Blogs from Chiang Rai, North-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 3

We left the hotel at 9am in heavy rain and thunderstorms, in our own mini bus, heading for Chiang Khong, 180 kms away, where we will overnight in a guesthouse tonight before boarding our boat tomorrow morning for our cruise down the Mekong River for the next couple of days. It will take us all day to get to Chiang Khong and will arrive this afternoon, about 4-30pm but, not before making a number of stops along the way. Our route today would take us over the mountains where the country will then level out. An hour out, we were still winding our way down the other side but, at least the rain had stopped. We stopped for a short break at the Hot Springs in Chiang Rai - a pit-stop, a coffee and a foot ... read more

Today I was pretty excited. New things were on the horizon. I was happy to head back to the pre-school that I had been to earlier in the week. This time I was going there by myself. I knew this was going to be challenging because the teachers didn’t speak a lot of English, but the kiddos are just so cute! The teachers picked me up and we exchanged hellos. It’s a fairly short drive to the school and when we arrived all the kids were out in the grass playing in their playground area. So many smiling, happy, screaming faces. Once inside the big room, all the kids started to gather. Many of them remembered me from earlier in the week and were running up to say hi. All of them with these massive smiles ... read more

We needed to leave then re-enter Thailand to start the next two months of our visa, so we took the opportunity to see more of Thailand and visited the city Chiang Rai. It's quite small with not much to do other than look at temples (which we actually didn't do) and drink locally produced coffee (which we did a lot). The list of stuff we did/see is as follows: - travelled 4 hours in a cramped minivan to Chiang Mai then 3 hours on a slightly less cramped "VIP" coach to Chiang Rai. Watched 'How to train your dragon 2' in Thai, from a distance, so I look forward to seeing it properly on my return...Buchans? - eat a burger from a VW and drink beer from a paper bag (not sure why I was so ... read more

CHIANG RAI This place can be summed up as my retirement home, its mint. Blurred vision, no energy, walking over 5 miles in excruciating sun, very little food and a 40 km Tuk Tuk ride to the house of dreams and sin. The White temple is too beautiful, the Black house too weird. The creator of the Black house was the teacher to the architect who built the White Temple, what a contrast and interesting alternative from the teacher’s dark twisted devil layer to the Polish Princess castle. Stopping smoking AGAIN makes it tough, the friendliness of the northern people is refreshing though. A well-travelled Geri had gave us loads of excellent tips for going on our travels, this has set the way to a blissful journey, even when the times are tough and the tempers ... read more

Elephants have been an important part of Thai culture for many centuries. Apart from their use in logging, they were use as cavalry in battle. In the many wars with Burma both the Thai and Burmese kings rode on battle elephants. Thousands of battle elephants were employed by both sides during the 300 years of intermittent war. White elephants were traditionally an important symbol of royal power in Thailand, Burma, Laos and Cambodia. The number of white elephants held by a king was a symbol of his power and prowess. A white elephant was on the flag of Siam until 1916. In 1989 logging was banned in Thailand. Huge floods had been exasperated by soil erosion and deforestation caused by the logging industry. This lead to unemployment for the elephants and their mahouts (keepers), leaving them ... read more