Chiang Rai

The longtail boat trip down the Kok River passed through green hills, very small villages, a few areas of small rapids just for excitement, and a stop at a Karen Tribe elephant village, before arriving at Chiang Rai. Feeding the elephants corn, bananas and sugar cane was fun and a little scary when they accosted me with their trunks.

I found Chiang Rai to be much more “authentically” Thai, compared to Chiang Mai. Far fewer foreigners there, but still plenty of tourist activities available. On my first night there, Andrea, a Swiss nurse I met on the boat, and I went to the Saturday night walking market. It was such a relief to be able to walk around without being hounded by all the merchants crying, “Take a look, Madame. Only 100 Baht, Madame.” We sampled a variety of food at the many different food stalls. Andrea, crazy and daring woman that she is, even tried some of the big insects, including a giant (2-3 inch) cockroach! She had to spit it out, it tasted so gross!

We watched some beautiful traditional Thai dancers and some hip hoppers, some Thai drumming and some home-grown garage bands, all set up at various stops along the street. It was great fun experiencing that with Andrea. It made me acutely aware of how I’m tiring of traveling alone. Yea, Lily is coming in just a few days!!!

Crazy me, I rented a motor scooter for the next 2 days. After observing how Thais, and before them the Japanese, drive, all on the left side of the road by the way, I felt a real adventure would be seeing how brave I could be in joining the hoards on the road. Luckily there is much less traffic in Chiang Rai, so it wasn’t too bad, but I did have to take many risks just to make it onto and/or across the street. So without any real plan and after many false starts going around in circles, I headed out to see a waterfall, and ended up having an adventure in an Akah and Lisu village. On the way there, I stopped at Chiang Rai Beach, a sandy stretch along the Kok River popular with locals. I was hungry and spotted a small som tam/green papaya salad vendor. Having learned how to make it myself, I followed her preparations very closely, nixing the small crabs and shrimp she offered to add. After mixing all the ingredients together, she tasted the mix with the mixing spoon, added some more vinegar, mixed some more, and put it on a plate for me. So much for remembering to wash your hands before eating with preparation like that. I had a good laugh about that.
Anyway, when I finally got to the hill tribes' village, a bright young girl offered to take me on her motor bike to the waterfall, and then to another more remote Akah village where an elderly (she is actually 2 years younger than I am!) Akah woman invited us into her home, gave us bananas and pineapple and, yes, brought out her crafts to sell. We also went to a football (soccer) game, looking for her boyfriend.


The next day I started off by visiting the White Temple, a gaudy modern structure, but impressive nonetheless. Then I was off on another adventure on the scooter. I headed to another waterfall, this time finding myself on an off-road tour of some remote mountainside. I wasn’t intending to go off-road; it’s just that the road disintegrated at rather frequent intervals. I never did find the waterfalls because well into this trek, I noticed that the needle on the gas gauge rapidly moved down into the red empty mark, and I was high on a mountain without a soul anywhere nearby. Yikes! So I turned around and coasted most of the way back down the mountain to the main road, and kept my fingers crossed until I came upon the first gas pump I found, and that was quite a ways down the road. Whew! I got there just in time, but my nerves were shot, as well as my body shuddering from all the bumps. (That coke-looking machine in the photo is the gas pump - I almost missed it.) Luckily, right across the street from the gas pump was the entrance to a magnificent garden started by the current king's mother in 1985 and dedicated to the all-important teak tree. I went in there and collapsed for a while, recovering from that little nerve wracking experience.

After spending the next day recovering at my guest house in Chiang Rai, I decided to go see the Mekong River at Chiang Saen. I couldn’t resist getting a Thai massage on the bank of the Mekong looking over at Laos.

Got to go catch a train. More later.