Chiang Rai

Our next stop was the northern town of Chiang Rai which we used as a base for our trek into the jungle. We read about a non-profit group based in Chiang Rai, PDA, that does culturally and ecologically sensitive trekking tours to the hill tribe villages and then recylces the profits back into the community through programs and necessary items. Also, all of the guides were from one of the hill tribe villages, so they were extremely knowlegable and could provide some good personal insight into the condition of the villages today with tourism and modernization threatening the traditional ways of the villagers. PDA also developed and runs a cool little museum with artifacts, clothing, etc. from each of the 7 different hill tribes that currently reside in Thailand. To appeal to the sensationalist in us all, there was an in-depth exhibit on opium since Chiang Rai is the closest city to "The Golden Triangle", the area with the highest opium (therefore heroin and morphine) production in the world. The history, cultivation process, current stats, and the involement of the hill tribes in the opium market in the past and to this day were all there, along with some pretty atrocious factoids about the U.S. buddying up to opium warlords in order to garner support for their anti-communism campaign in SE Asia during the 60's and 70's. Juicy stuff! On to the pictures!



Mike representing with the Thai flag at a CR park.












We ventured out for food at the Chiang Rai night market and came across some local northern delicacies and couldn't miss the chance to try them, vegetarianism be damned. Silworm, giant ant, and the apperatif du jour...cricket. Mmm, mmm!









Out at night in CR.














Part of our trek was a two hour elephant ride up the mountain...it was awesome! I couldn't believe how agile he was for being so big. We went up and down slopes and crossed boulder strewn creeks that I'm not sure a horse could navigate with such ease. Since the government doesn't use elephants for logging, or fighting, anymore they are pretty much only used for tourism.






He just didn't seem to understand that I ran out of bananas to feed him. We also saw a 100 kilo python that the village had caught 20 years ago.











Terraced rice farming we passed on our way up the mountain.




















Since Kim knew everyone and Mike and I were alone on the tour, many people invited us into their home for tea and rice.



The kitchen of the Lehu family house we ate lunch in. The perfect stove, just an adobe floor with a fire on it, was being manned by the grandmother since the whole family was out in the fields planting.










One of my favorite parts of the trek was visiting the school of the Lehu village. We met some of the kids and talked to the teacher. He does double duty, working for this village school and teaching classes at the regional high school as well.










The Karen tribe is reknown for their weaving; this woman was weaving cloth using a back strap to sell to middlemen who buy and take her goods to local markets to sell to tourists.











The villages (Lehu village shown here) were all provided free solar panels from the Thai government so they wouldn't have to build expensive electricity infrastructure all the way to these geographically isolated locales.













My first time under a mosquito net...malaria free in 2007!























We also rode a traditional long boat for an hour up a river, stopped at 4 more villages, drank homemade rice whiskey, the Thai equivalent of moonshine, ate the nearly extinct and gigantic"jungle banana" with large black seeds, and stopped at a bamboo shroaded waterfall. It was awesome. We left the next day for Chiang Khong, our departure point for a two day slow boat trip down the mighty and muddy Mekong River to Luang Prabang, Laos.

Chiang Mai

Set amongst the misty mountains of northern Thailand, Chiang Mai is a walled city of narrow brick streets and leafy gardens surrounded by a moat. It's so serene and green compared to Bangkok... a whole different world.

The first night we got here we took a walk around the wall. The Taepae Gate is the most famous entrance into the old city.

The wall of the old city lit up at night. The wall was built when the city was a capital to protect against Burmese invaders from the west.

A wat we walked by on our walk.

This is the view outside our guesthouse window. There's an awesome vegetarian restaurant, tea shop, and bakery located just downstairs...how terribly inconvenient.

You can't go to Thailand without getting a Thai massage, or two, or three, or maybe just one a day! How can you pass up an hour long massage for $3? You've got to be crazy!

