3 days in Chiang Rai.
On our way from Chiang Mai to Laos we
decided to spend a few days in Chiang Rai as well. Mostly as it was on our way.
Most of the travel blogs wrote more about Chiang Mai then about Chiang Rai. While
Chiang Mai is a great place indeed, it is also big and attracts a lot of
crowds. Not so many that you couldn’t enjoy it, but still more. In the end we ended
up liking our stay in Chiang Rai and having a couple of bests: best guided
tour, best budget accommodation yet and the best Pad Thai. It is a smaller town
but there are still plenty of guesthouses, restaurants, laundries, guided tours
of countryside, and things to see and do. Most of all, Chiang Rai feels quite
genuine and welcoming. There is tourism but Chiang Rai is far from spoilt by
it.
On the first day when we arrived we received a lot of
information about what to see and do in the town from the informative receptionist
at Rinlada House where we stayed.
Rinlada house was a lovely, apparently family
ran establishment with friendly and smiling staff, clean rooms and strong WiFi.
As they told us - it just happened that a Flower Festival was taking place in
one of the gardens in the town.
We decided to first walk around town, grab something to eat
and then visit the Flower Festival.
We looked a bit at and around the main street, we’ve seen
some interesting inn’s and a few massage parlours which looked as if they
offered a bit more than just a massage and we agreed that our choice of Rinlada house was
great. We then started to look for a good place to eat. As we were walking
towards a temple – Wat Jed Yod - we spotted a Pad Thai,
Fried Rice and Omelette sign. Through some handbags we walked in to a hippie decorated place. And the food smelled good. So we ordered ourselves some Pad Thai and fried rice – Pad Thai ended up being the
best one we had. Very tasty and you could feel all the ingredients in it. Nice
thing was that it would be served at a condiment bar where you could finish it
with salads, peanuts and spices and sauces to your own liking. Walking out, we realised this is a Tatoo shop! Yep, this tattoo shop served food and sold handbags and other things. Back to the festival.
Thai people are incredibly good at organizing festivals!
We’ve already experienced the River Festival in Bangkok, and now we had a
chance to see the Flower Festival in Chiang Rai. Entry was free, the whole area
was manicured. We could make photos at some special heart shaped decorations.
Afterwards it was really great to walk through all the flower made creations
along with a few made of other materials. We have seen that a stage has been
set for music events. On that night there wasn’t any but it seemed that there
would be a band playing tomorrow night.
Next to the Flower Festival there was also a temporary food
market set. Memories of the same from the River Festival and our introduction
to Thai Street Food came back. As I said, Thai people are great at throwing
events like these. Sites always seem well prepared, there is always plenty of
police and other people making sure everything goes smoothly. And there are
food stalls! The usual array of curries, omnipresent grill sticks and banana
rotis were all awaiting for us.
We tried only a bit as we wanted to leave some
room for the goodies from the Night Bazaar. A kind of a tourist institution in
Chiang Rai. So we headed off there – touristy as it may be, with prices
somewhat higher than local though still low, it was still not bad to see and
taste. Interesting Hill Tribes clothes were there for sale as well.
Crowd wasn’t too big, there was even a kebab for change and we got to
taste a kind of a rice pastry pancake with molasses unique to that region.
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| This is the rice cake - well worth trying and something we've seen only in Chiang Rai. |
And
there was a stage with two performers singing with a guitar. Some old romantic
tunes were on and we thoroughly enjoyed.
As our time in Chiang Rai was limited, we decided to go for
a bigger guided tour of a big number of sites on our first full day there. It
feels more of a package tourism kind of thing and you maybe don’t get to spend
enough time on every site, but you get to see a lot in one day. With limited
time though it made all the sense in the world. We booked our tour through
Rinlada to support their business. Earlier in the day we also visited the stand
of the tour operator themselves – the Parn tour. If the wheely-dealy owner Parn
is in one can easily negotiate a discount based on booking on the spot. Don’t
be put off by his style – he is the owner of the agency and not a reseller.
