After taking a day off to relax and get a massage, our next adventure has us going north to Chiang Rai.
Chiang Rai is in the next mountain valley east of where we currently are and is about 250km away. The roads here are not quite the same as back home, so this amounts to about a 3+ hour drive by car, so we are getting up at O-dark hundred hours (6am) so that we can still get some sightseeing done and not just spend the day in the van. We set the tour up with our friend Riam from the Elephant trip and her and her husband pick us up in the morning and off we go.
Our first stop is about an hour or so outside of Chiang Mai at a natural hot spring – this must be a frequent stop for tours going through because in addition to the hot springs, there is a collection of shops for tourists to buy things and a few small spots to get something to eat. The water from the hot springs bubbles up in a few different pools and then also jets upward from one pool in sort of a small geyser. There is a pool where they say you can soak your feet, but the water is soooo hot that I cannot see how anyone could keep their feet in there for more than a few seconds. In fact at one of the pools there is a Thai lady with a basket of chicken eggs, and for a few baht she will cook one for you in the pool – she says it takes about 5 mins to cook in that water. Of course even if you could find a pool that hot in the USA, you could never serve cooked eggs from it without permission from the FDA, a certificate from the local health department, and a food service permit.
From there it is back into the van and a few hours to our next stop – just outside of Chiang Rai we stop at a temple. Again I am thinking that once you have seen one temple you have seen them all, but once again I am surprised to see something completely different. This temple (Wat Rong Khun) was built to commemorate the King’s 60th brithday, and is completely white in color. The entire temple is made out of bricks and mortar, and everything in the complex was built by hand. They have spent the last 20 years adding new structures and the work is on-going, perhaps to celebrate the kings 85th birthday or something. Our guide tells us that this is the only temple in Thailand that is completely white like this, and that it holds a world record for the largest, most intricate hand made structure.
Just outside of Chiang Rai is an area that historically has been called the Golden Triangle – this referred to the opium drug trade that used to funnel large amounts of opium from Northern Thailand, Laos and Burma into Europe and North America. The area now is more commonly used by the locals to refer to the spot in Northern Thailand where Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar (Burma) all connect – in theory you could stand in one spot and be in all 3 places at the same time. In reality that particular spot is in the middle of the Mekong River, but part of our excursion includes a trip by boat up the river and to the junction of the 3 countries. We journey up the river a little way along the Burma side (we are not allowed to stop and land in Burma) and then cross over to Laos and down to a small market on the Laos side where we are able to get out and shop for half an hour or so. The ‘entry’ into Laos does not seem as restrictive, as we merely give some guy 20 baht per person and walk on in. The boat takes us back to the Thai side, and it is back into the van to journey onwards.
Not far from the river there is a museum that provides some background about the opium trade and the history of the area, but we don’t stop here as we are pressed for time a bit, and have to decide between the opium museum and stopping to see the hill tribes later in the day – Mrs. Columbus wants to see the hill peoples, so we move onwards.
We head farther north to a city called Mae Sai – it borders onto a city in Myanmar called Tachileik, sort of like San Diego and Tijuana does. There is a river that runs through the center of the city and that forms the border here between the two countries. Just on the Thai side of the border there is a large maze of shops, and keen on finding a bargain we do our bit to support the locals. Fortunately for the shoppers in the group we have Riam on our side to help haggle with the vendors – she has clearly done this a number of times, and will not be talked into over-paying for something. After an hour or so in the market, and a quick late lunch, it is back on the road again to head for the hill tribes.
The hill tribes are sort of like refuges – they are not Thai citizens, and are nomadic peoples that have left Myanmar and Laos to find better spots to live. The Thai government allows them to stay ‘illegally’ in the country, but does not give them any of the protections it offers to the Thai people. Each of the hill tribes has it’s own customs and heritage and because they essentially live outside ot the population, the heritage is old and reasonably preserved. In theory we are off to see a collection of villages where some of these people live and make their hand-crafted goods that they sell to the tourists to support the tribe. To call this authentic would be like slapping a Mickey Mouse shirt on me and calling me a Mousketeer – I think that most of the whole thing is very staged for the tourists, and for the first time since we got here, I feel a little ‘clipped’. They charge us 500 baht per person to wander around the village and put on a few simple ‘shows’ of music or dancing. However when I see one of the long-neck ladies talking on a cell phone, it strikes me that these people are not too far removed from civilization. The ‘tour’ (which is basically a little kid leading us through the village) takes all of about 20 minutes, and I bemoan the fact that we paid 1/2 as much for this as we did for the entire afternoon of elephant trekking a couple of days ago. At any rate I guess we can cross it off our list, but I would certainly not recommend anyone wasting their time or money on one of these side trips.
From there is it back in the van for the long ride back to Chiang Mai. It is dark by the time we get back, and it was a long day for everyone. The hill tribes aside the trip was definitely well worth it, and once again our guide Riam and her husband made the trip so much better with all the extra help they gave us with talking to the locals, and knowing where to go and what was worth stopping for.