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| Happy Lahu hill tribe children |
A message from our founder and director Mr Randy Gaudet who has taught
us sustainable tourism, helping Thais, Orphans, Hill Tribe Peoples and
the local Environment. We and our previous clients are truly grateful.
All Thailand Experiences staff.
Join us in helping those in need.
There are hundreds of tour operators in Thailand and most take their clients to
the same areas and places. Most of these areas have more tourists than Thai
people so there is no cultural experience to speak of. We won't do that to our
clients. We want them to enjoy a wonderful experience they will remember for
a lifetime.
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| Visiting an Akha hill tribe village |
We specialize in quality and service with as much interaction with nature and
culture as possible.We
started our company in 1990. I have been living in
Thailand since 1989. I have traveled extensively throughout the Kingdom and
wanted to share my wonderful experiences of Thailand with others. I talked with
many travelers here in Thailand and saw a need to take visitors away from the
normal tourist areas filled with large tour buses and groups. The biggest complaint
I heard from visitors is "there is no real Thai culture". "Everything is staged for
the tourists". This is because they keep following each other around using their
guide books.
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| Our local birding guide with clients |
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It took about 2 years of research to find the areas that were safe and could
handle visitors. I spoke with village headmen, temple Monks, Hill Tribe villagers,
National
Park officials and local bird experts. I then had to train a staff that would
take care of our clients with excellent service and provide correct information
about Thai and
hilltribe culture, Thai food, Buddhism, birds of Thailand, etc.
All our guides are registered with the Tourism Authority but that is not enough.
Our training program is by far the best in the Kingdom. They must not only study
the subjects but also go to each area, town or village and learn first hand about the
people their culture, birds and animals of the region along with any festival or event
and when it takes place.
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| Elephant BoonMee with our volunteer |
We also like to help animal organizations such as
Friends of the Asian Elephant Hospital Foundation in Lampang. Many of our clients enjoy visiting these gentle
giants for the day rather than riding elephants.
Some even spend 2 or 3 days volunteering at the elephant hospital with free accommodations.
What we all enjoy is when our clients finish their tour they tell us
"It was one of
the best holidays we ever had and thank you so much, we will surely recommend
your services to others". Our main and only goal is to provide a great experience our clients could not
enjoy with any other guide or tour operator. From the comments in our
"Guest Book"
at our web site, email from previous clients and the large number of referrals we are
meeting our goal.
To us conservation is more than the natural environment. We take many clients to
very cultural sensitive hill tribe villages. This is a very difficult balance of very different
cultures but can be maintained. We follow
4 basic rules to maintain harmony in the villages and help the environment.
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| Young boy at the Bamboo school house we built in a Lahu village |
I lived in a remote area of north Thailand at Wat Thaton temple in the town of
Thaton
on the Myanmar border for more than 3 years. I taught English to Monks, novices, high
school students, the Thai Army, local and tourist police. I also did hill tribe programs by
taking a small number of tourists
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| Wat Thaton Temple |
to hill tribe villages to spend the evening. All the money
for the trek went to the villagers. I bought clothes for the children, medicines and blankets
for the families. I paid the villagers to build a bamboo schoolhouse and paid a teacher
to teach Thai at the school who could speak their language. I taught them how to dispose
of waste properly, keep the children and village clean and to use spoons instead of their
fingers when eating which was a big source of their health problems. I provided seeds
and Logan and lychee fruit trees for planting.
This was fine until I left the temple then the school stopped and the health problems returned.
I talked with the Abbot of the temple and he now has a school for the children at the temple.
He has a nurse looking after the children and takes those to the clinics that have problems.
While I was there I help start a guest home where travelers could stay in a Lisu hill tribe village
and go
trekking in the jungle and
visit primitive hill tribe villages in the area.
This was not easy, as the villages we visited didn't want visitors as
they wanted to maintain their lifestyle and culture. They have seen
other villages who accept tourist turn into a village without harmony
and lost their
culture. These villagers were farmers and didn't want to look at tourism
as a source of income.
I understood the problem as I have seen what a tour operator can do to a village. To them money is
first and they don't care about the hill tribe people or their way of life.
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| Children in early morning in a Lahu village |
I stayed in these villages and met with the village headmen many times. I learned about their culture,
way of life, religion, and do's and don'ts. We then came up with a plan that worked out well for the
villagers and our clients.
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| Lunch in a Lisu hill tribe village |
We can only stay in a village 1 night per week and no more than 6 persons. There are 35 villages in
this area so we always have a village to take our clients. Nothing is allowed to
be given to a villager directly by the visitor. It must be given to the guide who then gives it to the villager.
No candy for the children and no photographs without
permission. No money is allowed to be given for a photograph. The guide must be from the local area
and must also be hill tribe and speak the language of the village.
I then trained 3 hill tribe men from the local area who speak English to be our guides. None of these men
drink or smoke and their families are very well respected by all the villages.
