The two countries of Thailand are North and South. Part 11
Part 11. In which we find ourselves once in Laos, twice in a snow-white fairy tale and never get to the show.
November 28, Wednesday. Golden Triangle - Chiang Rai.
Plans for the day:
-Golden Triangle Buddha
-by boat on the Mekong (to Laos, Donxao Island
-Wat Pra That Pukhao
-Temple Wat Huay Pla Kang
White Temple Wat Rong Khun
-Chian Rai Night Bazaar
Unscheduled:
-Wat Ming Muang
Total mileage 106 km
Map for clarity:
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Morning came, as it should be in Thailand, along with bright sun and impossible heat. O! Since we went to the far north, for the first time we did not freeze in the morning) The mountains ended, and with them the morning cold.
I am already a master of sports in high-speed folding of suitcases, so the training camp goes very quickly.
There is hot water. And a hair dryer) Life is getting better, especially since I can already eat normally! 
Breakfast is included in the room rate. Normal breakfast, very tasty. Covered in a large, central building.
But they carried it to us for an unbearably long time. For about 20 minutes, we probably just sat and waited, although besides us, there was only one more couple in the hall. Probably, the cooks ran after the chicken, waiting for it to lay an egg) Pay attention to which eggs - one with a whole yolk, one with a broken one. And so for everyone) Are there people in the world who love broken yolks? Respond! )
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We leave at 8:45. And we have a lot of things to do today - to ride around Thailand, to drop into Laos... Let's start with Laos! ) We are going to golden triangle Golden Triangle Buddha.
No wonder we stopped for the night so close to the Triangle. At 8:55 already there)
I don't know how to best describe the Golden Triangle, but you will no doubt be disappointed) The borders of three states converge here - Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. And… everything? )
Well… not quite everything) The Thais diversified this place as best they could. As if they had a competition for the best installation. Many objects have religious significance. Maybe even everything. They are worn and dusty. I would say - it's stupid, haphazard, untidy, chaotic, incomprehensible... But I will only say one thing - this is not the most important and not the coolest place in Thailand)
Nevertheless, the figures turned out to be quite interesting for us.
What else is on the Golden Triangle?
-Boat to Laos. 500 baht
-Temple on the mountain. For free.
-Rynok, suddenly you don't need to go to Laos. The prices are good.
-Currency exchange. The most profitable (as it seemed to me) in Tae.
-Two opium museums (almost forgot). This place was a drug region, it brought money and claimed lives, the topic is very sad, so we did not visit museums, even though we spent the night on the territory of one of them.
Let's start with installations:
Elephant like a real one) Beautiful figure, very realistic.
But I'm looking for other elephants. I have seen them in photographs, they are huge and you can climb on them from above.
Oh, bad luck, today they are being painted.
And, of course, you can't approach them.
Buddha Boat
An open-air temple. It always seems to me that in such temples they pray for fishermen.
Elephants are held in high esteem here! Wherever you look, you will see an elephant, an elephant-like creature, or a baby elephant.
There are too many Ganeshas in the north, don't you think? How does it fit into Buddhism?
Our goal on the Golden Triangle was to visit the island of Donxao, which de jure belongs to Laos. And de facto, it's just a market, nothing different from Thai. Almost.
It all happens like this - from the place where the installations are collected (don’t scold me if it’s all a temple, I’m a little unclear what it is, that’s why I call it installations) you need to go to the right in relation to the river, find tables there with ride offers, give your passport , get a vest and go to the boat.
The coolest thing about a trip to Laos is the trip itself! )). There are several ways to get to the island, or rather, there are several different boats. To feel this trip, you need to choose an individual boat for 500 baht (my husband says that for two, but it seems to me that for one 500 baht, who knows - write, please, otherwise I'm already itching from the tension of the brain)
Boat for 2 people, you need to sit next to each other. I sat in front and squealed the whole trip, because it's really unreal! )) Have you ever thrown a pebble into the water like a toad? So that the pebble goes tangentially and bounces several times? Even if they didn’t throw, they probably saw someone throw) So, we jumped like a “toad” on the flat surface of the Mekong, my butt came off the bench and freely soared at the same pace with a low-board boat. I held on with my hands and feet, and with my teeth tried to film my delight and beauty around on video. I won’t show you, firstly, because my finger is on the half-screen (the Chinese came up with a strange place for the camera - right behind my finger), and secondly, I squeal so furiously that I’m afraid, on youtube, because of this, the only two subscribers who subscribed to me once by accident will unsubscribe from me)
So, in free flight, we sail first in the direction opposite to the island, but not very far. We love Chinese casinos. It's hard to see and it's not clear what to look for. Then we rush, bouncing, to the island and here we are at the market, we, of course, did not have enough of them in Thailand)
Donxao Island. Entrance fee, I don't remember how much.
