Our Trip North - part 1

The Bangkok trip had a completely practical purpose. Believe me, everyone in our cultural course would have been a little frustrated if they made us to take a little “sight-seeing” trip for 3 days only two weeks after moving to Thailand! Bangkok is the hub of the country. We learned a lot about the history and culture of the country. Thai’s are very proud of both of these things and if we are to connect with them and be able to minister to them then we need to understand their history and love their culture.

Our trip north had a very different but equally practical purpose. Most of us in the class are on a year-long visa until we get our work permit. During this year, we have to leave the country every 90 days. Don’t ask me why? It doesn’t make any sense to let people come for a year but make them leave 4 times during that year. But I'm sure they have their reasons. So what most people do is go up to the border in the north, cross over into the country to our West (which is the easiest crossing point even though the border to our East is just as close), and then cross right back over into Thailand. So our trip up here was to “practice” this. That way when it comes time to do it on our own we’ll have done it before. The trip was a little less crazy than Bangkok. Although we still were on the move for almost all of the day, much of it was spent in a van as opposed to walking around town.

We left D-town (the name of our apartment complex) at 9am on Wednesday. It wasn’t long until we were out of Chiang Mai and into the “country.” Beautiful mountains everywhere and greenery reminding us that we’re living in a Tropical Rain Forrest. We stopped at a little hot springs. It’s sort of a tourist trap (at least by Thai standards) but it was nice to take a break after an hour of lots of twisty roads. The highlight (besides the little geyser called “Old Faithful”) were these older women selling eggs that they cook right in front of you by dipping them into the hot water of the springs.

We would have possibly gotten these for the kids but we were definitely given the "Farang" price. Unfortunately, westerners get the higher prices for many items. Even though it was equivalent to about $4, it's still hard to pay for something when you know you're getting overcharged.

We had about 30 minutes at the hot sprints so we had a little snack. :-)

For some reason Micaiah was scared of it. Silly boy. He eventually got brave and walked closer.

After another hour of windy roads, we stopped at a restaurant/pie shop. Yes, a little pie place in the middle of nowhere in Thailand…with best pies I’ve ever had! Damien keeps saying that we seem to have found the only country that uses more sugar than the US – and they like their sweet things! My favorite was the “Lemon Supreme” which was much like key lime. But in Thailand they don’t have Limes like in the US...or lemons for that matter. Just these fruit called Kaffir Limes which is a perfect mix between a lemon and lime.

The pie shop was on this cute (yet dirty) river. It was really high and swift because of all of rain lately.

Caiah was very excited as he was about to dig into his chocolate pie!

Sora absolutely loves to wear sunglasses. But it's pretty hilarious (and a little sad) because they just won't stay up because of her ear. One side just always falls off!

Yummy pies! For about $2/slice.

After one more stop - this time at Tesco/Lotus (one of the 4 huge Walmart type shopping stores in Thailand) we made it to the hotel. The hotel was in Chiang Rai Provence, in an area called Mekong. It is in the part of the world known as The Golden Triangle. It is called this because since the 1920's the majority of the world's Opium production has come from this area of the world. The "triangle" covers the corner where Myanmar, Thailand, Laos & Vietnam are all very close together. The hotel was called The Greater Mekong Lodge Hotel. There was a main building with hotel rooms, and also 13 little Lanna style bungalows which is what we stayed in. The grounds were just beautiful. The insides are very basic compared to US hotel standards, but very nice for here. It was a cheap and clean place to stay for us and it was also pretty deserted. We may have been the only people there. I think this review on TripAdvisor sums up the hotel nicely. Although, I have to say, I'm terribly sick of all 5 of us being stuck in the same room (since we did it for three nights last week in Bangkok.) It didn't help that Orin was sick and coughing non-stop throughout the night. The second night we pushed his little roll-a-way bed to the other end of the room by the door but it was still SO loud. I have to admit I didn't have a great attitude at 3am while I held my pillow over my head to try to drown out the noise...but he was a trooper.

Another view from our balcony.

Me standing on the ground, looking up at our room. You can see Damien and Sora up there!



Another view from our bungalow.

About to get into the van to head home!

Part 2 coming up.

Oh, and as you can see, I bought a new camera. The guest house said they couldn't find it there so I definitely left it in the Taxi. Bummer. Camera's are more expensive here, so I don't think the one I got is as good as my lost one (not that it was all that fancy) but I really wanted to have it for the trip!