fri day 98

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After a good nights sleep I popped out for some breakfast before being picked up at 08.30 for a days sight seeing. Only me and a couple from south Korea would be on the tour today so lots of room to stretch out on the minibus. Our first stop was to the white temple ( the main attraction in Chiang rai) built in the 1980's by a rather eccentric local artist. The temple and its grounds are completely white with fragments of glass which reflect the sun, so the whole place is quite dazzling. Inside the temple are modern murals of everything from mickey mouse to Micheal Jackson to the collapse of the world trade centres - with of course the Buddha in the centre. The temple is very different to anything I was expecting and absolutely one of a kind, but definitely worth a visit. Next stop was to the black house a 20 minute drive away. Personally I preferred this to the white temple. Again built by a local rather eccentric artist for him to live in - has now passed away so now used as a visitor attraction. The main building being a large tradionally shaped black house - with numerous other out buildings - all black. Inside each building are huge collections from dead animals - alligator skin, bones all being displayed over and around large pieces of furniture. Trying to describe it on here doesn't do it justice - it really is worth looking it up on the internet. From here we were driven to see some hill tribe people - Karen, lahu, akha and lisu. The Karen hill tribe probably being the most widely recognized with the women wearing the brass rings around their necks - and sometimes referred to as the long neck tribe. As the day doesn't actually involve any trekking this is an area outside of Chiang rai that the government has set up ( as a bit of a visitor attraction) for these tribes to live in. The environment is probably very similar to where they would live up in the hills and the tribes carrying out similar everyday tasks but it does feel a bit like a zoo. Walking through the 4 'villages' seeing the women weaving some beautiful patterns and learning a bit about the tribes the time didn't feel completely wasted but I didn't stay too long. Contrary to popular belief the brass rings the ladies wear around their necks don't keep their heads up but rather sit on their shoulders. They come off once a year for cleaning - their heads don't fall off! and they were originally used as protection from a tiger attack. After here we were driven to a monkey cave but starting to feel quite hungry and having seen lots of macaques we didn't stay long. The next stop was a 40 minute away to mae Sai which is on the border with Burma. Needing to leave the country and re enter to get my passport re stamped for another 2wks in Thailand I did just that while the others had a coffee. Parting with 500 baht - £10 and being in Burma for approx 10 minutes by walking over a bridge ( with families sitting begging for food, clothes, money - very sad) I made it back to the minibus and we headed off for some lunch. After a much needed buffet lunch we headed off to the golden triangle - an area best seen from a temple ( what else!) of were you can see the mighty Mekong river with the countries Thailand, Burma and Laos on each side. From here we walked to the opium museum and spent an hour there looking around. This area used to be very popular for growing opium - until the authorities caught up with what the locals were doing with it! The museum was more interesting than I expected - no free samples! But interesting to learn the history. This was our last stop of the day and chatting with the korean couple it made the return journey of 2hrs fly by. Met up with Jenna at the hostel and annalene had made her way up to Chiang rai today also. We headed out to the market for some dinner and met up with a nice American girl called Erica on the way. Had my favourite tom yum soup for dinner and afterwards we stopped off at a pub for a cocktail or two.....hic! It had been a nice day and a nice evening.

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