Our first day in Chiang Rai was amazing. We saw some of the most spectacular things we have seen anywhere in our travels to date. We began at the White Temple. It was created and built in the last 15 years by a local artist that had made it big and then had returned to his home town and wanted to build a temple here. The story behind him began when he was young and his mother had gone into the temple to worship and had left him outside. To entertain himself he had found apiece of charcoal and began drawing on the outside of the temple. When his mother came out she was so angry and as he was being chided for his “creativity” on the temple the monk asked her to stop saying that maybe he will be one of th best artists in Thailand, don’t discourage his artistry. He later became a very famous and wealthy artist after being discovered by the King who became a sponsor. As we pulled up to the temple it took our breaths away. Wow! I have never seen anything like it. Same impression that I had when I went to the Taj years ago. It is built from cement and then the moldings are covered in mirrored mosaics. It took 15 years to build. It is open to the public for all to enjoy and central shrine there is a wall on the back that is covered in modern characters so that as children wait for their parents to finish praying they can be entertained by the back wall. The outside of the temple has devilish looking characters which are there to scare off evil spirits. You walk over “hell” where there are hands reaching up and scary faces for your feet and then onto the bridge and into heaven. The artist still comes back a couple time a week to work on the temple and finish his mural inside the shrine.
Our next stop was lunch at a place called Cabbage and Condoms- really that is what it was called. When you walked in their was a basket with vegetables and condoms- part of the country’s campaign for safe sex is that condoms are as easy to get as cabbage. This is a main restaurant. Totally the most random place I have been to. hahaha. They had mannequins inside that were dressed in clothes made out of condoms. I was sure that when we finished our meal we would get the check with instead of a couple mints, a couple of condoms. That would have been classic. We ordered many traditional dishes and enjoyed the green curry and soups.
After lunch we had around an hour drive into the mountains to see the hillside village tribes. The one we visited where people from China that had brought over the opium about 200 years ago. They grew it here in the Golden Triangle area and lived in the mountains. The Thai government began cracking down on opium and fining and imprisoning villagers if they continued to grow opium. In it’s place the government introduced Ulong tea to these people. This tea was mainly for local consumption. Other areas grow fruits or flowers. As we entered the mountains there were terraces of tea bushes everywhere. They trim the bushes about once a month but each week they take the new three baby leaves from the tips of the bushes and dry and sell as tea. This tea is the key ingredient in Redbull. It was first given to an Australian tourist that came to this area and was tied from his travels. He was energized and was converted to this tea and from there he created his energy drink that is world famous. We went into the village higher up the mountain and there women also do a lot of stitchery and there were many crossstitch pieces of work and yard work. I bought a few pieces of jewelry before we left. The women were wearing their traditional headdresses and some of them their handmade and stitched clothes .They were so interesting their headpieces with silver balls and so colorful and draped with beads. Loved it! All the women still chew beatle nut which gives them red teeth and most of their teeth are totally rotten. These ladies would smile and laugh and most of them had red/black teeth - it was so interesting.
From the mountains we headed down to the village of the Long Neck Karens. Yes I thought it totally fascinating that there was a tribe named Karen. They originally came from Burma and are Burmese. But they have left Burma since they felt they had no chance for education because in the rural parts of their country they were not given an opportunity to go to school. The place where we were is actually a refugee camp with bamboo houses that were built for them by the government. Here the next generation has a chance to go to school since all children born in Thailand are given an education without exception. These women wear brass rings around their neck which are so heavy. They had a mock one that you could try on that is just cut in half basically and it was so heavy and it wasn’t even the full size of the others. Their necks don’t become longer but it compresses down their shoulders and upper body and the older women it often compresses their lungs for those that have many rings and becomes hard to breathe. The origin of the rings comes from the legend that their ancestor was a swan and show respect to their ancestor the swan by elongating their necks. The other thought on how it originated was they lived in hills where there were many tigers and since the women were more fragile than men, the women put rings around their necks so that when the tiger attacks and they usually kill by attacking the neck of their prey, this would protect the women. The women continue the tradition and I have to say it is rather beautiful but definitely would limit what you do comfortably and eventually your health. The tradition, I believe more for beautification is also to wrap around their knees these brass rings. Some women have taken them off since they hurt to walk. Every year or so as they are growing, the mothers will take them off and heat them and stretch them to make them bigger and add more rings. it is quite a life commitment.
We purchased several statues carved by the women and Kendall bought a scarf, a pattern that they all make and they were all weaving while we were there. They also had outside the village a few other tribes selling their wares. Some of the women had these reddish purple scarves around them that were like one long pom pom ball- lots of smaller pieces of yarn, they were selling a variety of handicrafts. I decided that maybe I did need a fanny pack since it is so handy to have your money just attached to you and they were all hand cross stitched. Also picked up a set of three hand carved statues that are so cool looking that they are going to be my new three wisemen in my Christmas Cresh.
The evening ended with eating outside in a lantern filled garden near the Kok River. More tasty local foods and then back to our hotel. Sam discovered a rickshaw that was near the entrance and took Kendall and I for laps around the courtyard- harder than it looks to pedal. It was a full day, a highlight day of our trip. So many interesting cultures and people, and beautiful things to see.
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