Chang Rai - A City of Contrasts

Now time to move on to Chiang Rai as we are moving more north in Thailand, on our way to the border crossing into Laos. We took the bus to Chiang Rai, about 2 ½ hours, a comfortable ride with wide seats and rules about buckling our seatbelts. They gave us water and snacks, all in all, a nice way to travel.

Chang Rai is a city of contrasts - See for yourself. 

Beautiful markets for the locals.

The temples were different than in Chiang Mai but just as beautiful in their own right.












The Clock Tower is unique as it comes alive at night with a light and sound show.  The flower show was just amazing with local dancers and musicians dressed in their traditional costumes.

We went to two of their famous Temples. One is the Blue which was recently built. The Blue Buddha was very impressive, but the rest was kind of odd. Look at the pictures and judge for yourself. If you have been following us on Facebook and have seen the beautiful and numerous pictures we posted of Temples, you will see that the Chiang Rai Blue and White Temples are a little over the top. 

The White Temple reminded us of Elvis in his later years. Lots of bling and it had a contrived and blatantly tourist exploitation feeling about it, almost like an amusement park. Having said this, the temple was stunning to see, a true one-of-a-kind structure. It is also not old, built in the late ‘90s and rebuilt after an earthquake in 2014.

  

Now the other side or the contrast of Chiang Rai. Unbeknown to us, our guesthouse was located in and around the sex tourism district. The more we walked the more we saw single and usually older men either alone or with Thai girls/women. Around the next corner were massage parlours where the “masseuses” openly solicited passersby and proudly showing off their “assets”.  There were many bars often with suggestive names. 

On the other hand, we have spoken to other couples who were in Chiang Rai and didn’t see any of this. For us, it was constantly in our face. Now there is nothing wrong with two consenting adults but what is worrisome is what we saw on the bus sign for example "everyone is welcome in Thailand except for child sex offenders". That’s what we were concerned about, the underbelly of exploitation of woman and children. Because of the poverty in the remote villages, human trafficking is still an issue. Even men are exploited as cheap labour in projects often far from their homes. Paid little and worked like rented mules. 

Also, up until 100 or so years ago, this area, called the Golden Triangle-which is where Myanmar and Laos and Thailand meet-was the largest producer of heroin and opium in the world. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the sort of wild west atmosphere that must have prevailed although, in all fairness, we felt safe and comfortable here. We saw no evidence that this exists today.

We debated going to visit the Karen village, sometimes called the long neck village because it’s where the women have rings around their necks, but we felt that it would be exploiting them. A bit of a philosophical dilemma because we would have liked to have seen the village but we didn’t want to exploit their poverty. We have no issue with anyone who visits, it’s a personal choice and the truth is, tourism is their only source of income. In a way, I wish I would have seen it, but it was at this point that Ed got sick, running a very high fever so we felt it was better to try and fight the fever and lay low.

Next stop Laos and our amazing trip on the flatboat down the mighty Mekong River.

~Travel like nobody's watching~