Up to North Thailand

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Day 1 - 7th May 2008 in Chiang Rai.
Flight arrived to Chiang Mai International Airport at 1030; undecided to start off with CM or CR. After recalculate the days, we took a taxi from Airport to Arcade Bus Station for Chiang Rai - board a express bus. Checked into Moon & Sun Hotel - good package for 4D3N with breakfast.
Nothing much to do on the first night except doing night shopping and open air entertainment with local food around the Night Bazzar. Quite interesting to see some hilltribes in their tradional costumes.

Day 2
Looking around for car rental;managed to get a Honda Civic for 1800B for 2 days. Zoom off to Mae Salong > 70km winding road. You can see the hills of tea plantation, hilltribes selling local stuff and souvinors, plenty of tea shop in this town and visit the hilltop Wat ( Chedi Srinakarindra).
Recomended to visit the area around Dec/Jan - for good and cooling weather. Do taste and must eat the Yunnese noodles...
After lunch, we rode down to Chiang Sean for the Golden Triangle loop (Chiang Sean-Sop Ruak-Mae Sai-Mae Chan-Chiang Rai).
Attractions in Chiang Sean offers many ruins from King Mengrai's era. Wat Cedi Luang and Wat Pasak are the two temples most visited. Along the centre of town, you can see Mae Khong River and Laos is on the opposite bank.
The next stop was the world famous Golden Triangle at Sop Ruak (12km), a small village but full of tourists. This is where the 3 rivers meet to form the borders of the three countries - Thailand,Myanmar and Laos. A good spot for photography. The House of Opium has historic information about the black gold trading.
We continue to drive to Mae Sai before too dark. The border town with Myanmer (Tachilek). It was really too late getting to MS. Food stall peddlers are lining up the main street for business and the road towards the immigrants was congested. We decided to stop for dinner and walk around the night steet market (cheap goods esp form China). Quite a long day and with arrived back to CR at 10.30pm.

Day 3
Today, we have planned to travel within CR town. Eventually, landed to see mosting Wats only - Wat Pra Singh,Pra Kaew,Moon Muang,Doi Cham Thong,Jet Yot and Wat Rong Khun (13km). In the evening, we went to book the bus tickets for CM and shopping again at the night bazzar.

Day 4 - 10th May 2008 in Chiang Mai
Returned the car while on the way to the bus station. The VIP bus leaves at 9.30am and arrived CM at 12.30pm. As we are traveling on ecomomy, songthaew shall be the most cheap and easy way to move around the town. We checked into Green Tulip GH (clean and friendly staff). We planned to arrange for tomorrow Elephant Safari Tour with Ms Nike - 100B/pax. Then, off to CM city and the Anusarn night market.

Day 5 - 11th May 2008 for Elephant Safari Tour
Picked up at the hotel at 8.45am and joined by other groups from Canada,Taiwan,Spain and Australia. The tour takes off with Elephant show/Elephant riding/Ox-cart riding/Lunch/Karen long neck village/Orichid & Butterfly farm; option for monkey and snake show.
On the way back to town, we require to drop at the Sunday Market at Thapae Gate area. This is where the shopping heaven for everything. The stalls connect along Ratchadammoen Road. We were strolling until the end of road and reached our hotel ... a long walk and foot aching

Day 6 - 12th May 2008
DIY in town.. Visiting the..
1) Wats again - Wat Chiang Mun,Santi Thum,Jed Yod,Suan Dok etc..
can't remember the others.
2) Borsang Village - 9km from CM;plentiful of handicraft shops
- Gems Gallery,Lacqureware,SilverwareWoodcarvings,
Carpets, Umbrella and many more
Note : Better to buy these in Sunday or night market.
3) Wat Phrataht Doi Suthep - 12Km
Winding road up to the Doi and was raining; we took the cable car
and spend 1 hour here. In fact, this is the biggest Wat in Chiang Mai.
A good sighting of CM city form the top.
4) Lastly for the day - Massage in town .. wheather is foot,body or spa.
The choice is yours and get pampered.

Day 7 - 13th May 2008
Checked out and really tired. Flaged down a songthaew to CM Airport for 500B. The plane shoot off at 11.05am for KLIA,Malaysia.

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