Chiang Rai

 Chiang Rai's clock tower

 Wat Phra Singh 

 Wat Phra Kaew 

 Phra Kaew's museum

 The replica of the Emerald Buddha 

 One of Thailands many markets 

On Monday morning we took the long winding bus trip back to Chiang Mai, to catch a bus to our new destination,  Chiang Rai.

According to our Lonely Planet guide book, Chiang Rai is "more liveable than visitable", and that may be so, however we enjoyed our stay there very much.

There is quite a lot to see in Chiang Rai, but most of it is outside the city centre. Nevertheless, on our first day there, Charlotte and I took a walk by ourselves in the city, and did some sightseeing. The most famous and well-visited sight in Chiang Rai is probably the white temple, which I'll write about later. The same artist who created the White Temple also created a masterpiece of a clock tower right in the city centre. The intricately designed golden tower stands boldly out against the bright azure sky. It was such a pleasure to see a beautiful work of art in the middle of the street.

Further along on our walk, we discovered the tourist information office where we picked up a map. Across the street from the information office was Wat Phra Singh, which we walked into next. The temple is one of the oldest ones Chiang Rai, built in the typical Northern Thai style. The main temple building was flanked by colourful flags and lanterns when I visited it.

Nearby to Wat Phra Singh is another temple called Wat Phra Kaew, which is well known in Thailand to be the original home of the famous Emerald Buddha, now housed in Bangkok's Grand Palace. According to the legend,  the Emerald Buddha was discovered there when a bolt of lightening struck the old chedi and cracked open. A replica of the buddha now stands in the solemn temple, which is surrounded either side by a water feature,  and, oddly, many turtles. I'm not sure what the significance of the turtles was, but it was nice to see :)

The temple grounds also house a beautiful museum with stunning relics inside, and outside the gardens are beautifully designed, with orchids and other flowers blooming.

Later on in the day we also walked by a market, and I was reminded that Thailand really does know how to do a good market. It seems that everyone and anyone has their own shop or market stall! They just love to shop.
Tomorrow I will write up a separate post about the White Temple that I mentioned earlier, as it was just spectacular.

I hope you enjoyed reading :)
Hannah xx

A little place called Pai

 View from our bungalow 

 Pai river

 The street dogs loved Charlotte

 Streed food stalls 

 Waterfall

 Farm at the land split

 Roselle hibiscus 

Next stop after our lovely stay in Chiang Mai was a town north and west of there called Pai. The drive to Pai is about four hours of very long winding roads, about 700 turns in total. I didn't stop and count them, though ;)

We learnt from our stay in Chiang Mai that a lot of accommodation is not advertised online in Thailand, so we decided to find a place to stay when we arrived there. The first place we found seemed okay,  so we settled in to our little bungalow in Pai for three nights.

The bungalow contained a bed, a fan, a toilet, a shower hose, and not much else. We did have wifi there, though! We were woken up by roosters crowing early every morning, when we would cross the bridge into town for breakfast.

Pai has been built up by westerners, and you will find a lot of western food there, from full English breakfast, to pancakes, and french toast. Of course there are still some thai restaurants, but the town is packed with tourists.

Every night there is a night market along the main road, with food vendors,  and handmade craft stalls all set up. Here you can buy handmade jewellery,  cool Pai t-shirts, dream catchers, bags, shoes, and a lot of different types of food. Everything from burritos, lasagne, pizza, curry puffs, spring rolls, pad thai, crepes, waffles... I could go on.

There really is not a lot to do in Pai apart from relax and hang out in the cafes and market. You can rent motorbikes and ride to the waterfalls and other places nearby, but we obviously didn't want to take Charlotte on a moped with us. Even though the Thai people do it with their children ;)

We did take a taxi to a nearby waterfall, but it had rained recently and it was very muddy there. Next to the waterfall was a popular tourist attraction known as 'the Land Split'. It is a crack in the land that formed from an earthquake that happened in 2008. The local farmers there decided to turn it into a tourist attraction,  as the crack made their land unusable. The kind farmers there offer you some of their fresh fruit and homemade hibiscus roselle juice, and you can donate some money if you want.

There were not a lot of families staying in Pai, and I can see why, as it is mostly geared towards younger backpackers. While we did enjoy our stay there, I am glad we only stayed three nights, or I think I might have got a bit bored.

My next post will probably be our last one from Thailand, as we leave for Laos in three days! We have loved our stay in Thailand, and we will definitely be back one day :)


Hannah xx