The Golden Triangle

Chiang Rai, Thailand, 26-28 & May 2008

After the bed bug incident Claire always does a thorough "clinical"examination of all new rooms. Once bitten, twice shy. In Chiang Rai she spotted one bb, we checked out in the morning into a business style hotel. There was a sign in the lobby stating "No Durian". Durian is a fleshy fruit with a rather pungent smell. We tasted it when we did the cookery course, but we had to spit it out. the locals love it though! You cannot come this far north in Thailand without visiting the Golden Triangle. This is an area where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet and it is synonymous with poppy fields and consequently the opium trade.

We hired a private guide/driver for the day so that we could take in the local sights. First stop was the Union of Tribal Villages. This was clearly the brainchild of some shrewd businessman, previously if you wanted to see 5 different hilltribes you would have to spend several days trekking in the local hills. Now you can simply visit this completely manufactured hilltribe compound. Well, perhaps that is being a little harsh. They are real tribal families that live here. They each have their own distinctive clothing, religions and build their own distinctive huts. We deliberated at length over whether we should visit or not because we had read reports of how this was nothing more than human exploitation used to line the pockets of some greedy entrepreneur. Our guide however told a different story, he told of how these tribes were protected here, given education and how all their medical needs were met. Swaying between what to believe we decided to go in and make up our own minds. Once inside it didn't take us long to realise this place was nothing more than a human zoo. Because it was low season there were very few tourists around. As we entered the 1st village (Akha tribe) we saw the members coming from all around until they were all lines up inn front of us. They then performed their tribal dance but each of them looked as though the life force had been sucked out of them, there was no joy on their part and consequently no enjoyment on our part. We moved onto the next village (Yao tribe) and the process started all over again. The tribal members went through the motions and we moved on quickly, we felt sick. There were only two of us and as we left the village we saw a group of 3 tourists enter and heard the tribal dance start all over again. Thankfully the other tribes were not required to perform a dance so we could enter their villages and well.... look at them.

What really sells this place to tourists is the presence of one specific tribe, the Long Neck Karen. The females of the tribe wear heavy brass rings around their necks, the addition of new rings eventually pushes the clavicle and rib cage down giving the women the appearance of having unusually long necks. Rings worn on the arms and legs may way a woman down with an additional 30 lbs in brass. Since leg coils hamper walking the women waddle. Constrained from drinking in the usual head back position a ring wearer leans forward to sip through a straw. They may look well in a photograph but watching them walk around, hunched forward under the weight, it is not an existence I would wish on anyone. Apparently the women in the Long Neck Karen tribe had started to abandon the wearing of the debilitating rings but in touristville they are obliged to give punters their full moneys worth. We really wouldn't recommend a visit here because by doing every paying tourist supports human exploitation. Hopefully or visit is not in vain and we will encourage any friends/acquaintances. Instead don a pair of hiking boots and get out into the hills and see these people in their truly natural environment.

From here we continued north, stopping off briefly at the monkey cave before arriving at Thailand's most northerly town Mae Sai. After taking the obligatory "most north point of Thailand" photograph (they really should get a native English speaker to proof read before they spend thousands of $ on these monuments) we contemplated crossing the border in Myanmar. For $10 you can enter the country but are only permitted to travel 1km inland. We decided to give it a skip, we didn't want to give our money to a military junta that continues to deny aid to the cyclone stricken areas. We wandered the many markets before jumping back into our air con taxi and heading on to the Golden Triangle. It felt good to be our own bosses with regards to how long we wanted to stay in a place.

The Golden Triangle is a tri border area: Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. If you didn't know any better you might be forgiven for thinking it is just a bit of land with two rivers flowing through it but because everyone does know better the tourist buses line up & photos are taken based on the size of you memory card rather than the quality of your composition.

We visited the Opium museum which was very interesting- high praise from non-museum goers.

Hippy Pai

Pai, Thailand, 23-25 May 2008


An Israeli chap we shared a taxi with in Bangkok had recommended a visit to Pai. After a 3 hour twisty, windy, uppy, downy bus journey we found ourselves in this hippie sanctuary. Pai is awash with coffee shops, bars, trinket stalls... and oh yes hippies. Again the scenery here is nothing special, that can be said for most places we visited in Thailand. It's not breathtaking but it is simply pleasant. Pai is a place to come and chill out and that is all we did there. A word of note should go to a restaurant called Charlie & Lek, the food there was simply amazing, it was so full of flavours and unbelievably inexpensive. The hosts, husband and wife, were charming.