The market is colorful, cigarettes are cheaper than in Thailand, but much more expensive than in Ukraine, and the rest is the same and at the same prices as in the Thai markets. The exception was the ointment, which, in principle, is full in Thailand, but here we found it with cobra venom, and this bribed us. I won't tell you the price, I remember that it's a little expensive. The ointment is cool, we smear everything that hurts at home and for a couple of smears this “everything” stops hurting. It is black in color and stinks of terribly cheap perfume from a hundred years ago. It is imperative to wrap the smeared, the Vietnamese once taught me this.
We roam the market for a short time, but we manage to bargain in all languages of the world) Sellers readily switch to Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, English, French, and even a little Russian . . We teach them to bargain in Ukrainian:
- You can say that everything is expensive with you!
We return back quite quickly, straight from coast to coast, the spirit is no longer so breathtaking, but still cool, albeit a little)
Here, on the Golden Triangle, there is a view temple Wat Pra That Pukhao. Entrance is free.
We rise to the observation deck of the temple by car. There is a beautiful staircase at the bottom, I scared too lazy to ask our half-orc driver to stop for a photo, but there are a lot of these photos on the net.
Photo from the Internet.
Mekong at a glance.
And Myanmar is right under your nose.
Beautiful, but nothing special that we Myanmar rivers or something. But the temple itself is interesting. We climb a short staircase even higher and find ourselves in a very old place. The temple is a thousand years old, no less. Or maybe one and a half.
The ruins, lush vegetation, the spirit of a foreign religion and the emptiness create a very attractive aura for me, albeit a gloomy one.
In such places it seems to me that I am in a Kipling book)
Who loves the charm of antiquity - be sure to go up there.
We had plans to go to the town of Chiang Saen, climb the excavations there and have lunch. But at 11:10 o'clock, it's too early to have lunch, and we have already seen the excavations and were afraid of another disappointment. In addition, the day promised to be very eventful.
We drove by without even noticing.
In total, we spent 2 hours and 15 minutes on the Golden Triangle, something like I planned.
A long haul, along the way there are many mini markets where they sell tiny, incredibly sweet pineapples. Be sure to try! The taste is incredible!
At 12:25 we are at Wat Huay Pla Kang. Admission is free.
The temple is near Chiang Rai, but few people visit it. Before our trip, I had not read about him anywhere or forgot.
I saw it on Google map and caught fire - I really liked the round building. This building looks like a Chinese pagoda tree, not like a Thai chedi.
In real life, the pagoda is not as eye-catching as the snow-white huge Buddha and the white temple under the red tiles.
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And the most beautiful thing is the staircase with dragons.
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It's just very, very good! Highly recommend! This temple is not to be missed!
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They say that for some baht (40 I think) you can climb into the head of the Buddha. I didn't know and I'm sorry. When we were there, no one approached the elevators, and I thought that this was an elevator for employees to service the statue.
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We spend about an hour in the Temple. The time is approaching for dinner, but we are on such an adrenaline rush after the temple that we don’t feel like eating at all. We just drop by the hotel to drop off our suitcases and put things in the laundry. We really liked the Baan Warabordee hotel, close to the night market and a laundry nearby. Washing is excellent, it is inexpensive (50 baht per kg, it seems), the linen is not ironed, but it is folded very well (like me))
Wat Rong Khun. Entry 50 baht.
I have read in many reports that you should not come to the White Temple in the middle of the day. It is better early in the morning or late in the evening to avoid the Chinese yoke of large groups of Chinese tourists. We arrived at about 3 pm, it didn’t work out differently, and I’ll tell you - there was no yoke there, probably we were lucky. There are a lot of people, even very much compared to other Thai sights, but not too many to interfere with admiring the temple and the territory.
Everyone who has been to the north has photographs of the White Temple, and I always tried to scroll through them without looking, so as not to set my teeth on edge and not be disappointed upon arrival. That is why I do not want to show all the corners of this magnificent temple. Leave room for a surprise.
I don’t know how you might not like it, but there are rather negative reviews about this place - a remake, not a temple, too clumsy . . In my opinion, it deserves to be considered the pearl of the North, even if it is not quite a temple or not a temple at all. I saw monks inside the temple, they looked like ordinary, praying monks, so I believe that the temple is real.
My sense of beauty here orgasmed)
Almost all the buildings are white, decorated with billions of small mirrors. Every detail evokes emotions. Sometimes the details are too unexpected, and the emotions are quite negative. The brighter the message of the author, I think)
I tried not to shoot what caused the negative, but my husband really took pictures) Hanging heads, stretching arms, bones, genitals, monsters . . All this shines, shimmers, keeps our attention.
In any place of this temple, the feeling that you are inside a fairy tale does not leave.
Here people en masse make wishes.
We were not in a hurry, we walked around everything and everything in great detail. They tossed a coin, wrote wishes, went to the golden toilet. I wonder what's on the second floor? )
For a long time I thought about how the idea of a golden toilet could have arisen and came up with the idea that our former president Yanukovych visited the White Temple, but he doesn’t go to other toilets) Doesn’t suit him)
Feel like Yanukovych!
