Travel is one of the most amazing gifts we can give ourselves. To travel is to experience the world for ourselves, see and be seen and also learn from everything around us. Travel feeds the soul. And when we hear travel experiences from others who crave adventure, off-the-beaten path experiences we cannot help but share with our CulturallyOurs audience. Today we travel virtually to Santikhiri (formally known as Mae Salong) a region in Northern Thailand that is famous for its tea plantations. Culturally very different from the rest of Thailand, this area still has deep Chinese roots as evident in the food, language and lifestyle of its people.

Maya Hunneybell, a travel writer and photographer, shares her experiences exploring this quiet town – from slipping lots of tea to wandering the streets.From Maya,

I lay on my little bed on the sleeper train, hurtling across the Thai countryside, peering out of my window with barely contained excitement. It was 5am, the sun had just begun to appear over the horizon, and the rolling mountains and lush green rice fields whizzing by felt like something out of a dream. I couldn’t wait to hop off the train in Chiang Mai and begin exploring the green vastness that had been zooming past me for the last few hours. Unfortunately, to my dismay, I was met by a completely different scene when I finally arrived in Chiang Mai after 12 hours of train travel. Instead of luscious green rice fields, I found endless shops and tour groups offering elephant rides. A few days passed. I’d exhausted exploring the temples and markets of Chiang Mai, and so I decided I needed to find somewhere that resembled the view I had been glued to out of the train window. After many hours spent Googling locations, I settled on a mountainous town much further north called Santikhiri (formerly Mae Salong). The next couple days were spent on coaches and rickety songthaews that slowly wound further north and further up into the mountains. Eventually I reached Santikihiri, a little town a few hours north from Chiang Rai, set way up in the mountains along the Thai-Burmese border. Once known for growing opium poppies, Santikihiri is now famous for predominantly growing tea, and its’ vast tea plantations are what draws most tourists to this little mountainous village today. The tea plantations which litter all the mountainsides, alongside the place’s Chinese influence, is certainly what drew me here. The town’s Chinese heritage is owed to a number of Yunnanese soldiers who refused surrender during the Chinese Civil War and were eventually granted asylum in Santikihiri. The result of their influence is still visible today: much of the food is more traditionally Chinese than Thai, the main language being spoken there still is Yunnanese, and many of the signs are written in this as well and Thai and English. You can sense as soon as you arrive that this town has quite a different feel to it than most other tourist spots in Thailand. While there are number of treks and tours to do from Mae Salong, one of my favorite activities to do was simply to walk the streets marvelling at the beautiful mist covered mountains and dining on the local Yunnanese cuisine. As you walk around you’ll notice thousands of tea leaves drying on the ground, beautiful Chinese inspired architecture and people working on the plantations, picking the leaves and placing them into the wooden baskets strapped to their backs. Many of the women who pick the leaves belong to the Akha hill tribe, who are the most populous of hill tribes in the area, although there are many.If you are interested in the craftwork of the Akha tribe, it is possible to buy their handmade textiles at the local market each morning. I chose to visit one of the more popular tea plantations, 101 Teas, where you are able to go out into the fields and pick the tea yourself, and try all of the different types that they grow. However, if you don’t necessarily fancy picking the leaves yourself, tea shops are very easy to find, where you can try the most popular drink of the area – Oolong tea. As I visited during monsoon season, much of my time here was spent cowering in tea shops, sipping on the hot liquid, and listening to the sound of the rain pounding down on the mountains. There is not a wealth of activities to do in Mae Salong, and the feel of the place is one of calm and relaxation. Those looking for a more active, fast paced place may wish to avoid the mountain town. But those who enjoy taking things slow, marvelling at nature, and wish to experience some Chinese culture without crossing any borders, are guaranteed to fall in love with the misty and green Santikihiri.

Thank you Maya. It is always amazing to explore and experience a part of the world that is unique and different from what we expect it to be. We love a good cup of tea and will be putting this Chinese influenced town of Santikhiri in Northern Thailand on our list of places to explore for sure.

What about you? Have you been to Santikhiri or other towns in Northern Thailand?

{Words and photos by Maya Hunneybell, Website: MayasMap, Instagram: @mayasmap}

Travel Log To Shantikhiri In Northern Thailand

 

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