November 22 – Chiang Rai, Thailand

Chiang Rai is about 3 hours by local bus from the Thai/Lao border at Chiang Kong and about 5 hours north of Chiang Mai. We decided to rest here for 2 nights until we flew back to Bangkok and then to Vietnam. We had not been as fastidious finding places to stay in advance so we began our tour of Chiang Rai by trudging around with our packs on trying to orient ourselves and find a place to stay. It’s a bit more sprawling than we had hoped with no real nucleus for guest houses. When in doubt, ask another white person, which we did and were led to PS Guest House.

PS was a clean and conveniently located place with a nice woman named Au (pronounced Aw) who owned and operated it. The best part was she provided free bicycles to get around and cheap motor bikes to rent. In hindsight we are not quite sure if perhaps PS was the centre of an underground “companion” service for foreign male travelers. Au is married to a British guy who seemed to have lots of foreign “friends” around who go out all afternoon and into the wee hours of the morning. Au has lots of girl friends she hangs out with playing dominoes and eating food until they meet the guys later. We can’t put our finger on it, but we couldn’t help but draw a few conclusions. There was nothing that felt outwardly inappropriate for us to be in the middle of and maybe, just maybe, Janet’s wild imagination was hard at work again! I have to say though, the prostitution in Thailand (female and male) seems to be abundant. I am curious why. Has it always been that way?

On to other topics. We rented motor bikes again to help us deal with our new crisis of trying to line up our Vietnam entry visas. We definitely let this detail fall through the cracks. By the time we got our act together we were paying through the nose for fast visas, money transfers and even flight changes. We briefly thought about getting on our flight sans visas and getting it by email upon arrival. Fortunately, we decided to be a little less “James Bond”, more safe and change our flights. Turns out you need to show your visa or visa letter of approval when checking in at the airport. Phew.

Chiang Rai is a good visit for about 2 days. We rode the motorbikes for about 30 km to The White Temple. Designed by a famous local artist, this temple has been under construction for 12 years and is expected to take about 90 years to complete…it is an intricate combination of traditional and contemporary with a whole lot of “goth” mixed in (skulls, hands coming out of the water and chipped mirrors everywhere). One of the more intriguing parts was the wax monk in the main part of the temple. We stood there for a very long time trying to decide if he was real or not and finally had to ask. There was also an interesting art gallery displaying the artists paintings and sculptures. Our journey back was following Ron’s nose through uncharted territory, taken to avoid going on the major highway we took to get out there. Fortunately his nose has proven itself over and over so the rest of us don’t bother worrying.

Our other activity in Chiang Rai was the night market. Seems most towns we have come across turn their downtown core into extensive night markets most nights. Shopping, food and drinks were abundant. We tried deep friend crickets (yes really) but bypassed the deep fried cockroaches and fried grubs. The report is that the crickets were pretty much air and crunch with a hint of tasty marinade BUT it was still pretty hard for us to wrap our minds around the fact we were eating bugs. Yech! We also tried deep fried ice cream which was really good – I mean it’s a combination of deep fried batter with still frozen (still not sure how the physics work on that one) ice cream in the middle, what’s the mystery? We found great real food at the market and the other night we went to a restaurant called Cabbage and Condoms. The kids were “grossed out” right from the start by the name, the art images of condom propaganda everywhere and the mannequin covered from head to toe with coloured condoms didn’t help either. The restaurant raises money for aids and safe sex awareness in Chiang Rai. A great cause…and an even greater teaching moment?

We were sad to say good-bye to Thailand. She was very kind to us and I think we would all love to come back one day. In the meantime, Janet has spouted off profusely about cooking Thai at home so we’ll see about that.