Voyaging Village Goes to the Golden Triangle
One Day, three countries
It’s Saturday which means a whole day to go out touring. We get a super decked out van with disco lighting for the two families and head north towards the Golden Triangle (the point where Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos intersect).
Our first stop is the Choi Fong tea plantation. It’s the local brand that our hotel serves. We of course love the free tea tastings and the view, though it is a bit cloudy that day. I look jealously at all the people eating green-colored pastries, but since we JUST ate breakfast, we decide to move on.
Our next stop is Doi Tung, a royal palace, gardens, and park, and it just happens to be the first day of “Winter WonderDoi”, their winter flower festival.
First, we visit the elegant Royal Villa, the former home of the late Princess Mother. It’s unique architecture blends traditional Lanna architecture with Swiss influences, making it feel like we’re at a Swiss Chalet. We take the audio tour and learn a lot about the Princess Mother (who was a commoner before marrying into the royal family). As with many places in Chiang Rai, we must leave our shoes at the gate. Here they even provide clothes for those with exposed shoulders and knees.
Then we visit the famous Mae Fah Luang Garden. The garden, though old, seems perfectly set up for Instagram photo spots. There’s a rainbow staircase into the sky, nests you can stand in, and the famous (we saw a replica of this in the mall) giant mossy, furry deer-like creature that acts as the mascot for the park.
Afterwards we grab street food at the vendors that line the street above the gardens. We love how all the food in Thailand is good, especially those fried taro things (that come with little bunny toothpicks).
Next we head up north to a border town with Myanmar. The political situation isn’t great in Myanmar now, so we don’t cross, but we do spend half an hour at the street markets as the town has a lot of Burmese influences. We arrange with the other family to meet back at the van at a certain time. We think the other family is late, and they think they’re early, but alas, we are both right! Both of their phones switched over to Myanmar time which is 30 minutes earlier than Thailand time. It must be really confusing to live near this border!
It’s been a long day, but we finally get to the famous Golden Triangle. There are boat trips for offer along the Mekong river, but the river just looks like a muddy mess, so we pass. Instead we spend our time taking pictures along the viewpoint that looks across at both Laos and Myanmar. There are quite a few official “signs” or “monuments” and we take pictures at them all.
There is also a Buddhist temple built to look like a giant boat.
We especially love the giant elephant sculptures. We climb up the sculptures to sit on the elephant like kings.
Then we go visit the Opium Museum. Yes, it’s a museum about the opium trade and opium wars and more illicit opium growing in the area (which no longer grows opium). We learn a lot about how opium is grown and smoked. It’s not the happiest of museums, but certainly educational.
We arrive back in Chiang Mai in time to put on our matching elephant pants and grab a light dinner. We go back to Kyoto-shi. Since we visited earlier in the week, they have finished building an amazing set of Christmas decoration including whole building facades, a train, and a carousel. It’s amazing. We go in and get a light dinner but spend most of the time enjoying the lights, the snow, and the wonderful atmosphere. We even spend some time dancing to the lovely Christmas music.
Then we walk a block to the Saturday walking street, a giant pedestrian market where we snack on more delicious treats like cilantro peanut ice cream rolls from Taiwan and lots of skewers of course.
Most importantly, here’s where Baby Bear buys her sprout which she will wear on top of her head almost every day. Her friend also gets one. Mama bear gets a few mushrooms to wear on her head. What a great last night in Chiang Rai!
