Last days in Thailand: the White Temple and good eatin’

We left Chiang Mai the morning of the 27th. It proved a bit difficult to get out of town, though, as it was the holiday season and so many people were travelling. We ended up having to wait for about four hours at the bus station but it all worked out because we talked for a while with the Canadian guy who had some great advice for Laos. He was a bit older than us and was travelling with his wife. We expressed some of our dissatisfaction with Thailand being so touristy and whatnot and he told us about a few good places to get off the beaten path once we crossed the border.

We arrived in Chiang Rai late afternoon and found a hostel which was much nicer than we were expecting or wanting. We stayed there, though, as it was a bit far from anything else, we were tired, and didn’t want to go looking for anything else. We relaxed for a bit, played some cards, and then went searching for the night market. At the night market we ate some really good food. We had a big clay bowl of soup that we cooked and prepared ourselves right at our table as well as a wide assortment of fried vegetables and seafood and a few spring rolls. I was looking for mango sticky rice again but came up empty handed. Ah well. There was also some traditional Thai dancing going on at this big stage at one end of the eating area. There were two women and two men dancing in slow, rhythmic motions. To be honest, it was a bit odd and a bit boring. I can only assume it was done solely for tourists because we made up about 80 % of the audience.

On the way back we stopped at a few little shops and decided to pick up a couple things. I got a long sleeve T-shirt, Henry got a snap-button up blue shirt (I called it his cowboy shirt), and Paul got a new pair of shorts. It was a bit chilly and only going to get colder in Laos so we decide that Paul’s shorts were special and would actually keep him warm, so we dubbed them his “warm shorts.” The verdict is still out on whether or not they worked.

That night, Paul and I went to a restaurant near our hostel and to watch the Arsenal-Wolves game. The restaurant seemed pretty nice and I just nursed on a sprite during the game while Paul had a coffee. There was also some music going on. I don’t believe it was karaoke but nonetheless this older man got up and took the microphone at one point and sang along for about 4 or 5 songs. Paul and I found it amusing and I think everyone else from the guy’s table were pretty drunk; they loved it and applauded after each song.

The next morning, Paul, Henry and I went out to Wat Rong Khun, more commonly known as the White Temple (or sometimes as the White Pagoda or Crystal Wat or any combination of the terms—it all just depends on how you translate it). It’s this amazing temple that’s being financed by some super rich Thai businessman who gave this artist free reign to do whatever he liked in creating it. When you first get there you have to go over a bridge where below you are tons of hands reaching up towards you and towards the sky, representing Hell. As you walk over the bridge you come up to first (and thus far only completed) temple building which is completely white with decorations shooting up everywhere like colorless flames. Once you enter the temple, on the back wall, are a bunch of paintings of pop culture icons such as Darth Vader, Neo from the Matrix, Dragonball Z characters, the Twin Towers on fire, Lara Croft, and the Terminator, just to name a few. Then as you move forward in the building, the art gets more fluid and positive until you arrive at a large portrait of the Buddha on the opposite side. Outside of this building there were 6 or 7 more temples in various stages of construction; the White Temple is a quite ambitious project and the main artist thinks it will take something like 70 or 80 years to complete.

We hopped on a bus that afternoon to make the trip to the border town of Chiang Khong. We’d heard it was an interesting little town which, while not necessarily off of the tourist path was at least not as worn down by it. We found a cool hostel overlooking the Mekong River and over into Laos. It was run by a really nice and funny middle-aged Thai woman named Maleewon (probably in her 50’s) and her older American expat boyfriend Don. Maleewon definitely wore the pants in the relationship and while Don portrayed that he did a lot at the hostel, it was clear after a bit of looking that she was the owner and ran nearly everything. He was a nice enough man though a lot of what he said seemed to be a bit over dramatic and maybe even sensationalistic.

We went to the weekly market which happened to be that day and got a bit of food there. The most interesting thing I had was a hotdog wrapped in a waffle. Weird, right? Henry also got something that we thought looked like chopped shrimp mixed with some vegetables and sauce. We went down to a field by the river to eat it and Henry pretty quickly realized something was wrong with his shrimp. For starters, there wasn’t any skin/shell on it but it was a bit crunchy. The smell also didn’t resemble seafood in the slightest. Once he was about 1/3 finished with it we came to the conclusion that it was chicken feet—and we weren’t entirely sure they were even cooked. Luckily he didn’t get sick from them.

That night we went to a restaurant down near the main road and ordered a few different dishes which we all split. Man, they were delicious. The only one I remember was mine: a cashew chicken and rice dish. Stupendous.

The next day we weren’t really sure what to do. We had contemplated renting motos or bikes and going to a nearby cave or waterfall. Well, Don and Maleewon left around 9:30ish to go to a wedding and told us we’d be in charge of the hostel for about an hour until they got back. They were mostly kidding but as we didn’t really have any plans and they took the bikes we were thinking of renting, we just relaxed and played some cards until Maleewon came back. The wedding she’d been to was one of her friends from elementary school who was getting married to a 75-year-old guy from Luxembourg. They told us to go check it out if we wanted to. Well, we decided to walk around town for a bit and sure enough, we ran across the wedding. It definitely wasn’t our scene, though, so we walked by with little more than some curious stares and polite refusals when one guy offered us some rice whiskey.

The town of Chiang Khong was small but interesting. It definitely functioned as a stop for people either on their way in our out of Thailand. Contrary to most border towns, though, there wasn’t anything sinister or sleazy about it and instead was pretty calm and even slightly charming. That afternoon we met up with the Peace Corps Volunteer in Chiang Khong, Josh. He took us on a nice walk through the southern part of town past a driving range (yes, a driving range, even he thinks it’s weird) and through loads of corn fields and along the river. That night we went to an awesome little Thai restaurant. Josh ordered all of the food for us and it was definitely my best meal in Thailand. I have no idea what any of the dishes were called but we were all eternally grateful to Josh for ordering everything for us and showing us tons of dishes we never would have tasted or even known about otherwise. We tried to go to a bike museum/bar later that night but the British guy who runs it had apparently gotten too drunk the previous night and wasn’t opening. Josh said it was a pretty bizarre place but interesting. We wandered around for a while that night and eventually said goodbye to Josh, as it was our last night in Thailand. Next in store was the much talked of, but little known, country of Laos….