Surprise Surprise in Chiang Rai

After being in Thailand for so long now, I thought I had seen it all. I have seen more markets, temples and monuments to random people than I could ever begin to count. Every town begins to look the same, and when you take a break to the south, every beach begins to look the same. After Bangkok, where I found nothing except millions of shops, pubs and angry locals, to be honest, I was seriously considering just going home next week. ‘This bloody travelling thing isn’t worth the hassle. I am bored with Asia’. I decided to at least see Thailand out and head with Sophie north to Chiang Rai. I thought nothing about Thailand could impress me anymore. I am a fool.

Looking at the city, you think it all looks the same. We did a bike tour yesterday after arriving off the overnight bus from Bangkok, and found that the local sights were very overrated and boring. We did however find the night market to be lively with a friendly atmosphere which improved our initial impressions. We organised a tour for today which would take us out of the town to visit a few sights. We were met this morning by a minibus which we unexpectedly found empty, and the bubbly young driver told us that we were the only ones on the tour for the day, as everyone had headed to Chiang Mai 2 hours away for the Songkran Thai New Year water festival. Even the guide who was promised to us had taken off. A little apprehensive, we headed of. Turns out we had no need of the guide. Our driver and his great English gave us all the info we needed, and took us to the places we wanted to go even though they weren’t on the actual tour we booked.

First stop was the White Temple. Now, as I said before, I am very templed out here. But this was like Disney in temple form. It was a stunning and glistening white which is impressive enough to look at, but when you go in you expect the walls to be covered in the traditional Buddhist paintings, but no. This one sported massive murals containing burning twin towers with Harry Potter chasing his snitch around the buildings of New York. While he flew on, the Kracken was coming up from the sea to take Jack Sparrow, and the International Space Station was trying to dodge Jedi fighter jets while the guy from ‘Saw’ sniggered up from the depths of hell. No pictures were allowed unfortunately, but you could stand for hours and still find that you saw something new every minute.

After this we headed onto the strange and errie Black Houses. These were a massive art project undertaken by a local artist which saw him build dozens of black houses in the design of Chinese temples and fill them with art work and the skeletons of dead animals. Eerie and strange, but interesting.

Following on, we were taken up to the Tea Plantations in the mountains to sit and taste the local handpicked loose leaf teas and enjoy the views out over the plantations. Here we lost time talking to our driver Bird about his life in Singapore and Thailand. After a lovely authentic Thai buffet lunch, we finished off the day with a trip to an opium museum. This museum talked all about the history of opium production in the area and around the world, and then basically gave a step by step guide to making opium and heroin (oh Thailand). After this we drove on to enjoy the views of Burma, Laos and Thailand at their meeting point at the Golden Triangle.

Sitting in bed now after a Thai kebab, a glass of wine and fresh orange juice, I am so happy I decided to bull on. After the madness of Bangkok, I had forgotten what it was like to discover something that surprised me, and the tour today had so many not-so-typical-Thai things that I was genuinely surprised and impressed. I am heading off to Chiang Mai tomorrow to partake in the Songkran Water Festival for a few days before leaving Thailand and trotting into Cambodia as I continue my travels alone. I can only hope tomorrow will bring as many surprises and strange places as today has brought. 

Sawatdiikha.