How Original!

Hill Tribe Trekking

South of Chiang Mai, Thailand, 18-19 May 2008

...peek a boo

We spent a day in Chiang Mai before we headed out of the city on a 3 day trekking trip. It was a fairly relaxed affair as our guide "Rambo"liked to take regular extended breaks where he would lie in a hammock! It was nice walking through the paddy fields and local villages and getting a glimpse of how the country folk (Karen Tribe) live in these parts. I think we were expecting to see a lot of poverty but in reality it simply isn't there (thankfully). The people live in a land where there is a huge abundance of fruit, vegetables and of course rice. So while they are not rich there may be no fear going hungry either. Houses are basic but adequate.

Our sleeping quarters consisted of a wooden hut with about 12 mattresses on the floor. Fortunately there were only 6 of us so we had plenty of space. We walked through the village and engaged the locals as best we could. By purchasing beverages or handicrafts the locals make a little profit from our visit (the Tour Company pay the family for our overnight stay but it doesn't amount to much, needless to say the rich get richer). The people seemed genuinely receptive especially the children. The children were beautiful and loved to pose for photos. We would show them the picture we had taken of them and they would respond with a fit of the giggles!

Rambo prepares dinner...

Playful children

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Day 2 saw us trekking through denser forest and past some stunning waterfalls. Our number halved as some opted for 2 day trip only. Having seen a lot of rainfall we thought we'd be caught in at least one downpour on the trek but it didn't happen. When we got to camp on night 2 we realised the wallet containing our credit cards and malaria tablets was awol. We were able to call the previous nights lodging but they did not find anything when cleaning up after we left. What would we do? We hired a motorbike from a local and Dave and Rambo went back to look for it. The holy grail was eventually found in the bin at the place we stayed the previous night! Beers all round. Back at Camp #2 there were large numbers of fireflies, we enjoyed watching them whirr about in the darkness.

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.Making souveniers for toursits

Catching some ZZZZ's

Local School

Day 3 was devoted to Bamboo Rafting & Elephant Riding. Both were fun, both were bump affairs and the day was exceedingly hot. We then caught a mini bus back to CM and our air con room. Overall it was a really enjoyable experience, although Claire found the squat toilets to be a rather unsavoury challenge.

Phew, it's hot

Ah, that's better

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai, Thailand, 16-17, 20-22 & 29-30 May 2008

Chiang Mai (CM) is Thailand's northern capital and the old city is surrounded by a man made square moat 1km by 1km. We walked around the entire perimeter and truth be told we weren't that impressed. We had seen seedy older western men with their very young Thai women in Bangkok but here they seem to be really coming out in droves. We wondered, other than the money, if their was any attraction on the part of the women?

After a day of relaxing with luxurious leg massages after the hill tribe trek, we donned the aprons for a day of Thai cookery lessons. Our Chef, Perm, first took us to the local market where he introduced us to all the various fruit, veg, rice and noodles we would be using. We each selected from a list of dishes those that we would like to learn how to prepare. Once the ingredients had been purchased we all piled into the back of his van and away we went to his suburban hideaway/kitchen. We spent the day preparing soups and curries, mango & sticky rice, spring rolls and Pad Thai and each dish was more delicious than the one before. We ate everything we prepared, we really wished we hadn't had breakfast at our hotel! By the time we left we were all completely stuffed, but in a good way.

Our time in Thailand almost at an end, we headed back to Chiang Mai from Chiang Rai and collected Claire's custom made clothes from the two tailors who were completely drunk at the time, take in a night at the kick boxing stadium, visit the Panda's at the zoo before jumping on a plane for Siem Reap in Cambodia.

