Journey Tours picked me up from my hostel in Chiang Mai and we traveled about three hours to Chiang Rai to see the White Temple, also known as Wat Rong Khun. This temple is more impressive in person than pictures can even show. An artist, Chalermchai Kositpipat, designed and constructed this impressive building site. He has spent his life working on this beautiful structure and has trained apprentices to carry on his work after he passes. The area is supposed to represent heaven and hell. When you first walk in, there are hundreds of hands reaching up from the ground to symbolize desire, human suffering and hell. The bridge towards the building represents crossing over from death to rebirth into a state where you are no longer suffering. The way to happiness is by overcoming worldly temptation and that's what crossing the bridge will get you. It's a really pretty building and has all of this symbolism the artist has built in to it. The only downfall of this place is the amount of people there and the guards shouting at people through megaphones. You're pretty much herded along like cattle until you reach the very end and then you can breathe again.
We stopped for lunch right before we got to the Mekong River and had some traditional Thai and Burmese food. Finally, we got the actual part of the Golden Triangle. The Mekong River connects several countries and I was going to get to see two of them! Most of the people on the tour hopped on to the boat that goes over to the Laos side and we took a pleasant cruise up the river. We were offered a "welcome" drink to Laos. Our options were viper and scorpion whiskey, turtle whiskey, ginger whiskey and a couple of other scary sounding whiskeys. Needless to say, I skipped out on my welcome drink and proceeded to look around at the market. Everything I saw was much cheaper than Thailand's prices which was amazing because Thailand is already much cheaper than the U.S. For example, I found a painting I had been looking at for half the price I was told in Thailand. In the U.S, the painting probably would have cost about $60. In Thailand, it was $30 and at the Laos market, I paid only $15.
Next, we were taken to the Burmese border market and it's probably the biggest market I saw while in Thailand. It went on in both directions as far as I could see. It would have be incredibly easy to just get lost in all of the food and trinkets that were being sold.
This wasn't my most favorite tour but it did take me to a few places I wouldn't have made it just on my own.
No comments:
Post a Comment