Hello Members,
Some exciting news. In a few weeks I will walk from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai. Hopefully I'll make it. It will be tiring, for sure, but I'm confident I can make it fairly easily. After this I'll take a break and then a month later, I'm heading to Vietnam. I have been wanting to go back to Vietnam for quite some time and this time, I'll be going out in the villages in search of some of the lesser known tribes and cultures. The Cham is one of these ethnic groups - they actually speak a version of Thai and consider themselves Thai.
The above video is an excerpt of a conversation I had with Bob Climier, a retired linguist who now spends all his time researching the various tribes scattered throughout Southeast Asia. I intend to go to the areas where these groups live to get a glimpse of what their lives are like and how they differ from the Vietnamese, Khmer and Thai lifestyles.
Should be interesting - although I know relatively little about these groups, Bob has helped me quite a bit and will continue to do so. Stay tuned, my guess it will be hot, messy, weird and enlightening.
Scott
