Chiang Rai
" Our mind is enriched by what we receive, our heart by what we give."
Victor Hugo
Chiang Rai is again quite a big city, population 70,000, the northern most major city in Thailand and only 60 km from the border with Laos and Myanmar.
Chiang Rai was the capital of Lanna for a period in the 13th century and is currently recognised as a City of Design by UNESCO. As we shall see this reflects the amazing and diverse architectural and artistic sights to be found here. It was under Burmese rule for many centuries and only became a full province of Thailand in 1933.
In 1432 the Emerald Buddha was discovered in Chiang Rai when an earthquake split the chedi of Wat Phra Kaew where it was interred. It was covered in mud, a strategy used to disguise its importance. Only when a piece of dry stucco cracked off did the monks realise what they had found. The king wanted it moved to Chiang Mai but the elephant who was carrying it kept going to Lampang instead so it remained in Lampang until 1468 when it finally moved to Chiang Mai. I must say elephants were given quite a big say in where things should go in those days.
Chiang Rai is surrounded by flat countryside and rice paddies except in the NorthEast and East where limestone hillsides predominate. These are the home of the indigenous Hill tribes.
There is a lot to see in and around Chiang Rai and we were ready to explore.
Old Town
We had booked in the Old Town to ensure we had walking access to at least some of the sights. To be fair the sights around Chiang Rai are quite spread out.
The Old Town is a bit run down and when we pulled into the bus station in the rain it looked a bit gangland. Our hostel, Sleepy House, was very close, so an easy walk even with the backpacks. The hostel itself was a small 2 story building with a courtyard and communal kitchen. Clean and bright it was peppered with cats on almost every surface (as advertised). All the pillows and bedding were also cat themed, haha. The bed was a futon on a raised floor, I assume so the cats can get on easily without having to jump! I could only get on it if I threw myself and rolled like a sausage. This should be fun.
We set out to find our bearings and something to eat despite the rain. The streets were potholed and lined with mismatched shops and decorative lampposts. I manage, in an absent moment, to trip on the pavement and fall flat on my face. I hear a noise like a ripe tomato bursting and wonder what I will do if my nose is broken. Anyway after cautiously resurfacing it seems nothing is broken, not even my glasses (bonus) but my face is sore and lacerated.
We continue on to visit the famous ornate clock tower designed by the architect of the White Temple. More of him later. He also designed all the fancy lamp posts along the main roads. Very wedding cake ornate and quite distinctive.
The rain continued so, as it became dark, we found a small Indian restaurant for supper. I went into the toilets to wash my wounds and find my chin has grown to 3 times its normal size and is the colour of a ripe plum. Not an improvement I have to say.
Nevertheless supper was delicious and the Thai people politely ignore my wreck of a face. Indeed they ignored it for the next week as it turned purple and green and yellow. So polite.
For the next 3 days we wandered around the old town. We visited markets and on Saturday braved the weekly walking street night market which was fabulous. There was over a kilometre of stalls selling everything you could imagine. The food was fabulous.
Through all this it rained much of the time. The monsoon had finally caught up with us. We bought cheap rain coats and carried on.
In the centre of the market there was an area undercover where we went to shelter and there were groups of people all dancing in a type of line dance. Although they were in groups it looked like quite a spontaneous event and anyone seemed to be able to join in. Live music played. It was just so happy, masses of people, in the rain, having fun.
We pretty much knew where all the cafes were so we could get out of the rain, but we knew we would have to think about heading south soon. Days and days of monsoon rain can dampen anyones spirit of adventure.
The White Temple
One of the first things we wanted to see was the famous White Temple, probably one of the most beautiful temple complexes I have ever seen, before or since, and we saw a lot.
The White Temple or Wat Rong Khun, is in a small village 15 km outside Chiang Rai. The story goes that this little village was dirt poor and kept being flooded, destroying their temple. A benefactor eventually donated new land to rebuild the temple but Chalermchai Kositpipat, an architect and artist, who had been born in the village, petitioned to be allowed to design and build a new much more ambitious project.
