Chiang Rai

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On the day before Thanksgiving we entered Thailand. Our plan was to spend about a week in the country then go on to Laos before returning to Bangkok. During this foray into Thailand we made two stops. First we visited our friend Janet who is serving in the Peace Corps in the northeastern part of the country and second we headed further north to visit an area called Chiang Rai.

Because Janet is serving in a small village that is well off the tourist track it was somewhat of an adventure just to get to her. Our initial research said there were no buses from the Cambodian/Thai border to her village and that we would have to go to Bangkok first. Upon getting to the bus station at the border town of Aranya Prathet, Thailand, we found a bus that headed toward a city in the right direction called Khorat, so we took it. Three hours later we arrived in Khorat and five minutes after that we found ourselves on another bus to Khon Kaen. We really winged it today and it paid off as by the time we arrived in Khon Kaen in the early evening we were almost to Janet’s village. By this time it was late so we got a hotel and caught the first bus out the following morning.

We had no way to recognize which small town to get off at because all the signs were in Thai script. We passed one locale that we thought was it and resigned ourselves to getting to the end of the line and riding back. But we had told the driver where we were going and he stopped at the right spot, directly in front of Janet’s house where Janet was waiting for us. With a sense of relief and a feeling of accomplishment, we disembarked the bus. We had once again successfully navigated a foreign country’s public transit system.

We spent that day and the next with 70+ 4th – 6th graders at English Camp. John worked on teaching the children colors and numbers and I helped teach directions such as left and right. The kids were very enthusiastic and the adults were very welcoming; we had a wonderful time.

Janet usually eats dinner with her neighbor so on Friday night we accompanied her. The neighbor has both an indoor and an outdoor kitchen and prefers to cook and eat in the outdoor one. Dinner consisted of two types of rice and four different dishes with rainwater to drink. The common custom is to make sure the guests, especially the men, get enough to eat. Our hostess kept putting more food onto John’s plate until he was finally forced to leave it uneaten because he was so full.

On Saturday, Janet’s fellow teacher and friend, Ket, took us to a Buddhist Temple which is famous for its healing baths. We went before the monk and were blessed – he sprinkled water on us and chanted a short time. Then we watched several people receive a healing bath. The people sat on the ground and for five minutes the monk chanted and poured scoops of water on them. At one point he took a mouthful of water and sprayed them. At the end he asked some of them to drink the water. Ket talked to one woman before she participated and found out that woman had been very sick and modern medicine could not figure out what was wrong. She went to a monk and the monk said she had a ghost standing on her head and she should have a healing bath to wash it off. It helped a lot and she was back for a second treatment.

The next day, Sunday, was a rest day for us. Ket knew we were spending the day at Janet’s house and cooked us both lunch and dinner. She is such a welcoming, giving person and we really enjoyed getting to know her.

On Monday we took a bus back to Khon Kaen and had a 1.5 hour wait before our bus to Chiang Rai. Since we were scheduled to arrive in Chaing Rai at 11pm, we wanted to have a hotel reservation. We were looking around for a payphone to call a hotel when a Buddhist monk said hello in very good English. We asked him where a payphone was and he offered to let us use his cell phone instead. We called one place but it was full and then the monk had to leave. So we asked a drunk who had been pestering us for money and he found his voice when I gave him 20B. He pointed us to the payphone and after several tries we got it to work and actually called a hotel but ran out of change before we could make a reservation. So we went back to the ticket office to get change to use the payphone again. The clerk was on the phone but as we waited a fellow passenger asked what we needed. When we explained she offered to call for us on her cell phone. She was able to get us a reservation at our hotel of choice. The Thai people are so friendly and our guidebook says that is true all over Thailand, not just in the non touristy areas.

The bus played movies or music videos from the start until 9pm and they played them very loudly so we wore earplugs all day. The only exciting thing was at the first bathroom stop people kept cutting in line in front of me like in a Chinese train station so I was late to get back on the bus. It actually started driving away but John got them to wait.

There are two significant attractions in Chiang Rai. First is the people of the various hill tribes and second is the infamous Golden Triangle. Our first stop was to visit the Hill Tribe Museum. There were two aspects to the museum: opium and hill tribes. Of the two there was detailed info on the opium trade, both historical and current, but only superficial information on the second. We also saw a movie about the development and exploitation of local tribes for the tourist industry. I admit the video was biased but it confirmed what John and I already knew…that we did not want to trek to visit hill tribes. We are not comfortable with the negative impacts that tourism has on these people.

We spent the rest of the day visiting temples. Temples here are as common as Catholic churches are in Italy and there are many similarities. They are often very old, beautifully decorated and the most important building in a community. The first temple was called Wat Phraw Kaew and it houses the Chiang Rai Jade Buddha, a replica of the Emerald Buddha currently in Bangkok. The Emerald Buddha (actually made of jade also) was hidden in the stupa of this monastery for about 100 years in the 14th and 15th centuries. It was found when lightening blew a hole in the stupa revealing the long-forgotten treasure inside.

We took a tour the next day to see several historical points of interest in the region. The first stop was at a temple with an enormous stupa that dated from the 10th century. It was still an active temple. Then we drove to a point that overlooked the Golden Triangle. It is at the confluence of two rivers and three countries (Myanmar, Thailand and Laos). There was a lot of history there so we next went to a museum about the opium trade. The next stop on the tour was the Myanmar border. In order to add another country to our list, we decided to go across the border. Once across, this small section we visited was not very different from Thailand. The Thai Baht is freely accepted by the locals and the Thai language is commonly spoken. We hired a tuk-tuk to take us to two temples in the city. The first was pretty and had paintings on the wall. One was titled “The higher and lower gods beseeching the future Buddha to leave Tusita heaven to be reborn as man.” Sound familiar? The second temple had an enormous golden stupa on a hill that overlooked the town. After less than an hour in Myanmar we headed back to the border.

The next day we traveled to Laos but you will have to wait for our next blog entry to learn more.

As the holiday season comes upon us here in the Mekong region, we are thinking of our friends and family back home. While the warmth, both from the weather and friendly locals, certainly makes for a nice vacation, we would love to hear about Christmas plans back home.

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Photos

Beth and the Golden Stupa
Located in Tachileik, Myanmar.

School Children
Every morning the children hold a ceremony where they play the national anthem and pray to Buddha.

John Playing Dta Kra
Dta Kra is a cross between soccer and volleyball.

Local Buddhist Temple
This is a small town temple.

10th Century Stupa
This stupa was built with bricks in the 10th century and is located in Chiang Saen.

Beth and John at the Golden Triangle
We picked up and carried the sign into the sun so the picture would come out.

Temple Painting
The title is "The higher and lower gods beseeching the future Buddha to leave Tusita heaven to be reborn as man.”

Monkey and baby
Taken at the Monkey Temple near Chiang Rai.