Thailand // Day 3 - Tour Day!

Today was a really long and tiring day! Waking up at 8AM sure took its toll on me. Not forgetting the haze, sigh.

Anyways, we took a tour around Chiang Rai and visited most of the attractions – White Temple, Black House, Tea Plantation, Monkey Cave, Long Neck Village and the Golden Triangle.

The White Temple was pretty far off from the city and it took us 30-45 minutes to get there from the clock tower. I forgot to bring along my maxi dress so I had to rent a white cloth to wear around my waist because my shorts were above the knee L

After finally accepting the fact that I had to wear that ugly not-so-pretty white cloth, we started venturing into the temple. Our tour guide (more like just "driver") only gave us 30 minutes for each attraction so we didn’t manage to explore the area behind the temple itself but apart from that, the temple was spectacular because it was shimmering white with silver outlines. Sadly, there wasn’t much inside the temple but only a huge Buddha for people to pray. Turning right after exiting the temple was a wishing well. I loved how the 12 zodiacs were carved in white on the roof of the structure housing the well!

12 zodiacs atop the wishing well

However, if I have to rate the White Temple, I'd say that it isn't as great as I hoped for it to be. There were statues of Terminator, Yoda, Batman, and other movie characters around and it made me feel like this place is not as authentic as most people make it out to be.

Next, we continued the tour up North to the Black House.
Decked in black hues, skulls, animal skin and many other animal parts, the Black House is the work of a Thai artist to represent the darkness of humanity. The museum didn’t end at just one house. Further down, there were many other huts and small houses with similar things that even included animals made into carpets, with the head still intact. An eerie yet interesting experience I would say. It really stirred my thinking and made me realise how truly dark humanity is.

Kinda curious to know what the artist was thinking when he put this up.... 

Skeleton of an elephant laid out nicely

Following the Black House was the whole reason why I added Chiang Rai into this trip’s itinerary – The Karen Long Neck Village. I know there are talks on how ethical it is to visit because of the fact that it seems like a “Human Zoo”, but imo, as long as you don’t make it seem that way, it wouldn’t be. 

We were welcomed by rows of shops selling souvenirs by normal villagers. Deeper in was where we finally spotted The Karen people. Sadly, it wasn’t so much of a village than just shops tended by the villagers.

A villager making the cloth she sells

The OG (original) ear gauger! All you hipster can step aside.

Due to the language barrier, we didn’t manage to converse much with the villagers except for this really smart girl that could speak English, Chinese, Thai and Burmese. She was really happy to talk to us, waving, smiling and even inviting us to sit next to her (and her sister) for a photo!

"Thank you for being so welcoming! We sure love your smile."

The Tea Plantation was our next stop. Not surprisingly, a vast array of lush greenery with a small café atop the hill. Due to the time constraint, we were not privileged with the chance to have a cuppa.

Famished, we headed to The Monkey Cave, our final stop before lunch. I believe that there was a lot more to explore there but our tour driver didn’t tell us anything (so disappointing!) and we just spent some time feeding the monkeys. It costs only 20B for a generous amount of bananas or peanuts.

The smallest and cutest lil monkey!

Enough of feeding others, it's lunch time! Lunch was pretty meh at a random restaurant our tour driver let us out at so let’s just skip that and move on to our last destination of the tour.

The Golden Triangle is a part of Thailand where Laos and Myanmar can be seen. It wasn’t exactly breath-taking but definitely somewhere everyone who visits Chiang Rai should go.

Back at the hotel, we freshened up before heading out for dinner at Tong Teung, a restaurant recommended by our host. It was a 15-20 minute walk from the clock tower. We ordered the coconut soup, pork neck and some frog dish. Everything was tasty except the frog. It was horrible! I assume they used the body of the frog because every piece was bone and barely any meat.

We walked to Cabbages & Condoms and sat down for a drink with a live band and relaxed for awhile before heading back to the hotel.

(my camera battery died so #iphoneonly)

Today was probably the highlight of our trip here in Chiang Rai and I’m so tired! Goodnight xx.