As far as I can tell he financed it himself, refusing donations, so he earned lots of merit. He had also spent some time as a monk. Eventually the temple complex ended up 10 or 20 times larger, indeed probably larger than the whole village, and he built and designed it as a work of art.
Everything is in bright white.
We arrived in a drizzly grey cloud but it was still spectacular, in fact the cloud added a different dimension and we were early and so few people were there. We shot up a storm.
The initial appearance is uplifting and angelic but there are is no shortage of reminders of the fate of those who do not progress along the path of enlightenment. A bit more Old Testament than Buddhist perhaps.
A long elegant bridge floats over the water to the viharn. From the top of the bridge you can look back at the village. The site is subtly elevated to give dominance to the landscape.
We walked over the bridge and into the viharn whose decorations represent different periods in the Buddhas life.
From there we moved into the compound which was beautifully landscaped with lakes and statues and meditation areas, even a decorated cave.
There is an art gallery filled with many of his works.
The sun came out and we rushed back to the viharn to catch it. They were selling silver bodhi leaves and I bought one and inscribed the family names on it. It will hang in the roof and bring us all luck I hope.
The bodhi tree is the tree that Buddha sat under when he found enlightenment and also when he died. It has spade shaped leaves and they are often planted in temple grounds.
Everywhere you look, all the detailing is so intricate.
Whacky statues and garden sculptures are scattered across the compound.
The lucky bodhi charms are hung in trees and in the ceilings of the walkways. We posted some family love!
We spent 2 hours there but could have stayed longer. It really is a memorable living working piece of art. The little village, which was quite unremarkable before, now has a booming trade servicing all the visitors to the temple.
Beautifully curated gardens
An artificial series of caves with rather lurid sculptures painted with coloured light.
The man himself, Chalermchai Kositpipat, well at least a cardboard cutout of him!
The Big Buddha
Guan Yin seated on a lotus blossom, towering over the countryside.
Our next stop was at The Big Buddha, Wat Huay Pla Kang, an enormous white statue which towers over the landscape. Actually this is the statue not of Buddha, but of Guan Yin, the goddess of mercy.
She is the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
A Bodhisattva is a being who is enlightened but has chosen to remain in the physical world to help the rest of humanity achieve enlightenment.
She sits on a tower and dwarfs everything around her, "observing the sounds of the human world".
Looking out at the countryside through the eye of Guan Yin
A few small temples, a pagoda and food stalls surround her. You can climb up to the base and there is a temple under her.
From there we paid to go up in a lift to her eyes, from where you can survey the surrounding countryside.
Inside is decorated with intricate carvings and statues.
It is believed anyone who comes here will receive good health or money as a blessing. Something we all need a bit of. She was quite busy!
The Blue Temple
As a point of contrast with the White Temple is the Blue Temple, Wat Rong Suea Ten, a much smaller temple compound another 30 minutes drive away. I think it is well known mainly because of the bright blue colour of the temple and the art work inside and out, rather than any historical or intrinsic value.
I got a feeling the colour had perhaps been staged to attract the tourists flocking to the White Temple. Most tours will package the White Temple, Blue Temple and Black House as a sort of colour related itinerary.
It was raining when we arrived but we could take pictures of the temple and the statues reflected in the rain puddles, and while at no stretch was it the monumental art work of its white neighbour, it had a certain appeal. The blue was a bit gaudy, but was also a vivid and visually arresting statement.
Inside we sheltered from the rain. You could buy big bags of rice and marble tiles to donate to the temple for merit. One of the ways to tackle the maintenance issue in temples is to offer to sell you bricks or tiles to donate back to them for merit.
The Black House
The Black House or Baan Dam is actually a museum and art gallery. It is billed as the world's largest collection of animal remains made into furniture in the world. I am not sure I would boast about that but it is filled with heavy, dark furniture which features a lot of skulls and horns.
It is called the Black House because the main exhibits are in a huge black wooden stilted house.
The grounds and gardens are however quite extensive with numerous small houses, sheds and barns on the property where overflow is stored or displayed.
