Time to move from the serenity of Chiang Mai – actually I decided to stay an extra day and cut Chiang Rai down to 2 nights – a good decision – see later blogs. So on to Chiang Rai from where I will be collected to start my Laos adventure on Sunday. It made sense to me to as it’s almost 200kms, to make a day of it rather than just a journey from A to B. So I signed up for a tour of the hilltribes and Golden Triangle, making it clear I wanted to be dropped off in Chiang Rai and not return South. No problem said the agent – big problem said the tour guide when I was picked up, we don’t drive back through Chiang Rai at the end of the day….. But as ever, Thai people are helpful, and by changing tour group half way through the day it all worked out. And spending the day in two small tour vans I realised that the Brits are obviously feeling it, in both there were Americans, Malaysians, Germans, French and Dutch but I was the only Brit. I also noticed this in Chiang Mai – there were very few British voices to be heard. After the obligatory stop off at the hot springs (smell of sulphur and not just from the eggs they were boiling in the springs) we move on to a famous temple whose name escapes me – a pile of old bricks came to mind! We then drive North of Chiang Rai (stopping to drop my case off at my hotel) to the Golden Triangle where Laos, Thailand and Burma meet. It appears to be the new Asian Las Vegas with Laos and Burma competing for the local gamblers. A huge casino is already open on the Burma side and one is nearing completion in Laos. The Thai’s though, very “politically correctly” have declined to play that game and are concentrating on local handicrafts. Apparently it’s a three day slow boat ride here from Southern China and that’s where most of the casino patrons come from. The stopping place is on the Mekong and we are offered a river trip to sidle up to the Burmese border (but non Thai’s can’t enter here), and then into Laos – well technically Laos but actually an island where you can get your passport stamped and send postcards as well as buying various forms of tat from the stalls. I felt a bit like an American – almost three countries in an hour! But I didn’t bother with the Laos stamp, I should be getting a real one in a couple of days (WAG – Ant will understand that one!). But good fun and it gave me a taste of my forthcoming two day Mekong trip to Luang Prabang – I just hope that boat is a little bigger than the one we were on today. After eating the regulation buffet we move on to Mai Sai the town at the Burma border crossing. Again, for a fee, you have the opportunity to step into Burma. I was tempted, but two things stopped me. One, I am not sure that under the rules a quick five minutes over the border counts as a new pin. Secondly, my passport is quickly running out of pages. If border guards and immigration are not to too free with the stamps I should make it home, but it will be a close call, so I couldn’t afford to waste some space on Burma!. Not bad really for a passport that valid till 2017 is now almost full. Perhaps I need to get a new extra big one as soon as I get back.The border town of Mai Sai has a wild west frontier town feel about it – stall after stall of rubbish, odd people, beggars and tourist vans everywhere as well as a high police presence.
But we need to move on and drive to visit two “hilltribes” the Akha and the Yao. No idea why they’re called hill tribes as there wasn’t a hill to be seen. But these are quite close to Chiang Rai, and whilst they are normal villages living a rural life, you get the feel they are showpieces. To see the real hilltribes I think you need to go a little further off the beaten track than in a minibus with eight other people. Some of the residents are in full traditional costume, but as you are expected to pay to take the picture of some, I didn’t – somehow it just didn’t feel right. But there was one I wanted to take – a man posing in a very silly tribal hat, smoking an enormous pipe that in the old days would have been opium, whilst in the background real life went on as a mother, with a child clinging to her hips, was punishing three very small children by beating them soundly with a stick, oblivious to the cameras. As you can imagine from the tourists there were pursed lips all round especially from the Americans…
The Yao tribe are the smallest tribal group in Thailand (they came in from Southern China hundreds of years ago), but the largest are the Karen or Longnecks, they are the ones whose women have their necks stretched by adding gold rings. I haven’t seen them yet, but there is a village just outside of Chiang Rai, so I may go tomorrow. But there is something not quite right, it feels a bit like a human zoo…. But I am about to start a tribe of my own. I am currently wearing my friendship bracelet from Vietnam, my temple bracelet from Adam’s Peak and my gold bangles from Dubai. Today I had a beaded bracelet wrapped around my wrist by an ancient Akha lady. My new tribe will be the “longwrists” to make space for all the bracelets I am collecting. Who said anything about growing old gracefully…
