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.

One of the things we had promised the kids we would do while we were in Thailand was to got to a safari park and ride the elephants.  While we did let them have a short ride on Jackie’s birthday in Ayutthaya, most of the feedback we found about safari parks was that the best ones were in the north around Chiang Mai – our trip yesterday proved our research to be right on the mark.

While we were wandering around the old city on our first day here, we ran into a tour operator on the grounds of one of the temples – at first we were a little apprehensive, fearing that we were going to get pressured by a typical tout trying to rope tourists in, but the lady (Riam) chatted with us for a few minutes and in addition to being very helpful, her services were priced quite a bit lower than the tour desks we had spoken to in our hotel and on the street.

It seems that her and her husband work independently from the big tour desks – he is the driver, and she is the guide – and they prefer to work with smaller private groups and families vs just selling X seats to fill the bus to go to a given location.  This seemed like a great fit for us and we signed up for a trip to an elephant park – they would provide transportation for the day and guide services for $500 Baht (about $15 USD) and we would buy our tickets for the safari direct from the park – turns out that we saved about $1000 Baht by doing this vs a standard tour operator.

Our tour takes us to the Maetang Elephant Park (some info about their animal friendly program can be found here), and the day’s program is for us to take a 1 hour elephant ride, and ox-cart ride, stop for a buffet lunch, and then a 1 hour bamboo river raft ride.  The tickets cost us $1000 Baht each (vs the $400 Baht we paid in Ayutthaya for 20 mins) so the day seems like a steal to us, and by the time we are done, it will be among the best $30 USD per person we have spent so far.

We begin with the elephant ride – the ‘trek’ takes us back and forth across the Maetang River a couple of times and up into the mountains and to the Lisu mountain tribe village.  We get the added bonus of a couple of baby elephants following us (and their momma’s I suspect) along the trail.  The trek itself is awesome, it is so peaceful going through the jungle, and the scenery is amazing.  We bring some bananas and sugar cane with us to feed the elephants along the way, and they clearly know who has food and where it is 🙂

Once we get to the Lisu village, we get off the elephants and they transfer us to an cart pulled by two oxen for the return trip to the camp.   The elephant drivers (mahout) return the elephants to the camp, and the ox carts plod along down a road to return the people back to their starting point.  To get us all into a single ox-cart Jackie got to sit up front with the driver – at one point he turned over the reins to her and she was driving us along down the road – clearly, the rules for driving an ox-cart in Thailand are a little laid back!

Once we get back to the camp we walk back down to the river to watch the mahout’s give their elephants a bath and a refreshing dip in the river, and then there is a short show with about 8 or 9 elephants to show some of the amazing skills that the elephants have learned.  One of the elephants has been trained to kick a soccer ball with striking accuracy, and can also flip the ball up with it’s trunk and then kick it in the air with either it’s front or hind leg – it seems like maybe the Ladybugs soccer team back home could use a few practice sessions with the elephant 😉

One of the elephants (named Suda) has been trained to paint pictures using her trunk – we have seen this before a places like the Calgary Zoo, but this is much more impressive – she paints an actual picture of an elephant and some flowers (all the ones we have seen before are really only a random bunch of brush strokes on a page).  At the end she signs her name on the picture and takes a bow.  Jackie asked specifically for a picture painted by an elephant for her birthday present, and was thrilled to be able to see the elephant paint the picture, and then was able to buy the actual picture painted that day!  (I have a video of the painting being made that I will post online somewhere once I get back to a high speed connection)

All the while our guide, Riam, is helping us to get the perfect spots to view some of the events, or arrange the purchase of the picture, etc. so with her great help the tour is going along fantastically.  Next it is off to lunch before taking the bamboo raft down river.  We were not expecting anything great from the buffet having sat through a couple before, but were pleasantly surprised when the buffet contained a large array of choices and they were all well prepared, including a couple of our favorites – spring rolls, and mango with sticky rice.  After a few visits to the serving table, we are done with lunch and off to the bamboo rafts.

The raft is exactly what it sounds like – about 20 bamboo poles strapped together to form a flat ‘raft’ – for us they place 3 wooden frames on top of the raft for seats and we are ready to go.  I am not completely certain they thought through the whole process of feeding people before getting on a raft, but the big lunch we just consumed surely helps to lower the raft a little lower in the water….  In the center, the raft seems like it is sinking – sitting about 1/2 inch below the surface of the water, but surprisingly the whole thing is quite stable, and aided by the 2 Thai ‘drivers’ the raft wanders it’s way down the Maetang River.

The raft journey is about 4 kilometers (a little under 2 miles) and while not quite as good as a massage, the experience is quite zen like.  The only sounds, other than the people on your raft talking, is pure nature at it’s finest, and it would be easy to just let the river carry you and your raft along for the entire day if it were possible.  Sadly, our crew and their raft must make their way back (the raft gets loaded on a truck for the return trip) so after our 4k we unload on the river bank where our smiling tour guide is waiting to pick us up.

