From Chiang Mai I took a bus to Taton. It is a tiny town on the border with Burma (now Myanmar). It is famous -- at least among the Farang -- for two things. 
One, there are seven temples on the hills around the town and it is fun to walk from one temple to the next. (though it is a long and hot hike) A couple of them have HUGE Buddha statues, that can be seen from the road through town. Cool. Two, you can take a long boat down the river to Chiang Rai.
I took a tuk-tuk to the bus station (paying twice what the Thai woman at the hotel said it should cost, despite hard bargaining on my part -- or at least the attempt at hard bargaining) and found that the bus left in about 45 minutes. I went to the counter to try to buy a ticket and was told to come back in 15 minutes. For those wishing to travel in Thailand, keep this in mind: the ticket window is only open sometimes. You can buy a ticket several hours in advance, or half an hour before the bus/train leaves. As 11am rolled around (departure at 11:30am), I started hovering by the window, along with another Farang. Turns out we both were going to the same place and approached the window at more or less the same time. So the woman in the booth assumed that we were traveling together! Which we did from then on. We had lunch together (a very good Pad Thai!) and sat together on the bus and shared a hotel and meals in Taton! Nice to know someone. I left Taton a day earlier than he did, but we met up again in Chiang Rai!
The trip to Chiang Rai was great! It was about four hours in a rather noisy, but very fun, long-boat. There was a Japanese tourist in the boat, but otherwise it was me and the Thai people. The country side was beautiful! Tall hills rising from flat fields and dotted, here and there with a house or two. We passed lots of children taking advantage of their summer holidays to go swimming! They loved waving to us -- or at least staring at us as we went by!
My time in Chiang Rai was very short. I basically used it as a jumping off point for two day trips: First, to the White Temple, and second, to get a stamp for my passport. Getting a stamp for the passport is a very strange thing that the Thai government requires if you travel here for more than 30 days and don't want to get an official visa. I have crossed into all three of the border countries: Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar (Not Malaysia because of the violence in the south -- everyone, the Thai people, my guide book, the US Government -- all say to avoid the very south of Thailand, so I am). My first trip was a day trip into the capital city of Laos. We went from site to site, seeing the high-lights of Vientiane while I was still a bit jet-lagged from my 18-hour flight. The second was to the border of Cambodia, where all we did was walk out of Thailand to the Cambodian border guard station where I bought a visa. Then we crossed the road where I exited Cambodia and walked back into Thailand. The whole thing took half an hour at most! The drive there was much longer than the time at the border.
My third trip (to Myanmar) was somewhere in between. They took my passport at the border and told me to walk around for a bit. So I did. I walked into town. Up and down the main street. To the end of the town in one direction. And through a market to a temple in the other. The temple was very cool (literally) and very different from the ones I'd been in in Thailand. For one thing, it was full of people hanging out and staying cool. 
Women and children in one wing, men in another sitting on the floor, by the open windows, napping or talking and hanging out. Very comfortable feeling. One odd thing though, Myanmar is one-half hour behind Thailand. So, if it is 10:00am in Thailand, it is only 9:30am in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma, by the way).
The white temple is also very cool!
(but not literally -- it was very hot the day I went). It is a Buddhist temple that is entirely white on the outside. All other temples are brightly colored. White and gold and yellow and red and green and all kinds of colors. With glass of many different colors, set in the sculptures, sparkling in the sun! The White Temple, as you might have guessed, is all white! and the glass is all silver-mirrors. It is truly spectacular! And as much a contrast to the rest of the temples in Thailand (that I have seen) as the Bottle Temple in the south of Issan. To enter the temple you walk across a bridge that begins, not in a pool of water, but in a pool of arms, reaching up, desperately, from the ground. The bridge rises, until you pass though a cloud-like sculpture of a very serene and happy Buddha (actually one on each side) and then into the temple itself. In side the temple is all golden. 
A huge golden Buddha is painted on the far wall, smiling, and surrounded by Heaven (I think). The strangest thing, though, is the wall you enter through, which is in the process of being painted. It seems to be covered with scenes of hell: dripping gas pumps, tortured faces, and strangest of all, figures from Star Wars and The Matrix! I am not sure if the painting of Neo (from the Matrix) is a hero or a villain in the painting. The same with the X-wing fighters from Star Wars.
