Chiang Rai, Thailand 25.03

We crossed the border from Laos to Thailand on a skinny little boat. We almost had to wade into the water with our heavy backpacks to get into the boat. When we got through customs, we decided to walk to the bus station, as we'd been told it was only 1km away. The walk turned out to be much, much longer, and our backs ached by the time we reached the bus terminal.

The bus was a local one, and they left the door open for the entire 2.5 hour trip. Thankfully no one's luggage fell out.

We found a cosy Korean hostel to stay in, and wandered the city for a while. We came across a house in the middle of nowhere that was selling second hand books. It was run by a german man, and there were two stories of the house full of books like a library. We swapped 3 of our books, and got 6 in return!

Celebrations
The next morning, Loren was drenched in freezing cold water by Artur, as is the Polish tradition on Easter Monday - Smingus Dyngus. Today marks our 6 month anniversary! We celebrated in high style exchanging beautiful gifts for each other, and dining well. Loren received a beautiful silver bracelet, that she's been wearing ever since. And Artur received a t-shirt made by a local graphic artist. It has a picture of a guy rocking away on his guitar, just like Artur tries to do on Loren's electric guitar.

The Golden Triangle

Afterwards, we hired a scooter, and travelled all the way to the Golden triangle. Thankfully we had helmets with face shields, for the first time, so we could travel fast quite comfortably at high speeds.

We visited the Museum of Opium, which showed every step in the opium-making process. It was very interesting, and they had lots of old opium pipes, pillows, mats and anything else related to the trade and use of opium. The history of opium in the golden triangle was explained, but many warnings were given about the penalties for being caught with opium.

Many ethnic groups in Thailand use Opium, so they showed pictures of the different tribes. Some tribes wear bronze rings around their necks, supposedly as protection from tigers. The girls below are from the longneck tribe Karen.

We also saw pictures of the Giant Catfish that can be found in Thailand. They were bigger than several men! Apparently you can see them in Chiang Khong where we crossed the river on a little boat. We didn't see any, but maybe that's a good thing.

Steps to a nearby temple led to an excellent viewing point over the Golden Triangle. Loren found a dead butterfly on Artur's bag, that must have collided with us on the scooter. She gave it an appropriate burial here. Hopefully it was a buddhist butterfly.

It was a fair climb to the top in the heat, but the view was well worth it. Another temple was located even higher than this viewing point. We had a look around, but Loren wasn't allowed in the temple room, because she is female. How rude!

We also saw the Giant Buddha which overlooks the Golden Triangle. There was also another enormous monument with elephants between. For a price, you could climb on top of the elephants for a photo. They were pretty huge, you can barely see Loren in front of the elephants in the photo below.

We rode further to get to Chiang Sien, where we had lunch. We ordered fish, and were surprised when the cook left and returned with a fish from the nearby market, talk about fresh food! There were lots of ruins from temples and monuments in the city. We stopped to look at a few, but after seeing so many temples in South East Asia, interest was waning.

Another scooter day

The next day, we set off again on our scooter, but for an even longer ride. Loren took her turn to soak Artur in water, as it was Easter Tuesday. The hot weather quickly dried the water though.

We were hoping to visit the local hilltribe villages and the Hilltribe Centre. We were quite surprised to find that the hilltribe centre was a tiny hut with mannequins dressed in the traditional clothes of each tribe. Most of the signs were in Thai, and the place was deserted. We made our own fun playing with the mannequins though.

Tea Plantations
The ride after that was quite beautiful. We rode up and down mountains rodes, where we could see tea plantations on every side. It took us a while to find one that wasn't burnt to the ground, as this was the wrong time of year to see tea plants. We found on though, and stopped to taste the leaves.

We arrived in a tiny town called Maesalong where we used sign language to order our lunch. The tea they served was incredible, it wasn't artifically sweetened, but it was still quite sweet. The town became more touristy the further along we rode, but where we stopped was beautiful and almost untouched.

Hilltribes We came across a small village where the Lorcha Hilltribe lived. We were surprised, when a guide took us around the village and demonstrated the local way of trapping animals, weaving, making roofs etc. They also performed a local dance for us with instruments. We were the only two people visiting at the time, and so the experience felt so personal. Unlike other places we had been to, they didn't try to sell us things, and the entry was very small. We were very impressed.

After visiting this tribe, we came across another. This one boasted having 3 tribes in the one place to see, but the price of entry was ridiculous. The streets were lined with people selling souvenirs, and no guide was offered. After being at the other place, this seemed far less quality for a much higher price. We had wanted to see the Longneck tribes that wear the bronze rings on their necks, but we decided it wasn't worth it, so we headed off.

By the time we finished our long ride, we realised that we had travelled 400km in 2 days! We were exhausted, so Loren went off to get a traditional Thai massage. It was painful, but very much worth it.

Night Bazaar That night we visited the Night Bazaar, where we shopped for souvenirs and watched the performances on stage. There were drag shows with fancy outfits, and lip syncing by girls in beautiful dresses. It was quite an experience!