The next day of our journey in Thailand was more Chiang Rai. We already knew our new guide was no RIO, but today we really saw the differences between the two guides. I don’t want to slag our new Chiang Rai/Chiang Mai guide, because he seemed like a lovely person. But Pom had this regimented teacher mentality. He breezed through things, spouting off details and leaving us in the dust unable to actually view what he had just spoken about. At our first stop, we literally had ZERO time to see a Buddhist Temple we walked around the outside of. As he spoke about the surroundings, we followed and listened. I’m sure I wasn’t alone thinking that we would have alone time after the talk to actually visit the surroundings. Spoiler alert! We did not. It was off to the bus. No photos. And there were occasionally cross words when somebody would wander to get a glimpse of something too. He definitely had a different, less tourist friendly, method of guiding.
After our whirlwind almost tour of this temple (I didn’t even catch the name), we were off to the Golden Triangle. If you don’t know what the Golden Triangle is, it’s the land around the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong Rivers where Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, and Laos borders meet.
This huge Buddha–surrounded by what looks to represent a dragon boat–sat lotus watching over the rivers and the three converging countries, from the shore in Thailand.
The boat brought us close to shore at both of the surrounding countries, without actually taking us there.
After the short cruise through the two rivers in the Golden Triangle, we got to visit the lotus sitting Buddha close up!
There was actually so much more to see than the lotus Buddha. The entire area was a shrine filled with statues, flowers, etc, etc, etc…
After our visit to the shrine, we went into the little town and visited an opium museum. The House of Opium Museum. Spoiler Alert: They did not hand out samples at the door.
It was quite an interesting place, filled with exhibits on the drug…from a vast assortment of pipes and drug paraphernalia to what happens if you’re caught selling or doing it.
I bought a great pair of pants at a little stall outside the Opium House!
After the opium museum, we went to a buffet restaurant on the side of the road. It was one of my favourite Thailand meals!
This young man made the noodles for a really delicious soup! You can head over to my Instagram or TikTok to see a little five second video I took. He was fast. It went from dough to noodles in SECONDS!
If you want to see the little video of the noodle making, you can click this Instagram link…but you will be prompted to log in if you’re not already logged in. If you follow the link, follow my account. I’ll follow you back. (-:
The meal was absolutely delicious, and we had great views!
The view from our lunch table…
Another view from the restaurant…
So, after our lunch we did a thing. There are TWO events we did in Thailand that made me slightly to overly uncomfortable. The one I just could not deal with was our next stop for this day. We went to visit the Karen tribe…also known as the long-neck tribe.
I was not prepared for this. I was doing ethical somersaults the entire time I was in this little village visiting the long-neck women and children. I was not ready for this real life museum and all it entailed. Having experienced this add-on excursion, I would choose not to do it if I could have a redo.
I’m actually not going to share any photos of the tribe. I felt CRINGE the second I took them. I realize that our tourist dollars help them out and I’m glad we funded them by visiting the village…but the whole ON DISPLAY thing left a sick feeling in my stomach.
Michael and I had the evening to ourselves this night. Our first, I think? It was nice. We went to a mall down the street from our hotel.
Guess what! Remember the great clown scare of 2016 that swept across that failing nation to our south? You know, when Ronald McDonald was moved because of the gory clowns striking fear into everyone (AND the doctors who insisted it was unethical to use a clown to get kids to eat junk food). Well…
It was great to do something so mundane as to walk to the mall and walk around inside. It was a bit of culture familiarity comfort.
We even had dinner at SIZZLER…
The mall was decorated for Christmas…
I just had to share a couple more pics of the reindeer. I don’t know how this did not strike fear into children everywhere…
Back at our Chiang Rai hotel for the night! Our next day was a short travel day to Chiang Mai.
If you’re enjoying this series on our Thailand adventures and would like to support this page, you can do so by buying me a coffee! KevinCraig-BuyMeACoffee
A Link to the previous POST ON THAILAND.
KEVIN CRAIG 
2 comments