What better way to spend Christmas Eve Day (& Eve) than driving the hinterlands of northern Thailand in our right-handed sleigh! We woke up early, left Chiang Mai, & headed north. Our first stop was Chiang Dao – home to a cave & small town where we stocked up on some Oreos & other snacks.
Chaing Dao cave
Stallagmite or stallagtite?
View from on top of the cave
The long drive (heading to Chiang Rai) was more scenic than Delaware Route 9 son! Lots of mountainsides, mixed with farms, & dotted with small towns. We drove through some prime hill-tribe country. The most famous of which is the tribe whose women ordain themselves with those big rings along their long, extended necks (the Karen Tribe). Those villages can be quite voyeuristic & touristy so we hit smaller towns, including one called Phrao. It was nice being in a town where you didn’t see overstuffed NorthFace backpacks or menus advertising American breakfasts (actually it was hard to find ANY English menus in the small towns). The drive was very serpentine & every once in a while, we would hit an intimidating checkpoint. They quickly let us past when they looked in our car and saw nothing but roadmaps & Oreos crumbs. They’re looking for illegal people & drugs. I also enjoyed some of the radio stations – one had a steady format of (Christmas carol, Oldie, Surfer Beach Boy song.) Rinse. Repeat.
Hill-country
Farmers
Bunch of bull...
Rice-a-roni
What a drag...
We made it to Chiang Rai and found a comfy & cheap guesthouse. Nicely laid-out city with yet ANOTHER Night Bazaar. We treated ourselves to a delicious Christmas Eve dinner. I had Fettuccini Fra Diavlo & Amanda had Vegetable Lasagna. This was one of the most expensive restaurants we went to. Even with drinks it still only came to about $10.00 USD. We perused the Night Bazaar & open-air eateries where we bumped into a few Americans. I spotted the NC State hat, Amanda initiated the conversation. One of the guys was quite interesting – he founded the Carolina Skiff boat company and has since long retired & currently chills out in Chiang Mai. We stumbled upon a Christian-looking Church that was all lit up & joined some of their Feliz Navidad Festivities – live music, a nativity scene, free food & drinks – made me feel all pious inside. Then it was back to the guesthouse with visions of sugarplums dancing in my head!
“And so this is Christmas… and have you done?” Woke up & called my Grandma-ma’s since it was still Christmas Eve there. It was awesome to be able to talk to everyone. Internet shops are all over the cities, even in smaller towns like Chiang Rai. I really had an interesting/unique Christmas, but sure missed home.
No caption needed!
We then threw the bags in the ride, hit the side-to-side, & continued on to the Burma/Laos/Thailand borders!
We made a loop through some attention-grabbing border towns on our way to the Golden Triangle, including Chiang Saen (where I had a tasty Chai iced-tea) & Mae Sai (where Amanda threw down some dried strawberries). At the area known as the Golden Triangle, we walked around & abandoned the rice-burner for a boat. We took a long tail boat from Thailand to see Burma & Laos from the majestic Mekong River. Very cool way to spend Christmas! We even stopped on an island (visa-free) that was (apparently) part of Laos for a little bit. There we were hit with a barrage of touristy/souvenir salespeople on the Laotian isand before our cross-country boat ride back to Siam.
Good point!
Foreground (Amanda on banks of Thailand) Middleground (Laos) Background (Burma)
Welcome to Laos - A place to be somebody
A bear on the Laotian island
2 countries in 20 minutes
Heading back to Thailand (big Buddha in background)
There is a youtube video below:
We pretty much spent the rest of the late afternoon / early evening rollin’ down the road back to home base (Gap’s house) in Chiang Mai. Amanda called on her inner strength & drove for 4.5 hours straight; there was no prying of the wheel from her. In total, we put over 800 miles on the rental car over those 3 days. But that’s the way to do it. Forget guided tours & motorbikes. We were able to go slow or fast when we wanted to & see what we wanted to see. We even managed to call into a local radio channel late Christmas night (see the youtube video below):
We made it back to Chiang Mai pretty late & discovered an awesome little area with about a dozen reggae/roots bars and restaurants. Loads of live music & people partying. Reminded me of a Dewey scene, just more compact. And instead of Love Seed Mama Jump, it was Random Thai Dudes Jump…
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