Saturday Part Three: The Golden Triangle

On and on through acres of paddy fields; here in the mountains they got a lot of rain , so that some times they often get 3 crops of rice per year, rather than the usual 2 elsewhere, so this means that Chiang Rai is one massive producer of rice. You have probably eaten rice grown in

Chiang Rai.

(Bit of history... Chiang Rai was founded by the same King as Chiang Mai, but earlier, 'Mai' meaning new. Chiang Rai is 738 years old, Chang Mai is 711)

Then we were at the Golden Triangle, the point on the Mekong River where three countries meet, Laos, Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Thailand and was famously one of the most extensive opium producing areas of the world.

Here you can see the jungles of Burma on the left, and the cloud covered Mountains of Laos on the right. (In real life it looked rather stunning)

The Mekong itself travels through 5 countries, Tibet, China, Burma, Cambodia and Thailand before it reaches it's delta in Vietnam. So the Golden Triangle was a great place to trade illictly.

Nowadays, as there is no opium trade to speak of as such, as there are no casinos allowed in Thailand this is where to the Thais cross the border to Burma, sorry Myanmar, to gamble at the Win Win casino at the Paradise Hotel - they are in the process of building a massive one on the riverside in Laos too.

After a disappointing boat ride where we saw where the Luak river joins the Mekong which was quite cool, you could see two different coloured streams of water .....( well, 2 different shades of brown) rushing along together, two rivers side by side, with nothing in between.... but though it was quite distinct to the naked eye, it was non existent on camera.

We then we visited Laos ....for about 1/2 an hour.

Didn't have passport with me so could not get it stamped, but bought a nice necklace and opted out of a cobra whisky tasting offer... it looked most unhygenic.

We then travelled to the Burma border here you could climb the 200 odd stairs

to the top of an impressive dragon sided stair case,

past a big gold buddha,

to see a rather excellent view of Chiang Rai,

a rather meh temple,

and a rather strange sculpture of a scorpion.

Drove past the highest mountain in Thailand (apparently...... as it was hard to tell what with bit still beng wrapped in a giant duvet of thick cloud, and on the other side of the bus) before the last leg of the journey to se the hill tribes.