At the end of the harvest of the wet-season rice crop, the northern hill-tribe people enjoy making a celebration. Perhaps the biggest is held where a beautiful natural amphitheater at Ban Huai Mae Kham by LaLichi Waterfall at the tip of Chiang Rai Province's furthest flung cul-de-sac peninsula, which juts into Shan State, Myanmar. Admission for tourists to the festival was 30 baht.

Early in the afternoon, Saturday Nov 16, gloriously dressed representatives of a variety of tribal peoples offered a photo-op for tourists. While a Shan percussion band played, Red and Black Musur, several varieties of Lisau and Akha, Hmong, a few varieties of Western Chinese and Shan/Tai Yai performers posed in a big cut-grass yard surrounded by multitudes of golden-flowering trees.

It's about a 3 hour trip from the provincial capitol, going west just north of Mae Jaan past Mae Salong Neigh, Ban Sam Yaak and Thoed Thai (Hin Taek). After a left turn in Hin Taek, the road becomes pretty rough in several places, and towards the end becomes only dirt. But most cars and motorcycles can do it (well, maybe not in the rainy season!). At the end of the road, the crests of the surrounding mountains form the border with Shan State. It's a border tribal peoples are known to cross frequently.

After the photo-op, the performers danced, but not until the audience had endured a long wait (while dancers in multi-layered silk stood in the hot sun) listening to an announcer repeat himself until a chubby big-wig finally huffed his way into the natural amphitheater. The only English or Roman characteristics used at all were on hand-made signs posted every kilometer after Ban Sam Yaak, the festival name atop a brochure and on the hand-produced tickets.

Dancing included bird-like figures (Kinaree and Kinarah) and deer-costumes containing two people, both of these from the Shan people. The introductions could have been clearer about the ethnicity of the people's involved, but it was all a visual fest well worth the trip, and quite an education in local tribal variety.