3 countries in one day, chiang rai day 4

hmh...i am losing a bit of momentum here already. been missing these thailand posts for few days.

ok let me see. day 4 was 11 december, friday. one day before i was to fly back to kl.
i was still in chiang rai but had already checked out of the hotel early in the morning. we left the hotel at 7a.m. because it was a long long day on the bus. the longest.

our first stop, to a karen long neck village. i am not sure of the exact location but it is still in chiang rai. the bus brought us to the foot of a hill and where the small village settlement was. we saw all females only. according to the guide, that place was not their residence. they got permission to settle in that area for 2 years, then they would have to leave to go back to their own village when another group came and take over. they were earning quite a handsome income i would say. if you want to take photo with them, the price is 20B for one and there was also a donation box there. most ppl paid more than 20B after seeing them dance and taking another group photo. they are rich!

they have stalls selling souvenir items as well. this is one of the items on sale, their own weaved scarfs.

the padong women with their coiled necks.i think they are aroun 25 rings on her neck. they even put rings below their knees. the woman in pink is not a padong i think. she has big ring in her earlobes.

our group photo taken by the tour guide. kind of slanted already. sigh...the one i took when i was not in the frame was perfect. right in the middle. it was quite a cold morning. everyone pulled up their jackets and scarfs. it should be around 16C that morning.

that is their village. they also had plots of land for paddy planting. this is the dry season so all has been harvested and they were going into the burning process. those stalks would be cut and then put on the land and burnt to me made fertiliser. environmentally-friendly, no.

after about 40 mins in the village, we headed to the border or the northernest part of thailand, mae sai.

cross that custom gate, and a bridge, and you would have entered myanmar. the town in myanmar is tachilek if i get it correct.

our mode of transport in myanmar were 3 taxis. well, that small lorry is their taxi. it sits 7 to 8 in one.

the guide brought us to visit 2 temples. this one is where the white jade buddha is. it is only found in myanmar and there is none in thailand. i heard that you are not supposed to wear a hat in the temple, so opps there for the red hat lady.

this temple is on a small hill. you can bathe the buddha statue with some holy water. this looks more like a stupa.

it was like a whirlwind tour of myanmar and the last place was a small casino.

looks alluring? the casino is really small. it is the size of a basketball court where there are a few tables. the slot machines are very old you have to insert coins manually. well, i did not gamble but most of them did. some won and some lost of course.

you can actually walk to the casino from the border. it will only take you 5 mins. there is no casino in thailand right? so i guess this is where they will go to gamble in the north.

back at maesai, the town was bustling with vendors selling all sorts of food stuff. fruits, nuts, chinese medicine, etc. most of the things here are imported from china due to its close proximity.

then we had lunch by the mekong river, still at the golden triangle. across the river where we were at, was laos.

i think you roughly know what kind of dishes we had already. almost the same. the soup was still tom yum.

we went on the mekong river in this trip. it was not a rough trip, so phew!

the long boat. bottom right, a postcard i sent for myself from laos. it still hasn't reached me. that is the aerial view of the golden triangle. the big piece of land on the left is thailand, the middle piece, myanmar and the one on the right laos. they are building a casino somewhere on laos' side.

yes, we got off the boat and stepped on laos. 3 countries in a matter of few hours. worth the 2000B extra? the visit to long neck village and the golden triangle itinerary were the optionals.

well, donkao that we saw was just a small piece of land where they had stalls selling souvenir items and beverages for tourists.

any drinks for you? all sorts of flavours- turtle, snake, lizard, pangolin, tiger's penis, and lizard. definitely not for the faint-hearted.

there are on thai side. so some more photos before we said goodbye to the golden triangle.

found another ruin here.

then the horrible journey back to chiangmai started. it would take us 5 hours to get back!!! ooh...all butts were flat and numb.

dinner was somewhere in a restaurant along the highway.

we had different soup this time. black chicken soup and also pork trotter or knuckle?

we reached chiangmai back to the same hotel before 10p.m. everyone was exhausted...but still had some energy left to go to the night market down the street. haha....since it was the last night, what the heck. just walk lah.

got myself a leather handmade case for my handphone. there were some snacks to try too. someone bought something like popiah but it was filled with egg and crabstick. i wanted to try some of those fried creepy crawlies but no one dared to share with me. i was not going to finish the whole packet myself right. just wanna try one.

then it was back to the hotel for packing. well, we had nothing much to pack since we did not buy anything thing. mom just chucked all food stuff she bought into an extra bag for handcarry. done.