Huay Xai and Chiang Rai

Saturday night into Sunday 30th

When you cross into Thailand overland you are only allowed a 15 day visa, hence we had to stay in Huay Xai for one night, although it still means we will be overstaying our visas by one day. Lonely Planet seems to think that we won't get fined as they allow for an extra day, but worst case scenario we have to pay a ~$15 fine each.

As per normal we were left waiting at the bus station for some unknown reason, after thirty minutes we were off for our '12' hour overnight trip to the Thai-Lao border town of Huay Xai. Eventhough i had previously said that we would not do another overnight bus, we decided it was the better option over the two day one night slow boat ride up the Mekong. Big mistake.

The ride was so much worse than the one we had from Hoi An to Nha Trang. For one we didn't have a sleeper option so it was just the slight recline of your chair. The driver seemed to be driving slower than he should've at some parts of the trip. After our first stop at 10:30pm, it seemed like we were stopping every 15 minutes for some reason or another, be it dropping people off, province border crossing or smokos.

The entire night i felt i only got two hours sleep. I literally watched the sun rise. With all of the stopping and the like, we arrived two hours late in Huay Xai at 9:30am. We got in a larger tuk tuk to get into town with some of the other passengers. On arrival most of them headed for the border but we went to our guesthouse. We put our stuff in our room and went for breakfast. Then we had a little walk (not much to do in Huay Xai) and went back to the hotel room, watched 'red dragon' on tv and slept until dinner time.


Monday 31st

We got up, had breakfast and headed for the border crossing. Very easy to do, we filled out our departure forms, they stamped our passports and we were off on a boat to Chiang Khong in Thailand. Another easy process on the Thai side, as Australians are exempt from needing a visa per say, we didn't have to pay anything.

We then got a tuk tuk to the bus station for our trip to Chiang Rai. It was a local bus with all local people and no  air con, although it wasn't really necessary since all the windows were open. It took about two hours, thankfully Thai roads are so much better than our previous countries.

Arrived in Chiang Rai at the bus station, thankfully it's in the middle of town. We didn't know how far to our guesthouse so we got a tuk tuk, we bargained it down to 30baht, as it turned out, we were 5 minutes walk away, so we got ripped hard. As it was afternoon we didn't do much but walk up the main streets and have dinner - our first Thai food. Thai food was readily available in Laos and Cambodia but we shunned it knowing we would be having it everyday in Thailand. It was very good, we would return to this restaurant the following night.


Tuesday 1st

We decided to leave our guesthouse for a number of reasons: one the bed was so incredibly hard we both woke up sore, two, there was broken glass in the shower, lucky we wear thongs and three the bathroom roof was leaking water.

Kay was very low on money so we had to find a bank. According to the map there was four banks on this one street, we figured we would kill two birds with one stone and get something to eat there. We found no food on the entire walk to the last bank on this street. There were some places but they had no English menus and no English speaking staff. We ended up walking back to our area to eat. We also had trouble at the banks before we left, very hard to get our query across.

After lunch the first bank we went to had an acceptable exchange rate and charged no commission on the cash advance. Unfortunately the Australian dollar has since shot up a few more cents.

The bank was near the market so we had a little look there, didn't get anything but some fruit and sticky rice. There were plenty of Wats in Chiang Rai so we only went to the main one - Wat Phra Kaew. It had very nice paintings on the inside and a large number of turtles in the pools before you got to it's stairs.

Our day was also made up of going to travel agents to get quotes for a golden triangle tour. For the most part they offered the same things at the same price - 1400b ($47) each. Very expensive, but we figured we didn't do any tours in Laos because they were too pricy for what they offered and we did want to do this.

At night we had a look at the Chiang Rai night market but didn't buy anything, we would return tomorrow night.


Wednesday 2nd

As it turned out no one else booked the tour so it was effectively a private tour for us, if two others had of then it would've been 1200b (~$40each). Our first stop was a hill tribe village with two different tribes living together, the main reason we were going was to see the Padong tribe (part of the Karen). This is the tribe with the long necks (brass rings around the girl's necks). They originally come from Burma but left because of the hardships at home.

Second stop was the monkey and fish caves. Basically it's on the edge of a mountain where there's alot of monkeys to feed and fish in a mini lake. We walked up to the buddha inside the mountain. I had to take a stick to fend of the monkeys, we were fine on the way up but i had to use it to scare an aggressive monkey on the way down. I gave my stick to some Thais who were being harassed and grabbed by the same monkey after we passed.

We next arrived at the Thai-Burmese border town of Mae Sot, Thailand's most Northern point. First we went to a Jade factory, didn't get anything of course. The best Jade comes from Burma. They was a Burmese girl working there that Kay had a chat to, turns out a Burmese bloke owns the factory.

After the factory we went up to Scorpion Hill where we were able to look in Burma. There are no casinos in Thailand so there are alot in the Burmese side of the border to service Thailand's gambling needs. We also got to have a look through the market on the way down. There was an array of b.b guns for sale (pellet guns), very tempting. Throughout Kay picked up on many Burmese voices.

We had lunch at a mediocre buffet in town and then headed for the golden triangle - the point where Thailand, Burma and Laos all meet. The Lao side also has casinos, bankrolled by the Chinese we were told. After we saw the viewing point we went to the Opium museum, which gave some history on the drug and it's cultivation in the golden triangle region.

Our final stop was the old capital of Chiang Saen, from over 1000 years ago. As such it is not in the best of condition and was not cared for soon enough like Sukothai and Ayuthaya (old capitals). Then we journeyed home. A positive of having an effective private tour was that i was able to ask our guide many questions about Thailand and the Thai people.