Advertisement
Published: July 26th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Yesterday we left ChiangMai at 7:30 AM to go to ChiangRai about 180 km North East. There is beautiful scenery (mostly mountains) along the way. Actually, there is some similarities between Thai and Vietnamese language such as Doi and DDo^i meaning hill, Ban and Ba?n meaning village. First we stopped at Hot Springs followed by white Rongkhun Temple in ChiangRai. After that we headed North to Mae Sai which is the most northern point of Thailand. This is a border town between Thailand and Myanmar. We decided not to cross to Burma since it costs 500 Baht per person for a Visa and all we see is a market full of Chinese copies. Our Thai driver did cross the border and bought some goods while we strolled in the market on the Thailand side. It only costs Thai people 40 Baht so there is full of tourist bus bringing Thais to Myanmar for duty free shopping.
After Mae Sai border, we drove 25 km South to Golden Triangle. On the Thailand's side, we see Casinos on the Burma's side to the North and across the Mekong river is the Laos province Bokeo. We decided to take a high speed boat
to go to Burma (actually we just saw the Burmese casinos from the Mekong river) and then to Laos Bokeo province http://www.southlaostour.com/index.php?lay=show&ac=article&Id=5368141&Ntype=15 . Laos is very easy in terms of paper. When we landed in Bokeo, we just paid 20 Baht/pp to visit; no visa, no passport check, etc. In Bokeo, you can buy T-shirt copies like Lacoste, Polo, etc. We saw some Vietnamese souvernirs sold at the border shops too. Tuyen and the kids really enjoyed this boat trip eventhough they were very hesitated to cross the Mekong river. This is the most northern point of Mekong river that I crossed since in the past I have used its lower part to cross between Vietnam and Cambodia.
We spent about 30 minutes at the Laos border shop and took the same boat to cross the Mekong river to go to Chiang Saen, Thailand. We visited the old ruin temple, Wat Chedi Luang in Chiang Saen http://www.geocities.com/chiangraimag/p08.htm .
We finished our trip about 4:30 PM at Chiang Saen and drove back to ChiangMai at 8:00 PM. On the way back, we were randomly checked by police at highway control to see if we brought some heroins. Of course
there was nothing wrong so they just let us go. We then went to a restaurant nearby the hotel to enjoy spicy northern Thai's food and live music.
After 2 busy days in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, we will take it easy and just going shopping in Chiangmai today. We just came back from the shopping in Chiangmai. We saw lots of tourists at old temple in Chiangmai which is the second largest city in Thailand. Temperature in Chiangmai is about the same as Phu Quoc which is 26 C but the rain is much lighter here. There are some drops from time to time but the sky is overcast. There was a big fight between Burmese and Thai people to control Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Ayuthaya places. Tonight our flight leaving ChiangMai is at 20:50 and we will land in BKK at 22:00.
This is Nam: Yesterday we went to Chiang rai , it took about 4 hours to get there. We went to visit some places. We took a speed boat to go to the border of Laos. The speed boat was very fast ,so fast that my cap flew off and it went in
the river. We had to look for it, but as soon we stopped looking for it , the boat passed by my cap so we took it. At the market in the border, I bought 2 shirts.
This is Mai: We went to Chiang Rai yesterday.it took about 3 hours. We went to visit some temples, golden triangle, Myanmar border and Laos by a speed boat. It took about 20 minutes to get to Laos by speed boat. My brother lost his hat in the Mekong river. I was laughing. But then then we found it. It was soaked. We went shopping for shirts in Laos. I did not get any. It took 15 minutes to get back to Thailand. What i liked most about yesterday was the speed boat because it went very fast. =D
This is Tuyen:
After a long day yesterday,today was a light day. The kids want to stay at the hotel. Long and I took shuttle bus to visit downtown Chiangmai just the 2 of us with its market. We also took a taxi, xe lam to visit 3 temples and a silk factory. In Thailand,monks are very good at meditation. At various
occasions, we've observed 2 monks sitting at the main shrine very still, meditated with no movement. At 1st Nam thought it was a statue. Long and I also mistook for a Bouddha. We kept on looking and the monks didn' blink at all.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.108s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0488s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
anonymous
non-member comment
When police checks you on the highway, did you show them your passport ?How long does it take to drive from ChiangMai to ChiengRai ?In the photo, how come Doi Suthep had been covered with barbed wires ? They want to reconstruct it ?Try to go to a bookshop and if there is some books about that area in English, buy for me. It is Sunday 8.00 am. Chi Lien and family is now in San Francisco; you are in Thailand; Lan in Italy and Luc/Tuyet is in New York !