(FYI, I know this review will say I'm friends with one of the owners, Mel. I became FB friends with her AFTER the tour)
If you want to get out of the cities and get a cultural experience, this is the trip for you. Our guides Pat and Mel (the couple who own the company) are very friendly and knowledgable. Each day we had a bit of a chat about our options for the day and chose what we'd like to do. Pat is Shan and has grown up between Chiang Mai and this area - in fact you get to meet his mother on tour. He wanders around all the villages like he belongs there and will show you things you could never see for yourself....like wandering under a house to check out the rice mill dehusker things (don't know the proper name!) and going into families houses to meet them - including the twin babies of one of the other tour guides. It was nice to visit the villages and see the inner workings, rather than just looking from the outside. Pat is a bit unconventional (we saw lots of people taking photos of him in his hilltribe-fabric clothes, lol) and occasionally a little confusing, but he puts his heart and soul into the tours and it shows. He's really passionate about helping the locals have better lives, and about providing access for tourists without changing the local way of life.
I loved visiting the Long-Neck Karen village. I was unsure if we should do this due to the controversy surrounding it, but this was a very local feeling village. Not very touristy at all. I think some of the others could be quite bad. We had a local tour guide, who used to wear the neck ring but removed it 3 years ago after she started going to a school (university?) in another village. We got to wander around the whole village and ask as many questions as we liked. We even visited a nursery school and observed the children for a while.
The girls are not forced to wear the rings anymore and can take them off if they like. The village had a very nice feel to it, I'm pleased we went :)
Another highlight was our hilltribe homestay. What a beautiful family and nice, clean house. it was so much fun helping prepare the meal with them and all sitting together to eat. They all know some English so we could have some basic conversation. The food was delicious too! The next morning when I woke up, I went outside and was greeted by a pig! Pretty cute, and we soon discovered there were pigs everywhere in the village, including lots of piglets!
Something else we did that was pretty cool was going to another village and riding a buffalo. We just rode it through the streets of the village, and all the locals came out and smiled and laughed at us. They probably thought we're pretty crazy!
We ate lots of good, local food which, being a big foodie, I really loved.
We saw some people self-driving through the area, and I felt bad for them, knowing they would not be getting the inside look that we were.
My only negative is that the beds were all pretty hard and although there was technically hot water sometimes this was not the best. - but we found this pretty much everywhere in Thailand, so it's not a specific issue about the tour. But if you're not happy to put up with that for some awesome experiences, stay in your 5 star resort I guess!
If you were short on time, I would suggest getting yourself to Mae Sariang and doing the Authentic Hilltribe tour.
