Chiang Rai – KEVIN CRAIG

Thailand Journal – From Chiang Rai to Chaing Mai – Mountains and Temples and Dancers, oh my!

The next morning, we said goodbye to Chiang Rai. We drove by bus to Chiang Mai…two mini buses. It took several hours because of recent storms that washed roads away.

But first…silly photos in the hotel lobby at Chiang Rai…

I believe this was the first time I ever held an umbrella in my life.

It was a picturesque drive with a rest stop in the middle. A rest stop that had a Cafe Amazon! It’s a bit like the Thai equivalent of a Starbucks.

Whenever we get the opportunity to drive through a countryside, I LOVE it! We get to see so much. The trip from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai was no exception. Some beautiful sights.

First stop in Chiang Rai was to visit Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. This was a Theravada Buddhist temple. This temple is atop a small mountain, and there are phenomenal views of the city at the top! Also, this temple contains a relic of the Buddha.

It was a long funicular ride to the top!

There were so many beautiful flowers and paper lanterns everywhere. It felt a bit like a fairy tale up there…

Just when you feel completely enamored by the surrounding pretties, you catch a glimpse of the view beyond the distractions…

Below us? Chiang Mai. Above us? Only sky…

There was literally beauty around every corner up there.

This looks like Ganesha…not sure if there are other elephant deities, but Ganesh is one of my favourites…

Beauty wherever we looked. Buddhist statuary and iconography has always held a special place in my heart. It exudes serenity.

Us at the top of the mountain with a visiting monk in the background…

With all the fake AI wood carvings exploding all over the Facebook airwaves, it was so lovely to see an ACTUAL woodcarving at this temple…there were, in fact, a few.

We stopped at a beautiful lookout point about halfway down the mountain as we headed toward Chiang Mai in the distance…

The Bella Nara Hotel in Chiang Mai was probably my favorite hotel of the trip. The only drawback was the pool. It was okay, but tiny and surrounded by the hotel…so almost always in the shade. The hotel was beautiful. I hate to use that despised word Colonial…but it did give off Colonial vibes.

The hotel restaurant/bar was luxurious and very Colonial…reminded me of such places in both Kenya and India.

After drinks at the hotel bar, we were headed off to a traditional Khantoke dinner. Khantoke is a culturally rich dining experience that originates from Northern Thailand, particularly the Lanna people. It’s a communal dinner served on low wooden tables called Khantokes, which are surrounded by floor seating mats.

The khantoke table we sat at, though, had a sunken-in area around it…so we had space for our legs and we sat normally as though we were at a regular sized table. I kinda wish that it was an actual low table so we could have experienced it more authentically. But the meal was exceptional! I loved it.

Before we get to the meal, though…it was just the 4 of us partaking in this one. The rest of the group were going somewhere else. As they were escaping the hotel parking lot, we happened to see them…I think the following triptych of photos speak for themselves. (-:

They were truly a fun bunch of fellow travelers!

There was a lot of entertainment…from acrobatics, gymnastics, dance, knife wielding, etc.

Knives Out…

It was really quite an action-packed day! We were ready for bed. And our next day! It would be our second ethically questionable excursion. Elephants!

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Thailand Journal – The Golden Triangle – Big Buddhas, Opium, and Shopping Malls!

A photo sent by Rio… back at the Train Market…

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.

We were brought close to this Buddhist Temple…but briskly guided around it. We never actually saw the gold Buddha inside that you can just glimpse a tiny bit of in this shot…

We saw only the things we could glimpse on the periphery of the temple we stopped at…

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.

We were there for a river cruise…to cruise through the waters where the three countries 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…

When sitting Padmasana (Lotus), Buddha touches the ground to help ground their body, maintain stability and support themselves.

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!

Can’t wait for summer when I can wear these pants!

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. (-:

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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…

The clown is still doing his thing in Thailand…

Yes, dear reader…this horroshow is a reindeer…

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.

The Heritage Chiang Rai…would recommend!

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Travel Journal – Chiang Rai Bound – Thailand Continued…

After an early morning flight, we found ourselves in Chiang Rai in Thailand’s north. Before this day, I was beginning to think that all temples in Thailand were basically the same. I was in for an eye-opening experience. Wat Rong Khun (White Temple) could not be more unique. Wow. It was stunning and jaw-dropping. It felt somewhat like a fairy tale land…only with dark undertones suggesting an unforgiving afterlife. I was stunned by its brilliance and sparkle.

a first glimpse of Wat Rong Khun – White Temple

The whole thing was surreal. There was really no way to categorize it, or describe it. It had all the Temple stuff going on, but in the midst of it all, you would find superheroes from virtually every comic book imaginable, along with souls reaching desperately out of the earth attempting to crawl back up out of the depths of hell. It was categorically one of the weirdest most fascinating places I’ve ever been.

Help! I’m stuck in this purgatory of nonsense and I can’t get out!

Proof we were actually there in Bizarro Land.

The purgatory display was startling, terrifying, and absolutely the COOLEST.

Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline immediately sprung to mind. These were hands touching hands and, hey, they were reaching out. They were NOT going to be touching me, though!

Is the dude with the pot trying to offer me something, or was I reading this moment incorrectly?

At every turn there was something sparkling in the sun. When we got up close to the temple, we could see why…

It was like they took the secrets of the disco ball and ran with it!

Photos were forbidden inside the temple. There was a creepy man sitting lotus who looked real…you could see people staring at him waiting for him to move. When they couldn’t see movement, they held their breath looking for him to take his next one. Then, there was speculation that he was dead and stuck forever in that pose. Friends, he was bonafide FAKE. Inside the temple was also where all the superheroes were painted on the walls. The photos being forbidden was probably their way of avoiding the huge copyright infringements they were pulling off. ALL the superheroes, as well as some historic cultural persons, were splashed about those walls.

The Gang – We could not have asked for a nicer group of fellow tourists. We were all Canadian and everyone was SO nice!

Buddha Baby…

There was also a golden temple on this sight.

Oh…and a short bus ride away…a blue temple. After a quick lunch at a local buffet, we went to Rong Suea Ten Temple (Blue Temple). It was quite stunning. Not like the mysterious and obscure White Temple…but it had subtle beauty where the White Temple had shock value.

The ceiling inside the blue temple…

Buddhist artwork is always stunning. You can see the essence of mandala artwork in this…

Where chaos and fear reigned at the White Temple, the Blue Temple suggested peace and silence…

Our hotel in Chiang Rai was gorgeous! I loved it. The Heritage Chiang Rai Hotel and Convention Centre. It was quite beautiful.

The group, having dinner on our first night in Chiang Rai. I was out of sorts at this dinner. I don’t know if anyone realized it or not, but I was just not having it. I felt miserable…but I don’t know why. Just grumpy and I did not feel like eating at all.

I didn’t eat much here. Just was NOT in the mood…

Another day in Chiang Rai was in store for us. I’d have to get out of my funk and get out of my own way in order to enjoy it. I don’t think anyone in our group realized I was in a mood, but I knew I needed to shake it.

We were going to the Golden Triangle…that place where Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), and Laos meet near the confluence of Ruak and Mekong rivers. It promised to be a big day. There were Buddhas, river cruises, an opium museum, and the Karen tribe in our futures. Chin up!

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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