I flew from Siem Reap to Bangkok on 10th April, bound for Chiang Rai. Since I had an hour or so to kill before my flight to Bangkok, I sat down in the lounge at Bangkok airport to wait. I was surprised at the size of Bangkok airport and I guess there must have been some thousands of people sitting around waiting. After a while, the lady sitting next to me asked where I was going and I told her to Chiang Rai. She said she was going there too and asked where I was staying. I gave her the name of the hotel and she said she was staying in the same hotel. This carried on until it finally transpired that not only was she going to Laos, but that she was on the same trip as me, with Travel IndoChina. To cap it all, not only did we sit in the same rown on the plane, but when we got to the hotel, our rooms were right next to each other. I can't begin to work out what the odds of all that happening might be.
It turns out that she is from Edmonton and, since we had a day before the trip to Laos started, we agreed to share the cost of a tour round the Chiang Rai area the following day. We managed to pack quite a lot into the trip, starting with a visit to the White Pagoda. Although this was only built a few years ago, it is quite impressive and has something of the look of a Christmas decoration. It's completely white, apart from thousands of small mirrors; which run round all the edges of the building. This imparts a quite magical effect.
We then headed up into the mountains to visit the Huai Mae Zaiy waterfall. This was hardly spectacular by world standards, but pleasant enough, especially for the kids who swam in the pool at the bottom. The many large and colourful butterflies that were there added to the charm of the falls.
Next was a trip up-river for a ride on an elephant. This was something I'd not done before and it turned out to be quite fun. It seemed a bit unstable at first, perched up on the seat, especially when going downhill, but we soon learned to put our faith in the elephant and he turned out to be pretty sure-footed. (I'm sure there's a name for the seat you ride on, but it escapes me at present.) Before we got on the beast, I'd been persuaded to buy some bananas to feed the elephant on the way round and so I got a huge bunch of maybe fifty of those delicious Thai bananas, small, but sweet and very tasty. At one point, the driver indicated that it was time for the elephant to have a snack and so I passed over a banana. The elephant seemed quite pleased with his nibble, but a few minutes later the driver asked for more fruit and proceeded to take the whole bunch, which the elephant then gobbled in a single mouthful. He then walked into the river, had a drink and washed himself, before climbing out again and continuing on our journey round the village and back to the starting point. The whole trip probably only took about thirty minutes, but it was great fun.
After a very satisfying lunch we then drove to a place where five separate tribes have built their own villages, all next to each other. Since the whole thing is aimed at tourists, this was presumably done under the auspices of the Government. Each of the tribes specialises in a few products, which they sell to tourists. The most interesting of the tribes were the Long-Necked Women, who originally hail from Burma (now known as Myanmar). Legend has it that one day one of the women of the tribe was attacked by a tiger, who bit her in the neck and killed her. The tribes people then decided that the women would henceforth wear gold bands round their necks to provide protection from the tigers. They start by adding three rings when the girls are quite young and then add further rings each year, until they end up with something like eight kilos of gold round the necks. In fact, these days they cannot afford gold and so copper is used instead. Once the rings have been put in place, they cannot be removed and the women have them for life. In recent times, they have also started wearing multiple rings on their legs and arms. At one point, the women performed a musical number for us, using large bamboo rods to beat out a quite effective rhythm. I don't think we bought anything from any of the tribes, but I believe we did leave a donation to help them continue with their lifestyle.
After a visit to yet another temple, it was time to head for a high point where we could look down on the Golden Triangle. This is the famed strip of land bounded by three countries, Thailand, Burma and Laos that was used for opium production at the time of the Opium Wars. The poppies used for opium production flourished on the Golden Triangle and generated much wealth, hence the name. Near our viewing point was an interesting museum devoted to the opium trade, but also including marihuana, that also flourished in the Triangle. The museum showed the various stages in opium production, together with a host of the paraphernalia linked to the trade (pipes, scales, etc.). There was also a mock-up of an opium den, as shown in the picture.
On the way back to our hotel, we had a brief visit to another temple, finally arriving back at the hotel, exhausted, at about 7pm.
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