Our first stop in the morning was an absolute must see – the
White Temple or What Rong Khun.
Half temple half art exhibition it was
privately funded and built by a visual artist named Chalermchai Kositpipat.
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| Sky made perfect companion to the White Temple on that day! |
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| Probably one of the images the White Temple is more famous for. |
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| Not all of White Temple is white. Plenty of gold bits there as well. |
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| I didn't do too much reading before the White Temple and it's good I didn't - the element of surprise was there when we got ambushed by this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in a Chinese Garden |
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| Did I mentione death is the theme at the White Temple? |
It
is a blend of traditional temple and modern art along with some, sometimes
quite provoking, sites of elements of modern mass culture – be it the Avatar
movie characters, Mutant Teenage Ninja Turtles or in-temple murals depicting
another mass thing - weapons of mass destruction. Particularly interesting were
parts of the murals showing high-tech warplanes to minute detail. Death and
destruction have obviously played a part in the art work. Funding started of as
a private venture. Donations for finalisation and continued work – there is
still room for a lot of details to be added – are accepted however they are
limited to small amounts to prevent meddling with the direction of work. Makes
sense. We were given generous time to look at the temple – an hour is quite
good on a rushed tour. Unfortunately, a large family of six people lagged
behind somewhat, buying coffee as it turned out later. Other people are what
can make a tour like this nicer or less nice. It could have been worse – this
family was merely continuously undisciplined with returning which in turn ended
up in the sunset viewpoint part getting postponed till, well, past the sunset
time.
Enough moaning - the rest of the tour – next stop was the
Blue Temple. Another less usual temple, though a far cry from artistic
expressions of the White Temple. Interesting to see as it is not that far away.
Further on we visited the Black House. Yep, White Temple, Blue Temple, Black
House. Black house was the work of and, in the final years of his life, the
residence of Thawan Duchanee. Another remarkable Thai artist. It is quite a
bizarre place – dark and full of images akin to a horror movie. Skulls of dead
animals, horns, bear and wolf skins. This may impress some and may be less
enjoyable for others. Still, one of the interesting parts of the tour. Next
stop we decided to skip – the long neck Karen visiting. An Israeli couple who was
on the tour van with us and chose to still go told us it was in fact a tourist
trap. There is a sad long neck woman who sits and is weaving something and then
you’re off to the souvenir shop and that’s it. So, a good call.
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| Blue Temple was, well, BLUE! Interesting to see, kind of like a White Temple's cousin from the countryside. |
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| Crocodyle skin and some horns in the Black House |
Next stop was a tea plantation and sampling – nice tea and
an interesting little pavilion. Definitely worth skipping if you’re doing this
on your own and have visited a tea plantation ever before. Still the views were
nice and the tea was good. And if you’ve never visited a tea plantation then it
is good to go while here. One interesting fact is that the plantations around
this area are a result of a government program to introduce so called
substitution crops. Former opium planters were incentivized to grow tea and
other crops to displace opium. It worked. Farmers were not earning that much
from opium, even though it has been their cash crop.
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| Tea plantations are nice and chill places. They all look similar however and it totally depends on the time you have on your trip, whether you've seen them before or not and how close are they whether you should visit. And they all have shops that sell - TEA! |
After the fairly good buffet lunch we visited a monkey
temple! Wat Tam Phra. It is a big complex, featuring a cave, some more bizarre
art and – loads of monkeys roaming freely around. Best part of it for us was the cave which was really impressive. The cave did took a long climb up and at some narrow passages it gaves a chance to face the monkeys closer and to have a bit of a stand off with them - nothing too dangerous, as long as you're cautious.
There are sticks handed out
here and they are needed. We were also advised NOT to bring any food in hand.
Monkeys may turn aggressive and they may bite. Bites may mean rabies. Getting shots
against rabies is not fun. Even if you had shots before, as we did, you will
need one extra shot if bitten – this means spending significant time in the
nearest hospital queuing up to get your shot. Luckily, if you are wise about
the monkeys, don’t get too close and carry sticks to send them away in narrow
passages then you should be OK. And it’s fun to see them around, especially when
they are carrying their babies.
