so our natural resources continue to grow. "A week ago, he went to a small village in Nan, where only three women were still making traditional pottery for as little as $1 each." They were originally craftsmen, and I just taught them to perform their craft in new ways. ”
At an afternoon market on the outskirts of ChiangRai, chef Kongwuth Chaiwong-kachon is turning piles of fresh herbs and dried fish. The long table was piled high with produce shipped from the mountains, in addition to rough galangal, palm-sized water bugs, and bright red peppers, which were piled on small plates under fluorescent lights for $2 each. To me, it's just a normal corner of the market, but for Chaiwongkachon, it's a "gold mine.". He pointed to a basket of thumb-sized pea pods with a furry pale green skin and said, "You can make a lot of predictions based on the products on the market." He stopped in front of a neatly stacked pile of Makham Pom (a kind of gooseberry) and said, "The appearance of this ingredient is that nature is telling you that you are preparing for winter." These things are rich in vitamin C, which will make you cry. He came here to find ingredients for the new menu at Loxus Native Food Lab. This is one of the most popular restaurants in northern Thailand and requires a reservation of months in advance to get a place. His approach to cooking combines unique local eating habits with cooking techniques learned around the world. "People don't really understand the flavor of northern food, but the traditional food here is generally salty and bitter. It hasn't changed much over the last 100 years, and I want to incorporate this traditional food flavor into modern cooking, protect it, and let people know it does exist. ”
That night, 12 of us sat around the main table in his restaurant. The restaurant was recently moved to a thatched-roof, earthen-walled cottage overlooking the rice fields of the Pa Sak Tong estate in the south of the city centre. Some guests fly over from Bangkok for one night to enjoy a meal. The monthly menu is like a history lesson for you, and the eight-course feast is like a chronicle of local cultural awakenings and northern food. These include tortillas filled with holly peas, small croquettes flavored with local Nam Prik Ong peppers, pork fillets cooked with rice water and curry cream, hard soup (Kaeng Kradang) and pork leg meat with traditional curry. Another dish required a chef to split a bamboo tube roasted over a charcoal fire, a cooking method I saw a few days ago at lunch in a hill tribe village. But unlike what I imagined, the bamboo tube was not pork, but Japanese chicken meatballs.
"I don't pay much attention to the taste of this dish." Chaiwon gkachon picked up a clay brick from the fire and said to us, "I'm more focused on the philosophy of northern Thai cooking. Whatever nature gives, we have to merge them. "There was local catfish rice with perilla in the clay bricks that night, which smelled like the rain in November. The next day will be different again. Chaiwongkachon told me: "These smells remind them of someone or an object in their memories, and maybe that's the power of food." "The thought of going back to the fast-paced life of Bangkok makes me a little reluctant. I remember William saying to one of his Hill tribe friends, "You have to be proud of what you have here, because you have so much." ”
Editor / Yang Jing
Written and photographed by Chris Schalkx
Typography / Frankie