When I was planning coming here, I was concerned that it would be cold. The Bangkok Post weather forecasts for this Northern area always had a symbol of a person wrapped up with a hat and scarf. And this morning, all the hotel staff were muffled up in hats and scarves too. Now I am known to feel the cold, but even with the slight freshness in the air at the beginning of the day, I still didn’t need a cardi! But at least where breakfast was concerned, unlike dinner “they had”. Well everything that is apart from milk – and coffee with coffemate just doesn’t taste the same!To find a decent cup of coffee, I make my way into Chiang Rai “city” and I was right, although there was a little more than I saw last night, there isn’t much. My decision to go on a bit of a tour to discover more of the local area sees me negotiating with a tuk tuk driver. I didn’t think I wanted to go far but in the end I think we did about 60 bouncing kms – the lack of any scale on the maps doesn’t help when trying to work it all out beforehand. I first of all went to a Karen Hilltribe, and unlike yesterday, this one was in the hills as I discovered as the tuk tuk battled with the steep inclines. I get there to discover that not all Karen villages are the tourist traps that I thought. The upside of this is that there are no other tourists and no one trying to sell you anything. The downside is that they are not the colourful villages with people in costume that you would expect either, and nothing to buy. This was just a small settlement going about its daily life. People dressed in the embroidered wrap round skirts and tops but with no elaborate headdresses or necklaces. I did feel a bit of an interloper even though they were full of friendly hello’s, so took no pictures of the people, just the village. We then moved on to the hot springs, which were pretty and set on the banks of a beautiful river, and later took a look at the elephant village from across the river. On the way back we drove through really spectacular scenery, meandering rivers, rice paddies, local villages and the dark hills towards the distant Burmese border. We stopped at the Phra Cave which is filled by a number of large Buddha statues together with the offerings left by the devotees. These were ranged along a side wall of the cave and included the usual fruit, flowers and domestic utensils, although I still can’t work out whether the rather large ugly fridge in the middle was actually used or was just an offering…
Getting back to the hotel mid afternoon and hungry I enquired about the availability of food. “Yes it is” I am told proudly – “from 6.30pm”. So I wander to the posh hotel next door, also it seems built for the Chinese I discover as I inadvertently walk into a private dining room where a group of Chinese men were drinking whiskey and seriously playing cards. A hasty retreat brings me to the proper restaurant where I indulge in a toasted cheese sandwich as I contemplate the lazy river passing by. Ah, what a great way to spend Saturday afternoon!