Unfortunately because of the rain the garden was practically flooded and we were confined to the drier areas. This was a shame because it looked quite a beautiful space with lawns and ponds and small forests.
The exhibits are the work of one man, Thawan Duchanee, born in Chiang Rai. He is recognised as an artist, painter, engraver, sculptor, wood worker and architect. He lived in The Black House until his death in 2014 when it became a museum.
He was strongly influenced by buddhism
Many of his paintings are based on religious subjects and the Ramayana. His interpretive work was not always uniformly accepted and many artworks were destroyed as being religious insults.
Despite this he later earned a worldwide reputation as a Thai contemporary artist. He believed "Art is beyond nature and intellect."
His artworks have been compared with those of Chalermchai Kositpipat (The White Temple guy). There is a saying "Chalerm Sawan, Thawan Narok" which translates as Chalerm the Heaven, Thawan the Hell, because Chalermchai's works focus on elevating the mind while Thawan's focus on the dark side or passion of the human mind.
Considering the background his work is a bit easier to appreciate but it is still all a bit heavy and dark for me. The statues favour phallic statements. The paintings are heavy on the symbolic and fantasy. I am not sure I would give any of it houseroom but I am not artistically very adventurous. Some of the works look like they are from another planet.
It is bold and controversial and needs a big space to showcase it. In The Black House it is rather cluttered and displayed without coherence.
Interestingly he also collected old farm and household implements which he incorporated into some designs and sculptures. They are also just dotted around the compound like a living museum of social history. It certainly supports his strong sense of identity with his Thai heritage and culture.
In an open barn next door there is a whole menagerie of cats acting as a sort of adoption agency, and so he was clearly a big softie underneath all the angst.
The Hill Tribes
There are 9 different Hill tribes in Thailand and they account for around 1,000,000 people. We went to the Hill Tribe Museum to get some background.
Hill Tribes are distinct cultural groups, who migrated to Thailand from Tibet, China and Burma and live in the border areas with Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. They are marginalised and many are undocumented because the cultural groups span the border areas which are rather porous. They were heavily involved in opium cultivation in the 18 th, 19 th and early 20th centuries, but a lot of effort has gone into reskilling them to other crops since Thailand banned opium.
They are nomadic farmers who used to move, cultivate for a couple of years then, when the soil quality deteriorated, move again. This involved a lot of slash and burn, which is not really sustainable, so programs have concentrated on getting more fixed settlements.
Each tribe is distinctive in dress and customs. The most distinctive, and the most populous, is the Long Necked Karen tribe. The women use brass rings to lengthen the neck by pushing down the collar bones. They also wear rings on the ankles and wrists. They are visually distinctive and these practices carry echos of some of the distinctive practices of the bantu tribes from home.
The museum itself was a small dusty space but they had an interesting audiovisual presentation and also rooms with all the different dresses and hats of the different tribes, and explanations of the various cultural characteristics. It was a lot of information and a bit confusing but we began to get an idea.
We had promised to get Cor a specific hat so my job was to work out which tribe they came from. I decided it was the Lahu but I was no closer to finding out where to get it.
When we left the museum our taxi driver said she would take us to the Long Necked Karen village. I had heard many of these villages are tourist traps and exploited the tribes so I was a bit wary but without any means of checking for authenticity, off we set.
We rolled into a dirt car park under casuarina trees. There was a hut at the top of a trail selling tickets to enter. We set off down the path to find more of a market than a village. There were rows of stalls, mostly manned by the women, who were weaving scarves and making jewellery. They were in traditional dress and they had heavy brass rings on their necks.
The things they were selling were quite tourist orientated but I found some hats, including the one for Cor, and bought a scarf and some jewellery.
The girls were friendly, did not look exploited or unwilling and were happy to pose for pictures. They also had some neck rings, sawn in half so you could place them on your neck to feel the weight and the general sense of what it was like to wear them. I can only say they were very heavy but I guess it is what you are used to.
We spent a happy hour there and, with pockets rapidly emptying, waved goodbye to continue our explorations.
