The “secret” of the “giraffe” women travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

Most people have heard of the Padaung hill tribe from television documentaries, magazines and travel books as the giraffe women hill tribe of Thailand. In the border mountains between Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand live the Kayan, known also as Padaung people. The giraffe women as they are often called, wear heavy copper coils around their necks, which push their faces up and make their necks look long and elegant. The “secret” of the “giraffe” women is that the clavicle and the ribs descend 45 degrees down from their normal position. The maximum weight of a coil is of 5 kg. This ancient tradition has unknown roots. The coils may have made Kayan women unattractive to slave trade. They claim to be descendants of the ancient long-necked dragon and women traditionally wore coils as a protection from wild animals. The coils also became symbols of wealth and status and were worn as jewels.

The first coil (weighing about one kg) is usually worn when the girl is five or six years old. Some girls are coiled at the age of two. The second coil is added when the girl is about eight years old and the third is put when she reaches the age of 12. Year after year, new rings are added, until by the time of mirage, their necks are 25 centimeters long. Once fastened, the rings are for life, to remove the full coil of brass would cause the collapse or even fracture of the woman’s neck. Girls who have stronger necks wear more than four coils (weighing about 5 kg) by the time they are 15. But most girls start showing signs of damage to the neck in their teens. The neck muscles weaken and are unable to support the weight of the head. This makes the girls even more dependent on the coils. In the past, removal of the brass rings was a punishment for adultery. The punishment was, that since the neck muscles had severely weakened, by years of not supporting the neck, the woman must spend the rest of her life, holding her head with both hands or lying down.
It is a myth, that the brass rings have elongate the neck of the wearer. Any orthopedic surgeon will tell you that: lengthening the neck would lead to paralysis or even death.
The women are able to carry out a somewhat ordinary life: they can marry and have children, and they are able to weave, sew and do light work. Although these days, they spend most of their time, making money, by posing as circus freaks for the tourists visiting the hill tribes in Northern Thailand.
The origin of the ring-wearing ritual in the Padaung hill tribes remain unclear. Palong hill tribe mythology says that the mother of all Palong’s was half woman, half dragon, with a long, beautiful neck, and that their unique custom is a tribute to their mother-dragon.
Visitors to their villages are amazed by the neck rings worn by the women of the tribe. The neck rings of a woman are, in fact, a single brass coil placed around the neck. The length of the coil and the added weight presses the clavicle and the rib cage, resulting in the appearance of a very long neck. In fact, the neck does not elongate, this is impossible.
Nowadays, the small refugee village of the long necked Paduang hill tribe, is completely geared towards visitors and tourists and is seemingly on every tour agency’s day-trip list. The Long-necked Paduang have become the most popular tourist attraction of all the hill tribes in Thailand. Tourists pay boatmen about 500 Baht (US $1= Baht 42) to reach these villages, called camps, run by tour operators. Access to camps is from Huay Puu Kaeng, an area controlled by tour operators. Guides take tourists around camps where Padung women are on display. Each woman receives 500 Baht each month for wearing the coils all the time.

The Thailand Government is working very hard to keep these woman a touristic attraction but with civilization already knocking on their door, it is a good idea to visit them before like most of the other eccentrics cultures it gives itself up to Hamburger and Coke…..