Our Thai tour guide was an enthusiastic, rapid talking and heavily accented (as well as insanely funny) young girl named Star, and it was immediately apparent why she used that name. Star started her 'performance' explaining the highlights of our trip. Hanging over the front passenger seat, she kept the attention of her thirteen captive passengers with promises of great financial rewards if anyone knew the answers to a few Thai trivia questions. "One million baht to who know what is meaning of name 'Chiang Mai'", and then held her backpack up so we could feel the weight of the prize! Having recently written our blog entry on Chiang Mai, we knew the answer and 'won' the prize! Chiang Mai means 'New City'. She continued, "Another million baht to you if can tell me what mean Chiang Mai original name Lanna!" which we also knew, and we were again the winners of the unseen prize. The tour guide asked if we, having smarts like that, had a wife yet in Thailand. Not quite sure if she was fishing for a proposal...
We settled in for a two hour drive to our first destination of the White Temple in Chiang Rai. Our ebullient guide gave us another effervescent presentation on our upcoming temple visit, and made sure we knew to make a visit to the spectacular Golden Toilet. The what?!? Yes, the Golden Toilet.
As we exited the van, Star instructed us that we had exactly 'Turty Minit' to visit the White Temple, the local shops and food vendors, and the spectacular Golden Toilet. 'Turty Minit! Turty Minit' she exclaimed repeatedly! It turned out to be a fantastically gorgeous and interesting temple that was opened to the public only six years ago, and was constructed by a private individual at the cost of 400 million baht (about 14 million US dollars). We barely had time to walk through the temple itself (and take a quick look at the Golden Toilet) before the guide was rushing us back to the minivan. Not even time to grab a refreshing fruit drink or look at the myriad trinkets being sold by the numerous vendors. 'Turty Minit' goes by so fast!
Back on the minivan, we continued another couple of hours to our next destination - the Mae Khong River - where we boarded a rickety long neck boat for a short windy journey across the river to the country of Laos. The area here is referred to as "The Golden Triangle" and is actually the confluence of three rivers. The waterway provides a no man's land meeting point of three countries, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar, and is infamous for opium trafficking. Arriving on the Laos shore, we were again advised of our 'Turty Minit' time limit. We were relieved to find that at this border there were no intimidating officials or long lines. In a matter of minutes we were walking on real Laos soil.
This was the fourth country we visited on our trip, and we were excited to see what new adventures would be waiting for us there. We crossed the high concrete river bank and got our first glimpse of the country - hoards of vendors waiting to sell us something. These shops were a little different than the ones in Chiang Mai and had a bountiful supply of name brand knockoffs as well as new oddities. One shop was gathering excessive attention so we joined the crowd. The attraction - local whiskey, complete with your choice of 'pickled' roots, cobras, or scorpions. What?!? They said (as clearly as we were able to understand) the root vintage was lighter for the ladies and would help transform them into butterflies. We weren't sure what they said the other ones would do but we could surely guess. Only one of us had the nerve to try some and we'll leave it up to you to guess who.
Vendors were plentiful with a seemingly unlimited supply of delights. We were a bit sad that only a few minutes after our libation detour our'Turty Minit' was up and we were being heralded back to the boat. Bye bye *hic* Laos!
After another minivan ride and a buffet lunch at an Asian restaurant, we finally arrived at the gateway to Myanmar (Burma). Previously under British rule, the military government officially changed the English translations of many colonial-era names in 1989; these changed included the name of the country from Burma to Myanmar. The renaming remains a contested issue. Many opposition groups and countries continue to use "Burma" because they do not recognise the legitimacy of the ruling military government or its authority to rename the country. "Burma" continues to be used by the governments of many countries, including the United States.
Our border crossing proved to be quite a different experience from our Cambodian border crossing, thanks to the help of our hyperactive tour guide. Her requested two million Baht fee unfortunately used up our winnings from the morning trivia contest but her help was well worth it. We were the only two from our tour who needed the passport run, so while we focused on that task our fellow travelers had the opportunity to visit the many shops and vendors along the Thailand side of the border.
Crossing the border back into Thailand we were again impressed by the uniformity and relatively professional process by Thai immigration. We were equally unimpressed by the lack thereof on the adjoining border. The immigration office for Mynamar looked like grandma kettle's kitchen with piles of dirty dishes lingering in the rust stained sink behind the officer. Even with a short delay by a woman that was rushed through ahead of us thanks to a small payoff on her part, we were processed in a reasonably short amount of time. However smooth the process, we unfortunately used up our allotted 'Turty Minit' stop and only glanced at the goods being sold as we sprinted back to the van. That may have been fortunate for us as the guide advised to beware the name brand 'knock-offs'. She had recently purchased a new watch at the border and said "Knock off cheaper but go to sleeping very soon. Not wake up again."
The streets near the border were again familiarly full of food vendors, and this group had some of the strangest items we'd seen yet. Their items even made the Bat-on-a-stick look good.
Back on the minivan, we headed to our final stop at a hot spring near Chiang Rai. We arrived after dark to what looked like a big parking lot full of shops and vendors with a steaming hole in the middle (which is exactly what it was). We were advised of our new and revised 'Fiteen Minit' time limit for this location and quickly perused the vendors for a small snack. At the steaming hole people were gathered and lowering eggs into the sulphuric smelling water. For only 20 baht (less then a dollar) they had a small sulphur scented snack cooked by nature itself. We decided to pass on the boiled egg. The pungent odor pushed us away from the hole and over to the banana chips.
Hello out there, are you guys ok????
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