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The last two days we have covered so much territory I don't even know where to begin. We started out Saturday morning at 6 am in a nice van to head to northern Thailand province of Chiang Rai. We stopped along the way at several temples -one was Wat Rong Khun which is all all white temple covered in millions of pieces of glass which makes its look like ice. I will post some photos soon because I really cannot describe it. We made a couple of other stops before reaching the top of the mountain at Doi Tung which was the home of the queen mother. It is a part of the Golden Triangle where you can see Laos and Burma. This is the home of the hill tribes who grew poppies for opium for centuries before she came in and helped them learn other trades. There is no opium trade here now but it was here as recent as 30 years ago. There was a magnificent flower garden as well as her palace which we toured. Everything we saw today was like nothing I've ever experienced before. I felt like I was on another planet a couple of times today. We then continued up north to Mae Sei which is the northern most point in Thailand and saw the border crossing to Burma. One of the girls on our group teaches ESL to Burmese students so she wanted to see the border. This town was insanely busy,hectic, street vendors , traffic, different looking Thai people than what we are used to. After a 4 hour drive we returned to Chiang Mai to spend the night and visited the night market there which goes literally for miles with everything imaginable for sale.
Sunday we got up and headed up another mountain to another temple Wat Pratha and climbed 300 steps to the top. You really have to see these temples to believe how ornate they are. Lots of people everywhere making offerings of money and flowers and monks giving blessings and saying prayers - nothing like the churches we are used to! The picture of the 2 little girls on todays cover page were posing on the steps for money. They wouldn't let you photograph them unless you paid them first. It's really sad to see these little 4 year old-girls being exploited. They have so much makeup on and their mothers are behind the steps watching them "work".
Continuing on our journey we stopped at an umbrella factory and a silk factory and another area like a huge flea market with really quality things. However, everything they sold was being made right there- furniture, silversmiths,potters, etc. I wished I could ship back some furniture- the teak here is gorgeous and really cheap. But it would double the cost to get it home. Finally back to our lovely little motel in Lampang tonight. The restaurants were all closed so we got Chiangmai noodles from the street vender next door which were actually great. I never would have guessed I'd be eating street food but its all really good and fresh. Back to work tomorrow - so much for a relaxing weekend! 800 miles with 10 people in a van- whew!!
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Kim Can't wait to hear all about your adventure. Thanks for sharing your journey!