Princesses of the steps – innocent! – Ray Cannon's travel and photography blog

Hmong girls posing with a tourist in May 2017 on the steps of Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Anyone who has visited the beautiful temple – Wat Phra That Doi Suthep – on the mountain above Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, and has walked up the long flight of stairs rather than taken the funicular lift, will have seen the lovely little girls in Hill tribe costumes who sit on the bottom of the steps – and half way up – posing for photographs. They are dressed in traditional Hmong costumes.

There are over 300 steps up to the pagodas on Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

Over the years I have visited this temple a number of times and have pictures of what must be different generations of youngsters sitting on the steps, going back to 2005.

Hmong girls on the steps of Wat Phra That Doi Suthep in 2005

The girls don’t just dress up in these gorgeous costumes for fun, although they clearly enjoy interacting with tourists, they usually ask for payment. A few coins. Although, being so young they are not very aggressive in asking. Nevertheless, in my estimation they must accumulate a fair bit of money over the course of a few hours. I could be wrong, but I have the impression that they are little gold mines!

Hmong girls on steps of Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep Buddhist temple, Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai Province, Thailand. May 2017.

Nevertheless, I was very surprised to learn that two of the girls had been accused of stealing a tourist’s watch! (Links 1 and 2, below) A British tourist who had posed for a photograph with the girls, subsequently found that her watch was missing and accused them of stealing it. In the photograph, one little girl has her fingers next to the watch, but the evidence is circumstantial. The photograph and story went viral, and like millions of other people around the world I was left with the impression that this was the end of the story.

Golden umbrella on Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai Province, Chiang Mai, Thailand.

It was a good story! Innocent-faced little ‘treasures’ pocket a tourist’s watch! But it turns out that it was false (See Link 3) The tourist eventually found the watch, but by then the damage was done. There are still articles on the Web accusing the children of theft (4).

This is one little apocryphal story (definition: of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as being true) which thanks to the power of social media, reached millions of people around the world, and left most of them with the impression that it was true. Well maybe there are child pick-pockets, and perhaps I am naive, but my impression is that they were innocent. What it demonstrates however, is that once a story has ‘gone viral’ there is very little that can be done to change it, whatever the facts may be. This is why politicians – who could I mean?! – are prepared to lie and promote falsehoods; they know that if the story is juicy enough, or salacious, it will get picked up by social medias – which we all use – and shared or spread by us all. I suppose all we can do is to remain skeptical, cautious about things until proven beyond reasonable doubt; perhaps not believing everything we see or read and remaining open to alternative explanations!

Princesses of the steps – innocent!

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