Friday night we went to see a Muay Thai boxing match. It lasted all night because there were 7 different matches...two of which were little boys that couldn't have been more than 9 years old. The most interesting parts were the spiritual ritual the boxers do before each match and watching the Thai men heckle and gamble on the boxers. Also, there's a really interesting subculture of caucasian guys that come over and train in Muay Thai, totally Karate

Kid(!), and fight in these local matches. We met one last night and watched another French one get beat by a Thai boxer.

Muay Thai boxing is pretty much anything goes. I read somewhere that it was the inspiration for that really sadly entertaining "Ultimate Cage Fighting" T.V. show sensation that swept the U.S. a few years ago...haha.

Saturday we spent most of the day at a Thai cooking class, which totally rocked. We learned all about typical Thai spices and ingredients, which can be a little overwhelming without help since a lot is so different.

We then learned how to make some really amazing Thai dishes such as: green curry paste, green curry tofu, fried TVP (textured vegetable protein...mmm!) with basil, veggie spring rolls, veggie pad thai with tofu, green papaya salad, and fried jungle banana with coconut toffee sauce.

The best part was eating everything we cooked...deliciouuuuss! We also got to sample all kinds of crazy looking fruits from this area that we've seen all over Thailand in the markets but haven't bought yet. We got a recipe book to take home with us so hopefully we'll be cooking for you sometime soon upon our return. As you can tell, I was really excited about the cooking class.

Sunday, our last night in Chiang Mai, the monsoon rain finally ceased for a while and we went out to walk about the town and get some food stand grub. We came upon:

A huge scorpion on the sidewalk. That coin is about the size of a quarter.

A night market. It was huge and overwhelming. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff that people are selling, or trying to sell, at these things.

And yet another night market. They closed down all the main streets within the old city and opened them up to vendors since they weather was so nice. Lots of markets...

Phitsanulok & Sukhothai

Long Distance Travel in Thailand (Adventure #1) - Goal: Bangkok to Phitsanulok ~ 380 km

We knew which bus station in Bangkok to make our inquiry and that was it. We decided an early start was better than a late one since our lonely planet book said the ride would be about 8 hours. Leaving our hostel at 7:00 am, we rode the city bus and took the skytram to have a stroll around a park before finding the Chatuchat (Mo Chit) Bangkok Northern Bus Terminal around 9:45 am. A helpful police officer directed us to the bus ticket window for the Phi-lot bus and we bought our ticket for 265 B (less than $10). Our bus was to leave in 10 minutes...perfect timing. We bought water and snacks, not knowing if there would be an opportunity for food during our journey and waited at our bus terminal. At 10:30, a mammoth bus arrived. Although there were seat numbers on our tickets, people began pouring into the bus as soon as it stopped. We learned there are no assigned seats on Thai buses. :-) The bus driver helped us find two seats together and we rode in style all the way to Phi-Lot with reclining seats and A/C. Other passengers were not as lucky, having to ride in the aisle seated on stools. It was packed.

We arrived in Phi-lot around 4:45 pm and took the city bus #1 into town and found London Hotel our place of rest. For 150 B we had a room with a fan and shared bathrooms with true Thai toilets (squat toilet, no toilet paper, bowl of water for cleaning and flushing). A good experience. We went for a walk along the river before dinner and watched Thai's exercising: Takraw (like hakisac), public aerobics, and even some jogging. We ate at the 'Flying Vegetable' for dinner which served us a stir-fried spinach/garlic dish (morning glory).

The next day we took a bus to the ancient city of Sukhothai and rode bikes around the ruins seeing Buddhas in different poses and ancient temples. The old city was surrounded by moats and walls. The walls have since fallen but the moats are still there. It made for some amazing reflections of the temples and palm trees on the water. We made it safely back to Phi-Lot and back to the 'Flying Vegetable' for dinner. This time besides the morning glory we ordered a bottle of Thai whiskey and Pepsi and played cards while it rained.

Phi-lot was great. A nice stop in the middle of the country. Pictures below. :-)