Chiang Mai - Chiang Rai

Symbolic village well for ceremonial purposes
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Chiang Mai - Chiang Rai

Having booked the YHA option on the train with help from a local and her free mobile call, we enjoyed the free transfer from "Mac" in the red pickup van.  Settled in and did some internet (free and slow, and we later discovered that half the emails went into a black hole!) - walked downtown to the night markets and had what seemed like a nice chicken masala (Mark) and daal (Jan).  Tuk-tuk home about 9.00pm only to become far too familiar with the toilet and bathroom, with both of us emptying our stomachs over and over (too much information!!).

Chinese Anti-Communist Army Memorial
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Tuesday 30/1 - Mark still crook as a dog - Jan recovered pretty well by lunchtime (only had one mouthful of the masala, not a whole plate) - we were glad of a comfortable room for this sleeping recovery time.

Wed 31/1 - Up and about and greatly relieved to be feeling okay again.  Simple continental brekkie and we packed up for the 11.30am bus to  Chiang Rai, 3 1/2 hours A/C comfort, A$6 each.  We both agreed that if we returned to Thailand we'll avoid Chiang Mai and the Indian curry!  Chiang Rai much smaller, less commercialist/touristy and we settled into "The White House" guesthouse at A$10/night and pal up with Pommy couple Sue and James from Cumbria.  After settling in we walked over the town to find the Hill Tribe Museum and Education Centre, a very impressive setup where we took in a good dose of history and bought up big on various handicrafts, being assured that fair prices are returned to the crafts people.  We ate dinner at "Cabbages and Condoms" restaurant - a venture to educate in family planning and has been very successful in lowering the incidence of HIV/AIDS and birth rate from 7 to 2 children per family.  Their catch-cry is "Eating at this restaurant will not cause pregnancy"!

Yellow flowers we can't name!
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We booked a full day tour for the next day to learn about hill tribe culture and then walked home in a pleasant 20.8 degrees C, calling in at a Buddhist temple to chat with some locals prior to the monk arriving for the evening seminar.  Great to observe people praying with lovely sincerity, and eaglerly taking notes from their religious leader. (NB Pilgrim people - tongue in cheek!)

Thurs 1/2 - Our comfortable A/C minivan collected us plus luggage 9.15am for the day trip to hill tribes.  We are four people - us plus Allen and Lynne, a couple of American lawyers from San Deigo, who we quite enjoyed getting to know and conversing with throughout the day.  Our venture with driver and guide "Mr A" (where do they get these names??) included :

Memorial to the King's mother comprising stunning palatial house and pagoda
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* Hot artesian sulphur spring where we cooked/ate boiled eggs and see the d'ment of a spa resort in the making.

* First tribal village very commercial and tacky, lots of stalls, some women doing needlework, others weaving in raw silk.  Noticed a "Church of Christ in Thailand"and I recall Thai missionary endeavour from my boyhood Churches of Christ days - how very challenging that must have been all those years ago in this remote north-west region, almost within sight of the Burma/Myannmar border.

Hill Tribe Museum - costumes
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* Second tribe village - Lisu people - much less commercial - we were walked through the village, primitive houses yet each with electric lights and a communal satellite dish for TV reception.  Lovely lunch, fish, roast duck, black chicken soup.

* Chinese (Anti-Communist) Army Memorial/Park/Museum and onto a Pagoda buit to honour the King's mother, built on a high mountain top.

* Mae Salong Resort, a former army camp, for tea-tasting ceremony, before a final visit to a tea plantation.

The King is loved in Thailand - every town/city with banners and lights displaying "Long Live the King" sentiments
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We then got dropped off at Chiang Rai airport on the way back, in plenty of time to check in for our 10pm departure to Bangkok.  Mark now well into the book "Thirteen Moons" by Charles Frazier about the growth and development of early America and the plight of indigenous Indians, and Jan almost to the end of "The Widow of the South" putting some fiction around a real woman who cared for Confederate soldiers in a makeshift hospital in her home - a good read!

Arrived Bangkok 11.10pm, collected backpacks, made our way to International Level 4, found comfortable seats by midnight to read/snooze/wait for our 7.00am flight onto Phnom Penh, and so the Thailand chapter is ended.....  and it's now 12.15am on 5 February, and that's Happy Birthday Jan!!  Love and goodnight to all our readers...