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| "Uncle Dum" Our local Karen hill tribe guide with family |
For the Jungle portion of the trek I had to teach the guides to use a different trails so it could grow back.
They make a hut out of bamboo and banana leaves for sleeping and I taught them not to clear cut and
not to return to an area for at least two months. No more hunting of birds or wild animals.
Without the local culture we would not be able to give our clients the experience they are looking for.
We also encourage our clients in helping the local people we visit.
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| Dinner while camping in the jungle with our local hill tribe guides |
Most of our clients want to help the poor villagers that they visit. We take them to a market here
in Chiangmai to buy shirts and pants for the children before we visit. Shirts or pants can be purchased
for a little as $1 USD, blankets for about $3 USD. We have had groups including
one from Singapore who stayed at 3 different hill tribe villages. They brought medicines, blankets and
clothes. They repaired playground equipment and repainted the school.
Our company buys clothes and blankets every year when cold season arrives to
give to needy villagers. We also help orphan and abandoned children in 3
different childrens homes here in north Thailand.
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| Shoes for poor children |
We have trained and employed
hill tribe people and families to be guides for us and host our clients.
We helped Asa, a Lisu Hill Tribe man who has the guest home, get started and
now has a very successful business. He handles all our treks for us along
with other guides and porters he has hired. He used to get
only 50 baht per day per group and now gets more than 1800 baht per person
for taking our clients. We have a loving relationship with all the people that
work with us and those we visit. To us they are family
and our clients notice this and is mentioned often.
There are certain places we will not take our clients to visit. The main one being to see the Paduang Long Neck Karen. This is one of the worst forms of tourism in Thailand. Any tour operator who does this tour has
no consideration for the culture or the Karen People. Here is the real story.
The original custom is that only a girl born on a Wednesday during a
full moon could where the rings around her neck. Now because of the
large number of tourists visiting these villages all the girls are
wearing the rings as it is big money. A Photograph of 1 girls is as much
as 500 baht.Not only that but the villagers are kept in a
compound surrounded by high walls so no one can see in. They are not
allowed out of the camp so everyone
just sits around waiting for the tourists. It costs at least 250 baht to
get into the village which most goes to the
tour operator. Villagers have died in these compounds. These people
deserve more than this.
Here is a short article from the english Nation newspaper in Bangkok on the seriousness of the problem.
MAE HONG SON, THAILAND - A provincial court in Mae Hong Son yesterday opened the trial of two Thai men on charges
relating to the detention and death of a long necked ethnic Padaung women, who, along with over 30 others of
the same ethnicity ,was trafficked into Thailand from Burma two years ago.
Paduang- commonly known here as the long-necked hill people because the women normally wear brass
necklaces,the number of which increases over the years-has been a strong tourist attraction in Mae Hong Son.
The group of detained Padaung had been lured and trafficked from their home village in northeastern Burma
into Thailand by a Thai Karen agent, who had pledged to take them to visit their relatives in Mae Hong Son.
According to the rescued Padaung, the woman, a mother of two, died in mid-1997 of exhaustion and
heartbreak as she had been long separated from her children who remained in Burma.
Please boycott any agency that wants to take you to see the Paduang Long Neck Karen.
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| Randy Gaudet introducing the village teacher to our guides |
Since we do only private custom excursions we want to know the needs of our clients. They contact us using the
custom excursion form found on all oout tour and trekking pages. We then email back to
them what we will and will not do for them. Most of our clients know only what they read from agent brochures
about what to do in Thailand and these tours might not be the best for them. We
explain to them that we do
not go to these places and why.
We send several email messages back and forth asking and answering questions before an itinerary is approved.
We then do many follow up email messages about what they will experience, cultural do's and don'ts, and answer
any question they may have. By the time they arrive they have an excellent knowledge of all aspects of their
journey with us.
Many of our clients are families and have special needs. We ask many questions about the children
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| Planting trees near the hill tribe village |
such as
favorite foods and their interests as we want them to enjoy their holiday also. We want to know if anyone in
the group is having a birthday or anniversary while they are with us so that we can make their day special.
Once our clients arrive we are on call 24 hours a day for them. They can telephone us anytime about any
questions they may have. From the time they arrive at the airport to the time of departure back to their
home we are there for them.
After they return home most of our clients stay in contact with us. Not only do they thank us for a wonderful
time but they ask about the people they made friends with while with us. I am happy to say we have made
many good friends from all over the world with those who have been with us.
I have talked with other tour operators and the Tourism Authority of Thailand about being responsible in
maintaining hill tribe culture. No one seams to care, as money is the bottom line. Exploitation of the
hill tribe people and their way of life are common here. I have been able to give lectures at guide classes
for the TAT. I try to teach them about being responsible for maintaining the hill tribe culture.
After all it is the guides who are in contact with the villagers and clients not the tour operators.
Written by Randy Gaudet
Founder/Director
All Thailand Experiences