Next stop on the tour were the Myanmar border and the golden
triangle. And you do actually cross onto Myanmar soil. You just don’t cross the
border at the official crossing across the river but step onto a small piece of
Myanmar on the Thai side of the river. There are some interesting stories and
temple to see and the feeling of the border trade post is present. You may also
observe the border crossing from the view point. If there is no long queue you
might just see some vehicles changing the side of the traffic. Thailand is left
hand drive while Myanmar is right hand drive. On the way back we spotted some
right hand drive cars with Myanmar license plates. Our guide, actually Parn the
company owner himself – told us that this is due to the fact that the switch
over to right hand side driving in Myanmar was recent. Well, an interesting
article that I dug out states that this switch happened on December 7th
1970. Recent is a relative word it seems. The reason for many right hand drive
cars seem to be the cheap Japanese “pre-loved” imports. It was difficult to stop that tradition ever since 1970. Even in less democratic countries the regimes are on the lookout not to do anything that might irritate the common man. And there is even much more at stake then in a democracy - you don't just lose ellections, most dictators die during the democratic revolution or the more frequent process of their replacement with another dictator.
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| Monkey mom and her child. |
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| If monkeys could whistle this one would probably be whistling "The dock of the bay" tune. |
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| A selfie with Myanmar in the background. |
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| A Thai Scorpion. Facing Myanmar. Two countries had a history of conflicts, though relations now seem good. |
After the border - of we were to another border – the golden
triangle border between Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. It is actual quite nice
scenery and a nice belvedere. Worth dropping by if you’re headed to the Opium
House – museum which tells a very informative story and is well worth a visit.
The museum is open until 7 and there is a Mekong sunset view nearby as well and
another temple in walking distance. Tour guide made a decision to have a half
an hour stop in front of the Opium House, some 15 minutes before the sunset and
left it for us to decide how we split our time between the Opium House and the
temple. Yep, the Opium House would have been open for some hour and a half more
so going to view the Mekong in the dark was a bit, well, you know. I don’t want
to wine about it but it would have been so simple to reverse the order of
things with everything being so close.
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| Golden triangle is a very nice viewpoint not far away from the Opium House. |
Anyhow, the Opium House was a museum well worth visiting.
There is a lot of informative writing about what was going on in the sixties,
eighties and seventies. Stories of British Opium wars with China, CIA’s secret wars,
stories of warlords turned narco bosses, stories of how opium went from cure to
heroin precursor and how young hippies from the West were getting hooked on it
in South East Asia in the nineties. All stories were served alongside
interesting artefacts from the drug production and historic use of the drug.
Fascinating to me were the heroin ads before it got banned in the twenties.
Some looked like a commercial for a mint-based belly ache relief.
There was also a section dedicated to the Hill Tribes –
different ethnic groups, many coming from China, some from Burma, Vietnam and
Laos. They would usually come as refugees after their group was supporting the
losing side in a war. Some of these ethnic groups had states or proto-states
which got lost in the amalgamation of modern states or in the colonial era.
