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Had a brilliant night Monday night. Went to Hotel Serenity to meet the group I went trekking with to find Chai and Nong there too. We sat in their office, with their boss, drinking Cobra whisky (which actually has a snake in the bottle) and Samsom rum which is the local brand. By 10.00 their boss couldn't stand let alone talk and passed out in the hotel lobby where security had to remove him! Not sure if he still has a job...
From their I took the rest of the gang to my fav bar "Roof-top bar" (called that for obvious reasons), where I had been the previous night with Nong. There are no chairs just cushions to sit on the floor and everyone has to remove their shoes before entering. Met loads of people in there, including two girls I met on my second night in Bangkok. Bar shut at 2 and I had befriended an English guy who is from Essex who I was calling Dave all night, when actually his name is John! He didn't seem to mind though. Went back to his hotel and had drinks in the bar before he gave me a piggy back all the way back to my hostel at around 4.30.
Woke up to a 7.00 wake up call "you are being picked up in 10 mins for Golden Triangle trip!" So jumped out of bed still drunk grabbed stuff for the day and headed out. Luckily we had to drive for 2 hours to get to Chiang Rai so I slept all the way there.
First stop was the first temple ever built, although not in it's original state because Bhurma had once taken over the city and damaged it. Yellow bands are put around trees (like in pic) and buildings so people do not destroy them. It is the colour of the Bhudda and the King and Thai people think that if they were to damage anything bearing this colour, terrible things will happen to them and their family.
Second stop, the Golden Triangle. Got on a very small boat which took us up and down the river seperating Bhuma, Loas and Thailand. Stopped for half an hour in Loas but didn't see anything to write home about!
From there we had lunch and headed into the hills to see some hill tribes. Tourists have been going to see the way the hill tribes live for a very long time so has unfortunately changed the lives of the hill tribes I visted. To the tribes they see it as an easy way to earn money and so they make things to sell to tourists, whereas before, they would farm rice, cattle and opium and sell onto the cities in Thailand. We were advised not to give the tribes money but I still saw tourists buying stuff from them. We weren't allowed to take photographs in case they made us pay for doing so! I had this old lady follow me for about ten minutes talking to me. She had black teeth from a spice they rub on their lips and teeth to refresh them, they don't have tooth paste! She was pretty scary!
Took us ages to get back nearly 4 hours! As it was my last night in Chiang Mai I was determined I was going to the Roof top bar for the last time, but was absolutely shattered, just passed out when I got back.
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