Chiang Rai - Brits on Tour

"This is definitely the place"

"Are you sure this is right Emma?" Theo asked for the fourth time as we marched out of the tiny bus terminal.
"Of course I'm sure Theo, why don't you trust me? The sign said Chiang Rai, the ticket office said Chiang Rai, the driver said Chiang Rai."
"Ok fine, then why didn't anyone else get off the bus?"
"Check the sign yourself if you don;t believe me," I shouted angrily. We stomped over to the bus station entrance and read the vast sign. "There see, Chiang Rai bus terminal....two, since when were there two?"
Later, when we were checked in to the guesthouse and cooling down in the bar side pool Theo fortunately seemed to find my slight error quite funny and so you'll be pleased to know that I still have a travelling companion. Although, I wasn't sure how overjoyed I was about that when he dived bombed into the pool and splattered water across me, the bar, the reception and a nice Australian lady enjoying a drink with her family.

Chiang Mai Lite

Chiang Rai ia a small practical town at the capital of Thailand's nothern most province. It lies directly in our way to the Laos border but is also a tourist draw due to the quality and diversity of the surrounding attractions. The morning market in Chiang Rai is much more geared towards the busy local than the hungry tourist. There is a whole maze of stalls in the vast covered area packed with clothes, household items and mysterious vegetables. The night market is more for the souvenier shopper, towards the other side of town it glitters with fairy lights and resonates with Thai pop music. Endless stalls of t-shirts surround a vast street food section with a mass of picnic tables at the centre.
The two wats here, Wat Phra Kaew and Wat Phra Singh are actually slightly smaller copies of the two in Chaing Mai and pretty yet unremarkable, although one did have an intriguing collection of turtles.
The only other thing to see in town was a vast gold clock tower. We trapsed down to see it before dinner as we had been promised that at certain times it did exciting things. So off we duitifully went and....nothing happened.

White Temple

Brits on Tour

All in all there's not a whole hell of a lot to do in Chiang Rai, which is why we decided to book a tour. It promised a lot of busing and a lsightly dubious buffet lunch but we hoped it would enable us to see all we wanted in the surrounding area.
With great anticiaption we awaited the arrival of our tour bus and we were surprised when a six seater 4x4 turned up driven by a super cool looking Thai man in a stylish shirt and shades. His name was Ken and he was to be our English speaking guide. Ken was awesome, at each place he would gather us together and in a soft voice tell us about the great beauty and history of the place we were looking at, never removing his shades. Then he'd go back to the car and smoke while we looked around. He also drove like a demon, which seems pretty standard in this country. He cut people up all over the place and beeped at everyone moving more slowly than him, including old ladies on tottering motorbikes.
So with three other tourists we set off. Our first stop was the White Temple, built by Thai artist Chalermchai Kositpipat on order to give something back to his home town Rong Khun and entirely paid for by the artist. The temple, which is still under construction, draws bus loads of tourists and is pretty much impossible to describe. Such a twisting, spiralling mass of ornate turrets gather on the traditionally shaped temple with its low sweeping roof. Brilliant white and covered in swirling patterns of mirror tiles it is almost painful to look at in the bright sunlight. The whole town is decked out it the artists swirling style, each elegant spire carefully crafted by hand with clay. The temple is surrounded by a gardenm and water features complete with bridge. There is a wishing well, images of hell as well as heaven and even the bollards and signs and shops are topped with white spirals and grinning skeletal faces.

Black House

The artists work dwells on the Buddhist belief of suffering being the path of paradise, reflected in the murals on the inside of the temple. With a really interesting contemporary twist the idea of life as suffering is represented. Neo, Darth Vadar, Harry Potter, all super heroes, Angry Birds, the twin towers, oil, all images of modern vanity and calamity are displayed and from it the pious followers of Buddha emerge and travel down the side walls to where Buddha is seated in enlightenment.
Out the other side of Chiang Ri you can find the antithesis of the White Temple, the artists black house. This structure is all dark wood and animals skins and furs, representing the suffering all must live through before they can attain paradise.
Heading north we visited a traditional village of the Akha people and the Karen people, famous for the gold rings that lengthen their fragile necks. As we had expected the villages were very tourist friendly and devoid of mos real culture. Shops lined the path and the ladies did their best to see us the scarves and trinkets they spent all day making. We strayed from the path slightly and interrupted a man in his bath, it's easy to glimpse the real life of these deprived people (mostly Burmese refugees who rely on tourism to pay for health care and other necessities) just behind the tourist veneer.

Macaques at Wat Tham Pla

Another classic tourist stop as we progressed north was a temple nestled at the foot of a large hill, inhabited mostly by monkeys. Ken wasn't very explicit about what this place was or how it came about, but it was great to dodge the over confident monkeys, climb to the viewing platform that looked out over Mae Sai and to visit the silent, drippy cave that contained a shrine to Buddha. Back at the temple we watched monkeys snatching bags of peanuts from foolish tourists trying to feed them one at a time. Like petulant children the monkeys deemed this vague scattering to be too slow and took matters in to their own hands, seizing the peanut and running of after each other shrieking.
In the car again we drove on to Mae Sai, the northern most town in Thailand. As you drive down the main street you can see the large blue Thai customs building that marks the start of the bridge to Burma. Winding up hill to Wat Phra That Doi Wao we looked over into that other country. Two such different places and yet it is impossible to see really where one stops and the other begins save for the river winding through the middle.

Not far from Mae Sai is the acclaimed Golden Triangle, where three countries meet (Thailand, Laos and Burma, as well as China slightly further upstream). Always a place associated with affluence, due to first gold and later opium, now the place is a popular tourist site and the surrounding peoples have been turned to farming rather than illicit drugs.
The town around the Golden Triangle is an odd place, there is a beautiful quiet temple and a bright little street jammed with stalls and vast gold shrines. A huge golden Buddha sits atop a structure designed to look like an enormous boat with arches formed by the legs of vast model elephants. It is all slightly surreal, and we were never really sure what the towering shrines and boat like building were actually for.
The last stop on our trip was a very different place. Chedi Luang in Chiang Saen is a ruined temple and chedi, once part of the great Lanna kingdom it still functions today, despite being over 700 years old. All peace and tranquility it lies decked out with beautiful coloured cloth to make the holes in the architecture and surrounded by ancient trees.

Chedi Luang - Chiany Saen

Foooood

As with a lot of our other stops a lot of our time in Chiang Rai was dedicated to eating. Our guest house served the most delicious prawn curries and Thai dishes and e found a shop that sold some sort of strange buns. They were very soft and fluffy cakes with various delicious fillings, sweet and savoury. We tried chicken and basil, pork, egg custard and chocolate custard. They heat them up some how (it ind of looked like they steamed them) so they're all light and warm and goey in the middle. They were a definite rival for the title of best dessert, currently held by the acclaimed banana pancake.

Our final stop in northern Thailand was a diverse and fascinating place. The food was just as excellent as it has been everywhere else and just as we felt like we were coming to the end of the tourist trail in the practical and slow paced city we realised we'd hit a whole new world of tourism, the organised tour. Never a past time to be mocked if it can take you round seven totally different and equally fascinating sight all in the same day. Oh and the buffet lunch didn't kill us.