One, there are seven temples on the hills around the town and it is fun to walk from one temple to the next. (though it is a long and hot hike) A couple of them have HUGE Buddha statues, that can be seen from the road through town. Cool. Two, you can take a long boat down the river to Chiang Rai.I took a tuk-tuk to the bus station (paying twice what the Thai woman at the hotel said it should cost, despite hard bargaining on my part -- or at least the attempt at hard bargaining) and found that the bus left in about 45 minutes. I went to the counter to try to buy a ticket and was told to come back in 15 minutes. For those wishing to travel in Thailand, keep this in mind: the ticket window is only open sometimes. You can buy a ticket several hours in advance, or half an hour before the bus/train leaves. As 11am rolled around (departure at 11:30am), I started hovering by the window, along with another Farang. Turns out we both were going to the same place and approached the window at more or less the same time. So the woman in the booth assumed that we were traveling together! Which we did from then on. We had lunch together (a very good Pad Thai!) and sat together on the bus and shared a hotel and meals in Taton! Nice to know someone. I left Taton a day earlier than he did, but we met up again in Chiang Rai!
The trip to Chiang Rai was great! It was about four hours in a rather noisy, but very fun, long-boat. There was a Japanese tourist in the boat, but otherwise it was me and the Thai people. The country side was beautiful! Tall hills rising from flat fields and dotted, here and there with a house or two. We passed lots of children taking advantage of their summer holidays to go swimming! They loved waving to us -- or at least staring at us as we went by!My time in Chiang Rai was very short. I basically used it as a jumping off point for two day trips: First, to the White Temple, and second, to get a stamp for my passport. Getting a stamp for the passport is a very strange thing that the Thai government requires if you travel here for more than 30 days and don't want to get an official visa. I have crossed into all three of the border countries: Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar (Not Malaysia because of the violence in the south -- everyone, the Thai people, my guide book, the US Government -- all say to avoid the very south of Thailand, so I am). My first trip was a day trip into the capital city of Laos. We went from site to site, seeing the high-lights of Vientiane while I was still a bit jet-lagged from my 18-hour flight. The second was to the border of Cambodia, where all we did was walk out of Thailand to the Cambodian border guard station where I bought a visa. Then we crossed the road where I exited Cambodia and walked back into Thailand. The whole thing took half an hour at most! The drive there was much longer than the time at the border.
My third trip (to Myanmar) was somewhere in between. They took my passport at the border and told me to walk around for a bit. So I did. I walked into town. Up and down the main street. To the end of the town in one direction. And through a market to a temple in the other. The temple was very cool (literally) and very different from the ones I'd been in in Thailand. For one thing, it was full of people hanging out and staying cool. 
Women and children in one wing, men in another sitting on the floor, by the open windows, napping or talking and hanging out. Very comfortable feeling. One odd thing though, Myanmar is one-half hour behind Thailand. So, if it is 10:00am in Thailand, it is only 9:30am in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma, by the way).The white temple is also very cool!
(but not literally -- it was very hot the day I went). It is a Buddhist temple that is entirely white on the outside. All other temples are brightly colored. White and gold and yellow and red and green and all kinds of colors. With glass of many different colors, set in the sculptures, sparkling in the sun! The White Temple, as you might have guessed, is all white! and the glass is all silver-mirrors. It is truly spectacular! And as much a contrast to the rest of the temples in Thailand (that I have seen) as the Bottle Temple in the south of Issan. To enter the temple you walk across a bridge that begins, not in a pool of water, but in a pool of arms, reaching up, desperately, from the ground. The bridge rises, until you pass though a cloud-like sculpture of a very serene and happy Buddha (actually one on each side) and then into the temple itself. In side the temple is all golden. 
A huge golden Buddha is painted on the far wall, smiling, and surrounded by Heaven (I think). The strangest thing, though, is the wall you enter through, which is in the process of being painted. It seems to be covered with scenes of hell: dripping gas pumps, tortured faces, and strangest of all, figures from Star Wars and The Matrix! I am not sure if the painting of Neo (from the Matrix) is a hero or a villain in the painting. The same with the X-wing fighters from Star Wars.
1 comment:
Reb,
Myanmar is also a place to avoid. Tons of unrest and violent political crakdowns.
CF
Post a Comment