On the way back towards Chiang Mai we decide to stop at a monkey school – the facility trains monkeys to pick coconuts as the monkeys are much more agile than a human picker, and can harvest the coconuts much faster by leaping from tree to tree vs the human alternative.  There is a little baby monkey here that the kids all get a picture taken with and a number of monkeys in the facility that you can go look at, and then they put on a short show to show off some of the skills they are being taught.  They say that it takes about 4 to 5 years to train the monkeys properly before they can go out and work the coconut farms.  The show was fun, and some of the monkeys and there tricks were quite cute, but it felt a little ‘touristy’ to me so while the kids enjoyed it, I would likely pass the next time around.

For the last stop on our trip we take a long windy road up the side of one of the mountains overlooking Chiang Mai city to see the Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep – this is likely the last temple we will see while here, but it is quite impressive, and has a phenomenal view of the city and the surrounding area.  The temple complex sits high above the road and can be reached by climbing the 309 steps to the top (or by a tram if you are real lazy) and we all ‘step-up’ to climb the stairway.  Once we get to the top the view is everything it is cracked up to be – it is too bad that it was a little hazy because the pictures do not do it the justice it deserves.  We also step into the temple itself to look at the Chedi and to get a blessing directly from one of the monks – we had not been blessed this way since the temple at Koh Samui, so a fresh blessing seems like a good thing 🙂

Our tour comes to an end with our return to the city.  Riam and here husband were great, and we had such a great tour that we have booked them again for another tour out to Chiang Rai a couple days from now.  We take an hour or so to unwind and then pop down for a massage 🙂 for the perfect end to a perfect day.

Something that we have experienced here that we did not see in the south is the markets.  The beach town in the south had all sorts of shops and little markets, and even variants of night markets where vendors set up shop in the streets to sell there trinkets or street food, but Chiang Mai seems to take this to a different level.  Here there is a daily Night Bazaar, a Saturday Market and a Sunday Market in addition to all of the various local markets.

I have no other way to describe these except as pure chaos – there are literally 1000s of vendors who stake out about 50 square feet (6-8 feet on each side) to display their wares for the passing mob of people.  For the Saturday and Sunday markets they close down the street the market is on to car traffic, while the Night Bazaar is lined up on the sides of the street but facing inwards across the sidewalks towards the store fronts.

The markets themselves go on for blocks and blocks – the Sunday Market boasts over 7 kilometers (about 3 miles) of shopping!!  To top it all off the place is totally packed with people, in some places the crowd is so thick that you move along at a pace that makes a turtle look like a sports car – and as I mentioned above this goes on for miles.

The females in my group seem to love this, but after about the first mile it is easy to draw some conclusions:

1. Tourists seem to buy the dumbest stuff – I understand the value of getting some souvenirs to remember your trip, or to give to friends back home, but much of this stuff to me looks like the leftovers from a bad re-gifting party.
2. There seems to be only about 10 manufacturers of market junk – with all the 100s of vendors at each of the markets there only seems to be about a dozen or so unique offerings, and all the rest are just competing with each other to offer the same thing, and it would appear that they all buy their inventory at the same central warehouse.
3. The market is no place for me 🙂 – after about an hour or so of plodding along with Mrs. Columbus and the girls and looking at the 97th booth of the same jewelry, I leave them to their shopping and return to the hotel.

I resolve to leave the shopping to the professionals, whom it seems to make some sort of sense to, and use those valuable hours to get some work done, and pamper my tired feet a little…

One of the many things that has jumped out at us here in Chiang Mai is the difference in prices between the north and the south where we came from.  All of Thailand has been hit by the same global slowdown that we hear so much about in the USA, but it is clear that some places here are more dependent on the world economy than others.

When we were in the south there were signs that things were a little slower than normal.  Even with this being the off season for tourist travel to Thailand, the beach resorts often mentioned to us that it was much slower than usual due to people’s fears about the Swine Flu and the economic slowdown.  This was most obvious to me when shopping for a massage as the price I was expecting to pay – about 300 Baht ($9 USD) – was reduced to about $200-$250 Baht ($6-$7 USD).  Imagine my surprise to get up north and find the cost of a massage to be in the $100-$120 Baht range!!! ($3-$4 USD) That is for a full hour of heavenly goodness!!!

We went to a shop the other night and lady who owned the shop was telling us that about 1/2 the shops that would normally be there have closed due to the slowdown in tourism.  The Rambutan, a popular fruit in SE Asia, normally sells for about $30B/kilogram, but the season is relatively short and because of the lack of people, the farmers are selling them for less than $10B/kilogram to try and get rid of them before they just become spoils.  I can’t even imagine the impact of having to lower my prices by 60% just to try and keep the lights on.

All these things are of course good for us, as the cost of accommodations, sightseeing, food, and local travel are all similarly reduced.  While I figured you could easily live quite well in Phuket for about $2500 USD / month (food, housing, etc.), I suspect you could do it here for around the $1500 USD/month mark – and that would be living the high life!  Anyway, it is great for us to see, and the locals are very happy to see us stop in their shops for goods or dinner.

We went looking at furniture today and saw some beautiful hand-carved goods.  Many of these pieces take several months for a carver to finish, and it is amazing to just watch them work.  We are still thinking about buying some items here and having them shipped to Seattle, and the trip today was very educational about what they can make here.  We clearly have some more thinking to do about what we are looking for.

It is off to Thai cooking school tomorrow – we are going to learn how to make some of the local dishes so that we can ‘attempt’ to reproduce some of them in our own kitchen in the future.