Chiang Rai

Thailand turns tires to trashcans.
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It is typical, unfortunately, of languid Laos that nobody thinks to mention that we would not be able to get rid of our currency, the almighty kip, once we’d crossed the border. Any more enterprising country would supply ten “last opportunities” to use kip on all manner of goods and services. It seems like we have a lot left over. It’s a bundle of notes and could have got me another bolt of fabric at that last weaving village. It might have made a much nicer tip for the boat crew. Yet … it’s only $5. The extreme difference in currency value makes the idea of travel to the west so scary for the Indochinese, even if travel were possible which, for most, it is not.

Across the river from the third to the first world.
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Our boat docks on the right (starboard!) side of the Mekong at Houeisay. We are shuffled off and driven by tuk-tuk to another part of the river. Our Lao departure cards are taken and, for five minutes, we are in No Man’s Land as we bid farewell to our boat guide and board a swift longtail boat to cross the river (which belongs to Laos) and enter Thailand. Our Thai guy is waiting at the water’s edge. We’re swinging through the trees, with someone always there to throw us the next vine.

Andy wonders if the Rimkok Hotel sells signature underwear.

Using the elephant for scale, imagine the size of this monstrosity.
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Spoilt babies that we are, we mourn our departure from the Third World. The road is smooth and has lane markers. The van’s air conditioning is vigorous and efficient. There are billboards and more cars. Hmmph! We might as well be in Sydney. In Laos and Cambodia and Vietnam, where the lowly job of serving street food is performed on foot, and at both ends of a bamboo pole, here it is conducted from a cart attached to a motorbike. Such transport on the other side of the border is a sign of some affluence, with the driver a little further away from hand-to-mouth subsistence. Still, the driver here has Buddha on the dashboard, so all cannot be yet lost.

Skinny happy stands next to fat happy.
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We stop at a market. (Surprised?) Here the stall owners are smart. Yes, they still display pigs’ heads, toads and all manner of things we don’t want to eat, but they’ve dumped the fly swat in favor of an electric fan that sports strips of fly swatting plastic from its rudimentary blades. We also find there a monk shop, selling robes, corsets, shawls, cheap plastic sandals, pom-poms, mini disco balls for temples, incense, gold(en) Buddha statues, and rosewater for the annual washing of said statues. Henry reasons that monks are poor so the prices are probably good.

Pick a temple, any temple, at the temple warehouse.
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We arrive at the very grand and shabby Rimkok Hotel in Chiang Rai and Andy wonders if they sell signature underwear. The shiny marble and rosewood lobby sports the most elaborate and overdone spirit temple we’ve seen in a long while – probably ever. It’s not the only example of extremely garish Buddhist taste however. At the Golden Triangle – the confluence of the Mekong and the Mae Sai and the place where you can see Burma, Laos and Thailand – a ghastly, gold shiny Buddha can be seen from miles away, placed high on a concrete plinth and hemmed in by kitsch. The trinket shops are deserted and their attendants wilt in the extreme heat. Next to the big bold shiny guy is a not-so-huge-but-still-too-big happy Buddha (Henry’s favorite) with a hole in his oversized gut. The idea is to climb the steps and try to roll your coins down an enormous tube into his beer belly, like some tacky financial version of an intravenous drip. The tube is miked so the roll is amplified, thus adding a dynamic in-the-moment interactive element to the fundraising.

Its a funny cooler, a very funny cooler. Why is it called a funny cooler?
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One can see the influence of Cambodian architecture here but it’s all just been put on turbo. It’s bigger, shinier or just – more.  Witness the roofs on everything. Why does every house marker, town sign and temple notice have at least three roofs, and each with little curlicues at the ends? Even the bus shelters look special. Every roof is pitched, as if we’re in Switzerland. “To make it more beautiful,” responds the guide. The rest of the world must look butt ugly and very bare to the Thais.