Thai Boxing

The First Capital - Sukhothai

Sukhothai, Thailand, 13-15 May 2008

Sukhothai was the capital of Thailand even before Ayathaya was the capital of Thailand. The Lonely Planet states "if you can only digest one ancient city Sukhothai should be top of the list" and we couldn't agree more. It was all here on a grand scale. Temples, chedi's, stupa's, big Buddha's, little Buddha's, and all the other good stuff. While the other towns we had visited had Buddhist ruins scattered here and there, Sukhothai has a large number of them all together in one big parkland area, and they are bigger and more impressive that those seen elsewhere

On our 2nd day we rented bicycles and went exploring outside the old city walls. It was nice to be cycling around in the countryside but, again, nothing topped the ancient ruins and architecture found within the park in old town Sukhothai. Rolling ever on we caught a morning bus to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

Lopburi

Lopburi, Thailand, 12 May 2008

We caught the train further north to Lopburi where we explored some, yes you guessed it, Buddhist ruins. These one's were more interesting though because there were countless loitering monkeys around them. One of them stole the water bottle from the side of my bag and I ended up chasing him like a lunatic until he dropped it. Claire was also a target for attack on a number of occasions. They were good fun. We went for as meal that evening and almost as soon as we sat down the heavens opened. It was like someone had flicked a switch. Rain, rain, rain. We stayed in the restaurant for about 3 hours. Well, I stayed in the restaurant for about 3 hours. Claire found the courage to venture across the road for a Thai massage after the meal leaving me to sup on a beer. Afterwards we caught a night train to Sukhothai.



















Cheeky monkey

Mangostens & Rambutin

exotic fruits

Ayathaya

Ayathaya, Thailand, 11-12 May 2008

Back in Bangkok we were dropped off at the train station for our journey north to Ayathaya. Our guide bought our train tickets and then quickly bade us adieu. Our tickets were the cheapest of the cheap and we were crammed into carriages containing only Thai people. Not another farang in sight. I, Dave, was without a seat and so stood along with countless others.

The journey which should have taken about 1.5 hours ended up taking almost 4.5 hours...and then we missed our station!! Half the carriages did not make it onto the platform and so we were not aware that we had arrived. At the next station, about 20 mins further up the line we managed to get a local man to drive us back to Ayathaya for 500 baht. The guy was a maniac. First of all he couldn't see out of his windscreen with all the condensation and secondly he kept overtaking like a....well, like a maniac. Claire later told me she had been thinking about what her last conversation with her dad had been like and how the police would make sense of these of these two farangs killed in a car crash outside of Ayathaya with this crazy guy. We were very very happy to arrive at our hostel. It had been a long day.

Ayathaya had been the capital of Thailand before the Burmese laid siege upon it, whereupon the king then scampered to what is present day Bangkok. It is not the most attractive town although it does have plenty of Buddhist ruins to keep the tourist occupied. Also home to the famous Buddha head sacked by the Burmese and left at the base of a bodhi tree at Wat Phra Mahathat.

It was here however that we got our first taste of monsoon rain. Our exploring was curtailed by a series of torrential downpours. If you received an email from us recently it was probably sent from Ayathaya!

Kanchanaburi

Kanchanaburi, Thailand, 10 May 2008

From Bangkok we headed west to Kanchanaburi on a 2 day trip. First stop was the bridge on the river Kwai made famous by the film..hmm, now what was it called, oh yes, "The Bridge on the River Kwai". The bridge itself is quite ordinary but the history is extraordinary. Over 100,000 people lost their lives building what is know as the Death Railway. During WWII the Japanese wanted to build this track from Myanmar to Bangkok to aid in the transportation of military supplies. They used the Allied POW's as slave labour. We also visited a nearby cemetery and saw the names of countless young men who never returned home. The inscriptions on the headstones were made by parents who never saw their sons again.

After lunch we visited The Tiger Temple (Wat Pa Luangta Bua Yannasampanno). This is a working monastery that doubles up as a wildlife sanctuary where the monks care for wild pigs, peacocks, buffalo's, cows, horses, wild goats, and of course tigers. It was amazing to be brought around their enclosure and to be able to place your hand on their belly and feel them breathing. My advice, get in quick before they maim somebody and the authorities shut the place down. Spoilsports. Next it was onto the tiger cubs where again, who could resist patting these playful little creatures.

After dinner it was a quick boat ride up the river to our accommodation for the night. Our rooms were right on the river and by our best estimation were also right in the middle of nowhere. We had a good night though drinking too much beer and chatting with the others on our tour. The following morning feeling a little the worse for wear we visited the Erawan National Park home to the seven tiered Erawan Falls. It was a really nice spot and plenty of the locals were to be seen sporting picnic baskets. This was the second place we had our photograph surreptitiously taken only to later see our ugly mugs plastered across a souvenir plate. Only 100 baht. I don't know the Thai for "no gracias"...but I wish I did.

Erawan Waterfalls