Chiang Rai, Thailand – 8 to 10 March, 2007
The three and a half hour bus ride from Chiang Kong to Chiang Rai was pretty uneventful except for the haze everywhere as a result of the slash and burn farming techniques in the area and brush fires in Burma. We met a German couple on the bus who were on a short tour of the area and recommended a guest house. We decided to try the guest house, so when we arrived in Chiang Rai we caught a tuk-tuk to the guest house and checked in.
It was then off for our usual walk about, so we picked up a local map and headed out. We wandered around the main town area for a while, and found the Hill Tribe Museum. As Chiang Rai is close to the “Golden Triangle” area of Thailand, Laos, and Burma, and also near many hill tribe villages, our plan was to take a tour to visit some of the hill tribes. D was fascinated by the Long Neck Karen tribe, and wanted to see them so we thought the museum would provide us more detail on the tribes. It did, and after our visit to the museum we crossed the hill tribe visit off our list. It seems the true Long Neck Karen only exist in Burma, and the village in Thailand was set up by a local businessman as a tourist attraction and he imported some of the tribe members. It is more of a human zoo and the women are not allowed to leave the village. It is also a tradition which purposely deforms the women from a young age and it would probably die out if it weren’t for the fact it can make a buck displaying the women to tourists.
After the museum visit, it was time for dinner. Our new found German friends had told us about the local night market where a number of food stalls were set up each evening so we decided to try that. On the way we passed a park where there were over a hundred people of all ages doing aerobics to music and a leader on a raised platform at the front. We watched for a while, but when the leader motioned for us to join in we figured it was time to leave. D pointed to her arm in a sling, and we snuck out a side entrance.
From there we headed to the market which was just getting set up. Most of the food stalls were open however, and we found food of all kinds, including fried worms and bugs of various varieties. We settled for more traditional fare. J had a couple of grilled skewers of various delicacies, and D opted for a papaya salad and a skewer of grilled pork.
The next day we decided to visit a couple of the attractions in town. We first walked to a temple at the top of a hill just outside of town that was supposed to offer a very good view of the town. That must have been written a few years ago as we only saw trees. After that we headed back towards our guesthouse and visited the famous temple next to it. This is a temple where the famed jade Buddha was found hidden inside when lightening struck the building many many years ago. This is the same jade Buddha that is now housed in Bangkok. You can see we are not historians as we do not remember the dates and are too lazy to look it up for you. Suffice it to say this Buddha has had an illustrious life over the centuries.
We then headed back into town and stopped for a pitcher of beer at a Dutch restaurant of all places. It was enticing because despite the heat we could sit outside under the fans and misters to keep us cool. It was now dinner time again, so it was back to the night market. This time J was more adventurous and tried the deep fried bamboo worms as an appetizer. Then we both split a “hot pot” of our favorite Tom Yam soup.
As Chiang Rai is primarily known as a base for hill tribe visits and elephant trekking and we now ruled both of those out, we decided to move on to Chiang Mai. This is where we had originally planned to start our journey three months ago until we found it was full over the Christmas/New Year period so headed in the opposite direction. We were now looking forward to the Thai cooking course J wanted to do and visiting the elephant training camp D had investigated.
Next stop Chiang Mai, Thailand.
