Holy Hill Tribe!

I will be posting over the next several weeks some of my experiences while over in Thailand. When people asked about my vacation, I answered that it really wasn’t a vacation ~ it was an adventure. And that it was.

Part of the purpose of the trip was to buy Hill Tribe silver ~ direct. Some who follow my blog are jewelry designers as well, and we all know about Hill Tribe silver. It is 99.9% pure silver, where sterling silver is 92.5% silver with other alloys added for strength. This is a picture of some various Hill Tribe Beads.

Hill Tribe silver is produced by the Karen Hill Tribes just out of Chiang Mai, Thailand. We had the amazing opportunity of meeting with Niki Passenier, who graciously invited us to her home, fed us a lovely lunch, and we shopped through her silver stock. She deals directly with the people of the Karen Hill Tribes. Her silver is so beautiful and unique.

We also went to several retail shops in Chiang Mai and purchased some beautiful silver. This is Marika and I at one of the shops. All of those clear plastic boxes in the background are boxes of Hill Tribe silver beads. Cue the Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire song …. “Heaven, I’m in heaven. And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak….”