It was not a platform for naive or natural interaction with the culture. If anyone was being exploited though it was the tourists, but I think I prefer an interaction where the people are cheerful, willing and clearly benefitting in the financial contract. We ended back in the carpark with empty pockets having paid them money for the pleasure of buying things from them. Double whammy!
Weaving traditional scarves
Traditional dress of the Long Necked Karen
Trying it on for size with my purple chin for decoration!
Anyone for Tea?
Apart from rice and maize, the other big agricultural export from this area is Tea. Tea plantations can be found on the hillsides to the north and east of Chiang Rai
As it was lunch time, we turned into the Choui Fong tea plantation on our way to the Golden Triangle.
This huge plantation is at an altitude of 1000m and presents as beautifully terraced hillsides surrounding valleys, lakes and streams. They grow Oolong, Green, Black and Assam tea cultivars which are hand picked and blended with the same attention to detail and flavour as the wine in South Africa.
The main office houses a restaurant and tea tasting. Unfortunately it was raining when we arrived so we had to appreciate the scenic beauty from the verandah deck.
We tucked into some delicious food washed down by Oolong tea. A bit of an acquired taste for me. Ruined by my addiction to Joko.
The Golden Triangle
Driving through the rice paddy fields en route to the Golden Triangle.
View over the Mekong River, Myanmar straight ahead and Laos to the right
There is a point on the Mekong River, the northern most border of Thailand, where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet. It is called the Golden Triangle and we drove there by a rather circuitous route through the rice paddies and the hills.
The Golden Triangle is notorious as the area which thrived due to the wholesale propagation of opium in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Driven in no small part by the UK and other colonial European governments who were desperate for opium to trade with China.
Although poppy cultivation is now banned, at least in Thailand, it is no surprise that this area remains a centre of shady deals and mafia influence.
Laos is well known to be the centre of internet and romance scamming, something called "Pig Butchering" , the name is based on the fattening of the pig for the slaughter. You make a friendship on line with a vulnerable person anywhere in the world and then slowly bleed them for increasing amounts of money based on the alleged romantic relationship. A bit like the Tinder Swindler on steroids.
Young people from all over the world, including Thailand, are lured there with job offers and promises of big salaries and, once caught, their passports are taken and they are virtually imprisoned and forced to participate in the scams. If they fail to bring in high monetary targets they may be forced into the sex trade. Law enforcement is not aligned in the 3 countries.
We arrived at the Mekong to find a busy waterfront bordering the brown, fast flowing, river. We hired a small longboat to take us on a short cruise, upriver to the border of Myanmar and down stream past the Laos waterfront.
Myanmar is mainly jungle and an overgrown crumbling casino complex. Myanmar is in the midst of civil war and not in a good place at the moment. Laos is full of bright and shiny new sky scrapers and a huge golden casino.
Only when you get closer do you see many of the buildings are unfinished.
Thailand has banned casinos and these are a big part of Chinese culture. Myanmar and Laos have no such restrictions and casinos are booming.
We passed by an apartment block which we later identified as being the centre for Pig Butchering, according to a YouTube documentary we watched. The Chinese mafia hold sway in this area. China is, after all, only 260 km upstream by boat. It was all a bit surreal to be honest.
We wandered along the promenade on the Thailand side and tried to get our heads around it all.
A tumbledown casino being reclaimed by the jungle on the Myanmar side.
Laos waterfront and the big golden casino. Pig Butchering central in the background.
We went for a drink and then into the Opium Museum which documents the history of the Opium trade in the area. Opium has been known for 4000 years and is mentioned in tablets from around 2000BC found in Mesopotamia, described as the Plant of Joy. It was used in medicine in the Egyptian, Greek and Roman eras. It became widely grown and traded for gold by the European nations in the 18th century, known as Black Gold.