Thailand was a safe haven for many such groups through the centuries, though
not all were always instantly welcome as citizens with full rights. Some of the
most recent arrivals have even been repatriated – such as the Hmong refugees
from Laos in 2009. Some Hmong, who used to collaborate with CIA and USA during
the Seventies wars were kept in a kind of a legal and situational limbo until
the US agreed to take them in. There were no such requirements for the refugees
coming from China amid the birth of the People’s republic of China – many of
them forming the Hill Tribes. Such people would however stay in a different
kind of limbo – they had no citizenship of any country. In Thailand they could
live and not be prosecuted. Great in relative terms, compared to their faith if
they would have stayed in China. Not much in absolute terms. Without owning
land deed, they would practically be squatting. Without citizenship there would
be no passport for onward travel or even travel to a different province then
the one they would have been situated in. List goes on, no work permit to get a
job, government subsidy or a license to operate a business left people with
working for daily wages and living of their crop. On top of that they would
often be seen as the other and the different in the society. To stay fair to
Thailand though – it is a country that has been accepting refuges of different
cultures and religions centuries ago. After the fall of Champa state the Cham
Muslim communities were welcome to build their villages. Of course, the royal
family would state where they can build their settlements. But such where the
times everywhere. And other places did a worse job. It was around the same
times as the Jewish refugees escaping Spanish Inquisition were moving across
the Europe and the Ottoman Empire. To be further fair to Thailand – it did have
to cope with increasing waves of refugees during all the troubles the region
has seen. Third generation now does get citizenship, but it would have made
Thailand too attractive in the days where there were simply too many refugees
around. What is left are the Hill Tribes with more or less preserved traditions
and way of life. Those tourists interested in a more authentic experience would
have to go far and trek for a day or two and choose a homestay with the Hill
Tribes. For anyone less keen there is plenty to see as the traditional
lifestyles blend with the modern ones. Already the next day we got a chance to
experience something like that.
For the next day we decided to still take another tour with
Parntrek. This time a trekking one. Yep, we didn’t like some things about the
previous tour, but it was late and as we complained about the delay we could
get a discount from Parn for the next day tour. Not quite sure if that is not a
discount we would be able to negotiate nevertheless.
A good decision. It turned out to be the best guided tour of
the first half of our trip. I’m writing this midway through the trip so I might
change this later on. Most of it, of course is due to the guide. Our guide Ayou
was the best.
First of all he made sure pace was good for all
participants. Ayou knew the route very well. Him and Joy, his apprentice,
cooked nice lunch for us using bamboo to cook it in. Not just grill but nice
Tom Kha as well. It was a also a good walk with great views. Also good is that
it was a real trekk with enough challenge. Tour ended in a different place and
a car was waiting for us. Then in the end we went to a nice little hot spring
which had a pool which we had all to ourselves. We even received hand made
gifts made for us during walk from bamboo. Company was good as well – two
guides for the two of us plus two girls who joined the tour with us. A British
girl who had a job with a London based charity and an Equadorian girl who was
working at a university at home and who also ran an NGO. Both were pleasant
company. On top of humans there were also two dogs who joined us for the tour.
They belonged to the restaurant from which we started the tour from. It was
nice to have them around and on the photos. As said earlier Ayou was who made
the day. Not just the trekking, cooking and bamboo cutting. Ayou spoke very
good English – he learned some basics at school and then had a chance to master
it young as he had a chance to spend some time volunteering in Cambodia
alongside some Scottish youths. Yep, Scottish people, English language. No,
Ayou did not speak with a Scottish accent – he did mention that it was a tough
way to learn though. As a tour guide Ayou could also experience many different
people from different countries. Most importantly Ayou cared to tell his story.
Ayou is an Akha and he took us through different Akha villages. Akhas are one
of the Hill Tribes in Northern Thailand.
Some of the villages were more developed, some less
developed. Ayou talked about the differences between the villages – some used
wooden stilts to build their houses on, some had concrete already. Some were
benefiting from programmes to improve hygiene and bring water from further
wells. Some had to make do with toilets close to water sources. Some relied on
motorbikes alone, some had cars and roads. Ayou’s own village was closer to
Chiang Rai and gave him a better education, a chance to spend some time in
Cambodia and Bangkok and a chance to thus work as a tour guide. Ayou could do
all of this as he was one of the people with citizenship. Akha’s came long time
ago.
One could feel a lot of passion coming out of Ayou. Sometimes
about the relationship of the Thai to foreigners and sometimes about how the
rest of Thai population views hilltribes members, especially through media.
After a good hike, nice views, good conversation and an
excellent lunch we even got a chance to wind down in hot springs spa. Although
smaller, this spa felt better then the bigger Sankampaeng Hot Springs near
Chiang Mai. Perhaps because both are basic and I did have expectations from
Sankampaeng and not from this place. In any case, timing was great. Half an
hour in hot water after a day out trekking was just perfect.
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