Chiang Rai: The White Temple and The Golden Triangle

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I was up at the crack of dawn, 5:50 am to be precise. It was still pitch black outside. I ate the pork bun, that I had bought at Seven Eleven. It was rank, sweet, bleurgh! I made it downstairs just before seven, and the security guard told me that they wouldn't arrive to pick me up, until 7:30. Well, he knows his stuff, as it was after 7:35, when they arrived. Everyone was pretty miserable in the van, maybe it was the early start on New Year's Day and lack of sleep. We picked up some more people after me, and once the van was full for we drove for an hour and a half. Today was going to be a long day of driving. The rest stop we stopped at was billed as a hot spring. It was pretty lacklustre. There was one biggish spring and some small pools, if you wanted you could buy an egg from one of the hawkers and boil it in the spring. The hot spring on the other side of the road looked a lot more impressive, as the jet was shooting up a lot higher in the sky.

We drove for about another hour and we reached the White Temple. The traffic was insane and there were load of people there. From the outside it looked like a complete clusterfuck! However when you were walking around the temple, people were respectful and there was no pushing and shoving. I pretty much headed straight over to the main temple, there was a queue to join to walk through the temple. It was orderly and the guards made sure that people kept walking, which was good, but on the other hand, it didn't give you a chance to linger. We had to remove our shoes to enter the main room, and the guards gave you a bag to put your shoes in, and you handed it back over when you left. The normally calm peace and quiet that I love about temples was not here. It was so noisy! There were tannoys blasting messages.

Once out of the main hall, I could freely wander around the other parts of the temple. The White Temple could look so ghetto, being all blingy and white, but it didn't, with the sun shining, it looked beautiful, all gleaming. The White Temple or to give it it's proper name Wat Rong Khun was a temple that was in a bad way, a local artist, Chalermchai Kositpipat, decided to completely rebuild the temple and fund the project himself, as there were no funds available for renovations. Chalermchai Kositpipat designed, built and owns the temple, he has sent a fortune on it, around 40 million Thai Baht, and while donations are welcome the artist limits them to 10,000 baht per person, so that he can retain his artistic integrity and not allow others to influence him. Chalermanchai considers the temple to be an offering to Buddha, and that the area next to the temple should be used as a centre for learning and meditation, and for people to better themselves through the teachings of Buddha. The temple only opened to visitors in 1997, and is still not completed, and probably won't be for a long time to come.

We spent about half an hour at the temple and then it was back in the van. We were heading to the Golden Triangle. Our guide explained what was on offer. We had to pay 300 baht more to do a boat trip along the river. Everyone paid up, and we had to hand over our passport too. The Thai people were lucky they just had to hand over their ID cards. Some people in our group didn't have their passports (I think they had used them as deposits for motorbikes back in the city) and they managed to still do the boat trip, I think they had some other kind of ID, which was acceptable. We headed down to the wharf and go on a boat. There was another tour group on as well, so the boat was full. The tour guide from the other group started to give a talk about the area, but with the sound of the engine and me sitting at the back, I couldn't hear a thing.

We cruised up and down the river, stopping at the section known as the Golden Triangle. Laos was on the right, Myanmar on the river, Thailand a bit further back down stream, and the poppy fields, i.e. the opium, in the middle. The Golden Triangle is one of Asia's main opium producing area along with Afghanistan. It got its name as 1 kg of opium was bought and sold for 1 kg of gold, since the area has three different countries and three different currencies, it made sense to trade opium with gold. Our guide told us that the poppy fields vary in size each year due to the varying water level of the river. Our boat docked in Laos and we had about 40 minutes to spend there. We had to pay a landing fee of 30 baht. The Golden Triangle has become a special economic zone, and the land in Laos has been used to build a fancy (in reality gaudy) hotel and casino. We stopped near them at the town of Done Xao. WE were given about forty minutes there, far too long if you weren't interested in shopping. It was just shop after shop after shop selling fake designer handbags, t-shirts, snake whisky and other random tat. It was boiling too, being out in the midday sun!

We took the boat back over to Thailand and then it was a quick five minute drive up the road to the restaurant where we would be having lunch. By this point it was about 2 pm and I was a starving, I'd only had a coffee and some other drinks to keep me going. We were at another big restaurant/resort type place that obviously catered to all the tours that visit the Golden Triangle. The food was okay, not the best buffet I've ever been to but, it was definitely edible, I had to have seconds because I was so hungry, I also got a few cups of strong coffee as they were included in the buffet, the water was served at the table, and of course there wasn't enough of it. I wished they'd left some jugs on the table instead of just filling our glasses. When I walked over to the buffet bit from the table, one of the waiter was telling a woman in front of me to be careful where she stepped. I looked down and there was a huge lizard there, rotten! One cute thing about this place was that the waiters were bringing the dishes outside and drying them in the sun. Too cute!

The traffic was really bad today with it being a popular time for locals to travel and the fact it was new Year's Day. Because if this we had to skip going to the Myanmar border, as it would have added too much time onto our already long day. Instead we headed straight up to the viewpoint. It was really pretty looking out over the viewpoint. You could see the point where the two rivers, the Ruak River and the Mekong River meet. I chatted to our guide a bit. She explained some stuff that Aom, my guide the other day, had went over too. This part of Thailand was known as the Lanna kingdom, Lan means one million and na means rice field, so it is the land of a million rice fields. They also called Laos Lanchang which means land of a million elephants. There was a gorgeous Buddha statue at the viewpoint. I wish we had had longer there, as there were some steps leading to a temple, which I would have liked to explore.

We drove for about 40-50 minutes to reach an ethnic village. There were several women there, from different tribes, each with a stall set up, selling stuff. I bought a few purses and a wall hanging. The stuff was cute and pretty cheap. Our guide told us that the village was supported by the Thai government and that their children went to school like Thai children and they were given some financial assistance. There were some Karen Long Necks in the village, but if you wanted to see them you had to pay more. Our guide reasoned that the women couldn't go out in to society and work, so they made money this way instead. I have heard it can be a bit zoo like, so I didn't bother to go and see them.

The drive back took about three and a half hours. It was pretty torturous as I wasn't tired, so I was awake unable to sleep for the whole journey. We stopped after an hour and a half for a toilet break. I was a bit hungry, so I scoffed a bag of seaweed crisps, I definitely didn't eat enough of these on this trip. I was so bored, people were sitting chilling at the service station, taking their time eating instant noodles. Personally, I just wanted to be in and out of the service, and on the road so we could get home quicker. Two more hours of driving and we were home. I had a quick pit stop in my room and then headed out. I went up to the noodle place on the corner and had a bowl of pork noodles. The only problem with coming so late was that there were no dumplings left in the broth. I then headed over to the roti stall. I got a lovely honey and banana roti.

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