A main driver behind this was the need for silver to trade with China for tea. England in particular had a huge appetite for tea and China would only accept silver. When opium addiction began to overrun China the emperor banned it. Opium wars were fought. During the era of communism and state repression in China in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries, many of the marginalised tribes who had been involved in opium cultivation in southern China were chased out and settled as the Hill Tribes of the countries bordering Thailand. They brought Opium cultivation with them and were embraced and supported as the new supply chain. An edifying but not a pretty story. The colonial countries have a lot to answer for and no real excuses except for the pursuit of profit. They initiated and drove the trade, preying on vulnerable communities, profiting from the social and political catastrophe left in its wake.
Opium is found in the sap of the pods which are scored with multibladed knives after the petals fall, to allow the latex to flow.
Fortunately Thailand finally banned poppy cultivation in 1958 and have spent a lot of time educating and reskilling the farmers into alternate crops with equal or better earning potential. This was spearheaded by the late king Rama IX who was a much loved and venerated ruler in Thailand because of his progressive ideas. One of only 3 kings given the title "Great" in the current royal line. Between 1985 and 2015 poppy cultivation dropped by 97% and has not relapsed. Well that seems like progress.
I am entirely against opium as a recreational drug but I cannot help thinking that the lush hills filled with flowering poppies must have been a sight to behold. Deadly beauty.
The paraphernalia of opium, pipes, mats, cushions, measuring weights. These weights were often cast as animal statuettes or religious images of different weights and sizes, I assume different dealers would chose their own weight decorations to distinguish them. Opium users would lie on these flat mats smoking in crowded dens. The "cushion" usually made of hard bone, wood, metal or porcelain holds the head up just enough to allow the pipe bowl to meet the flame. The drug takes care of any discomfort!
The Emerald Buddah
Wat Phra Kaew is a royally appointed temple, the most important temple in northern Thailand, and its Abbot is the ecclesiastical head of Northern Thailand.
In the spirit of checking out all the previous homes of the Emerald Buddha, our last excursion in Chiang Rai was to Wat Phra Kaew on the other side of town. We had decided to build up to the final reveal in Bangkok, where the Emerald Buddha currently resides, by following in the footsteps of its journey.
The Emerald Buddha, Phra Kaew Marakot, is said to have been crafted in 500BE, around the time of the birth of Buddha. It moved around a lot but was, at some stage in the 12th or 13th centuries, interred in the Wat Phra Kaew, presumably as a safeguard against marauding forces over the border.
After its rediscovery in 1434 its story became more one of historical chronology than previous legend, and its movements can be traced through various relocations to its present position in the Royal Temple in Bangkok.
Although it was taken from Chiang Rai soon after its discovery in 1434, in 1990 the Queen Mother commissioned the Phra Yok Chiang Rai, a replica made out of Canadian jade.
It is a slightly different size as exact copies are not allowed, and it is somewhat dwarfed by guilded surroundings..
The modern viharn in Wat Phra Kaew, which houses the jade Phra Yok Chiang Ra. Around the Buddha are panels showing the various stages in the life and journey of the Emerald Buddha from place to place. Usually being carted off on an elephant somewhere while marauders storm in across bridges and by boat.
Many donations have been made to the temple and there is a museum within the grounds which allows you to see some of the religious art and furnishings.
We wandered in and out of the various temples and shrines, and looked through the museum but we had a bus to catch so finally we had to bid goodbye and make a run for it.
A beautiful array of Buddha statues.
Seeking the Sun
We had spent a wonderful time in Chiang Rai and saw so many new facets of Thai life and art but I can't deny we were often sampling these treasures in the pouring rain. We mostly resembled drowned rats.
The local people cheerfully told us it could rain for weeks on end in the Kingdom of Lanna.
We had been keen to look at some of the other areas around, like the small town of Pai, but in the rain, eish. Maybe this would need to wait for another, drier season.
We decided to head South again and set our sights on the ancient ruined city of Sukhothai in the central plateau.
This was the capital of Siam in the 13th and 14th centuries, considered the "dawn of happiness" and a golden age in Thai culture. It features the UNESCO Sukhothai Historical Park. That should give us something to work with, hopefully in a drier climate.
A 9 hour coach ride was made bearable by breaking the journey in Chiang Mai. I booked the bus the next day.