Chiang Rai

Temple inside the cave

Today we headed further north to Chiang Rai where we will stay for a couple of days. Our first stop along the way was at the Chiang Dao cave.   The “tour” was led by a young woman carrying a lantern. Inside there were statues of Buddha and various iconography. In two places you had to get down very low and almost crawl to fit through the openings. It was warm in the cave, there was not a whole lot to see and the stalagtite/stalagmite formations were not that impressive. The large school of catfish just outside the entrance were more exciting. You could feed them and they would come to the surface with their mouths gaping wide sucking up the food.

Heading down deeper into the cave

The cave was originally used as a temple but as the community grew around it grew in size, they moved the temple outside. However, the cave is still treated as a temple and people still come to worship.

Thanton Temple

From there we moved on to Thaton temple. This temple we built to honor the 60^th birthday of the king of Thailand. More museum than temple, this structure was pretty cool. Inside there was a spiral ramp leading from the bottom level (earth) to the top level (heaven). The ramp was representative of a dragon and the individual scales on the dragon were each engraved with the name of each donor who contributed to building the temple.

Spiral dragon ramp

Heaven

Dragon scales

Also inside were various statues of Buddha from differing Buddhist countries. While there was only one Buddha, each country has their own image of what Buddha looked like. By carefully examining the clothing, hairstyle, and facial features, one could have a good idea from which country the statue came.

Burma

Korea

 We stopped for lunch nearby at a wonderful  restaurant overlooking a river and the lush tropical forest. There were several women from the Akha hill tribe selling their wares just outside the open air seating area and unfortunately I made the mistake of making eye contact while   Vanessa skipped over the next lady but purchased something from the third. The girl in the middle who was skipped over was like hey, why did you skip me and tried to get us to buy from her and all the others saying “one, one, one” as she pointed to each vendor.  It was an amusing and very friendly exchange with the women to say the least. This is how they make their living and the prices are cheap, however you just can’t buy from everyone. We would meet more women from the Akha tribe the next day and they too were as charming as those we met today.

Restaurant view

eating. Once you do that, they are determined to sell you something. The Akha originally migrated from Tibet and the women were charming with beautiful smiles, a twinkle in their eyes, traditional clothing and persistent, but not annoyingly pushy sales techniques.

Akha hilltribe

The girl who caught my eye during lunch had already won me over and I knew I would buy something from her, but not before giving her a bit of a hard time. They all spoke virtually no English (this is not a complaint, just an observation) but they knew how to say “buy” and the dollar amount that items cost. She handed me a small, hand-sewn seahorse (I wondered where she had ever seen a seahorse living up in the mountain) that she insisted, through hand gestures, was made by her. I said “China”? No! No! she countered. I had our guide ask her if she made it and he said yes. The price was 100 Baht which is about $3 US. When I balked she lowered the price to 80 Baht. Did I really need to quibble over 60 cents?

Tea plantation

We then moved on to Doi Mae Salaong. It is an area that was settled by Chinese refugees during WWII. They used to grow poppies for heroin, but the government cracked down and they changed to growing tea. We stopped for a short visit at the tea plantation for a look at the terraced tea farm and a taste of tea. Since I am not a tea aficionado, and had seen tea plantations and tea ceremonies in China and Japan, my interest was mediocre at best. 

When you have to go...

We finished the day at the Chiang Rai night market. We had dinner in an open air restaurant while entertainment was performed at a nearby stage.

Chiang Rai night market

Open air restaurant

Thai food.. mostly delicious

Singers, musicians and some Thai ladyboys performed. The food was great, cheap, but a little too spicy for my taste.

Life is a cabaret...

The internet connection at our new hotel is intermittent and slow. I don’t know if I will be able to continue  to post, but I will try. It is December 25 here so Merry Christmas to all.