Northern Thailand and the Golden Triangle

Location: Northern Thailand, Laos

On Thursday morning, we woke up early to get on our tour bus into Northern Thailand. Our first stop on the tour was a natural hot spring. However, we were expecting something more grandiose. What we got was basically a pit stop at a shop along the road, which had a hot spring; however, this really just looked like a little fountain with some water shooting out the middle. I put my hand in it, and it wasn't even hot. I had to be told later by Ben that that was the hot spring we were supposed to visit. Pretty disappointing.

Our next stop was the city of Chiang Saen. On the way, we passed through Chiang Rai. Our tour guide had told us about a monument in the city, in honor of King Mengrai, who founded Chiang Rai in 1262. However, we did not stop here, and sped right past it. I'm not sure why the tour was designed in that way; it would have taken maybe 5 minutes to stop at the monument. I managed to get a photo of it as we passed by though:

Upon reaching Chiang Saen, we made a stop at another temple, Wat Chedi Luang. This one was built in 1291, and very little of it still stands. However, it has an impressive stone pillar, and is in the process of being restored today:

Next, we headed to the Golden Triangle. This place is along the Mekong River, and is where three countries meet: Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos. It once was a very important location for the growing and trading of opium; very little of that remains today. It is known as the Golden Triangle, because gold was used as the currency for the opium trade in this area. Some views of the Mekong River:

In the first picture above, the three countries are visible. On my side of the Mekong is Thailand. Immediately ahead is Laos. In the distance is Myanmar.

We were escorted to a longtail boat, which took us around the river a little bit. We passed by some sights along the way:

The first photo is a monument built in Thailand with a large Buddha statue, marking the Golden Triangle. The second is of a casino in Myanmar, and the third is of a small Laotian island in the Mekong. People are allowed to enter this island from Thailand or Myanmar without needing a visa stamp; however, to enter the rest of Laos, a stamp is required. We disembarked at this island for a little while:

This is clearly a tourist stop, with little shops selling some of the same things we've seen elsewhere. However, there were some items for sale more specific to Laos and the Golden Triangle:

The two photos above show sets of opium pipes, made of various materials. They looked very nice, so I bought one for 200 baht (~7 dollars). I suspect that some might actually be made of ivory-I didn't try to get one of these, as I didn't want to risk a hassle at U.S. customs (perhaps more importantly, it's not really morally kosher in my mind). Ben had bought some pipes as well, on the Thai side of the river. He was a little bothered by the fact that he paid a lot more for them there than I did in Laos. Below are two more pictures of another local specialty.

This is Laotian whiskey. Those are real snakes and scorpions in the bottle! They soak them in the whiskey, giving it a distinct flavor. Needless to say, I declined to give it a try. I can imagine what the look on the custom officer's face would be if I presented that in Newark Airport.

After about 30 minutes, we took the longtail boat back to Thailand. This longtail boat itself was not covered like the ones in Bangkok and Phuket. Here's some video of the ride:

We then headed up to the monument on the Thai side. The Buddha and other statues here were very impressive:

We ate lunch by the Golden Triangle, and then proceeded to the city of Mai Sae. This is the most northern point in Thailand. The main attraction here is a border crossing with Myanmar:

Since we only had about a half an hour, and the border crossing visa cost 500 baht, we decided it wasn't worth it, and just hung out in the city for a little while. We then made our way to two different villages in rural Thailand. Here, people lived in huts with straw roofs in the hills. Of course, they also sold crafts to tourists passing through. Chickens ran across the narrow dirt roads, and kids played by the huts. Although not so exciting, we arrived to these around sunset, and the atmosphere was very beautiful and peaceful:

By this time, it was around 5pm, so we got back into the bus and headed back to Chiang Mai. Along the way, we passed by many farms growing rice. It was hard to get a good photo from the bus, but I managed to get one:

We were pretty tired when we got back to Chiang Mai, so we just took it easy for the rest of the night.