We walked for about an hour, which is more than enough even at my snail's pace. And then they began to look for food, because the sun was already rolling down, and we, from the moment of breakfast, had no poppy dew
I always thought about the origin of this expression. . Does poppy dew saturate? This is a great alternative to carbs! Give me two)
Having rummaged through the edals, next to the temple, we were convinced that the time for supper had not yet come, and the time for lunch had already ended. No one wanted to feed us, and in some places they also made it clear too frankly.
Nothing to do. Let's go to Chiang Rai.
In Chiang Rai, we decided it was time to send our driver home, that is, to pay off and leave. For the transfer from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai, the company takes 1000 baht. I think it’s a completely unjustified fee, because if we were going to spend the night in Chiang Mai, we wouldn’t pay a penny for it, and before 7 pm (the end of the driver’s working hours), the car was definitely already in Chiang Mai. But those are the rules, period. A lot goes for gasoline, in the mountains the minivan eats gasoline immeasurably. We refueled twice in five days and both times for one and a half thousand. In total, for 5 days the car cost us 14 thousand baht, which is completely immodest. The driver did not get a tip, we did not like him and did not cause a desire to help him financially. The first driver was given 200 baht for two days, and the entire two-day trip cost 5.000 baht.
The question of tipping the driver is interesting, tell who, to whom, for how much and in what amount.
It's half past five, we're already seriously hungry, but we can't find food in the center. We poke into different establishments - either the kitchen is not working yet, or there is no kitchen at all. Finally, near the clock itself, we settle in a cafe and dine with what God sent. I’m falling, and my husband is some kind of Italian pasta, in general, we trample pasta and don’t sweat it.
By the way, if you like padtai, Thai pancakes Roti and orange Thai tea just like me, then all this in Kyiv can be found on the Shulyavska metro station, in the Aroi mak mak snack bar.
After lunch, I remember that we were passing by a very beautiful, old, colorful temple with elephants. And don’t feed me with padtai, just let me stagger around the old temples. We are looking for this temple, good, I put a mark in mepsmi.
On the way we meet Roti. 
My poor waist is already leaning on panties from all sides, but I can’t get past this magnificence. Bless the one who invented these pancakes, the kindest soul was a man, for sure. Otherwise, why am I so attached to them? ) Don't feed me, but Roti is different. Let the whole world wait!
As a result of culinary retreats, we get to the Wat Ming Muang temple at half past five, when the sun is already too low.
There is little light for a telephone camera, but the aura here is quite special in the evening.
The temple is half-open, just the way I like it. The mythical animal elephantfish with horns and a human nose is very impressive.
I look around for a long time. The husband is patiently waiting. He's tired, frustrated and uninterested. But patiently sits in the arbor, because these are the rules of family life)
And now, the evening completely covers the city, the streets are transformed, turning into a continuous, endless food court.
There are so many goodies on the streets! And we are full. Sadness, I'll tell you. Our stomachs are not able to add even a grain of rice.
The clock in the center shines, it's very beautiful. 18:00, it's already dark, but the music show is still far away (at 19 and 20? ). As a result, we never saw it.
When the evening has come in Thailand, and there is already nowhere to go, what do you need to do?
No, not at all what you thought, but close to it - you need to go for a massage.
In Chian Rai, massage is a little more expensive than in Chian Mai, or maybe we get to a higher class massage.
We are taken to the washroom. There are wonderful sinks here. Well, such real sinks with a tap and drain. All this is three-stage: we are on the top step, the sinks are on the middle one, and at the bottom the girls sit and wash our feet. Everything is beautiful, pleasant, silence, music and aromas.
Massage is a heavenly pleasure in Thailand (although not in Thailand either, but I remember a failed massage in China, in Wulingyuan, and I understand that not everywhere). Melody of the body and rest of the soul. Sabai-sabai. Do not ignore the massage in Thailand, and especially the foot massage.
Rested, hungry, we go to the night market Chiang Rai Night Bazaarand the…
The food smells, beckons, beckons. The market is full of variety and color. We are in heaven, that's for sure! )
We take a big fish, sit down closer to the stage.
I'm making a strategic mistake - I smoke and go rotten. Fatigue piles up all at once, there is no strength left even to finish eating the fish. And for sure we won’t go to watch the watch show, and I can’t even watch the performances of the girls.
I sleep on the go, since our hotel is very close.
There I sit on the balcony for a little while, enjoying the magic of a hot night: the smell of herbs, the bright lights of garlands and the gentle murmur of water. Thais know a lot about pleasure. Even completely inexpensive hotels (probably it was a guesthouse) try to decorate the territory and create atmosphere.
Tomorrow we fly south, although we could stay in Chiang Rai for a couple more days.
Don't switch!
