Nigel: So after our boat trip from Laos over to Northern Thailand we eventually made it back to some form of normal civilisation. Even though the change of life style in Laos was a great experience, the convenience of being able to go to the shops again was also blessing. We managed to find a good guest house which was in the centre of Chiang Rai. Apart from the million temples you can go and see, which we are a bit bored of seeing, there isn't a great amount to see in the city of Chiang Rai. There are a couple of monuments but the fact we were near shops, we took full use of this. On one of the nights they did have a 1st anniversary celebration for a place called "Walking Street" which is basically a very long street that has many market stalls. They had special performances on and local dancing. It was a good night and we were glad we were there when it took place.

Alison: On one of our days in Chiang Rai we splashed out on a private day tour. We hired a driver and a guide to show us all the main sites. We saw many things that day and I won't mention them all but the main things were:

The White Temple - This temple is very modern and has yet to be completed. The designer is purposely taking his time because he feels that the most important buildings in history take a long time to build so he wants to drag out it out a bit!! The temple is very impressive to look at and is unusual inside in that it has modern drawings on the wall. The pictures show good and evil. Good pictures include Superman and man walking on the moon. Evil pictures include the planes flying in to the Twin Towers. There are also 2 large eyes and in one you can see Bush and in the other Bin Laden. These pictures make this temple quite controversial but we thought it was interesting.

Long Neck Karon Tribe - This tribe is a bit of a tourist attraction so you aren't really seeing them in a natural environment but it was still interesting to see the length of some of their necks!! The tribe we saw were Burmese in origin. We only saw the females because the males are all still working in Burma. The Long Necks wear brass rings around the neck to elongate it. It is thought they started doing this long ago when one of the tribe got bit on the neck from a tiger. It was initially a form of protection but now it is just tradition and is thought to enhance beauty. The brass rings go on from a young age and are gradually built up. The rings don't actually make the neck grow longer but the weight of them is meant to push the collar bone and shoulder down to make it appear longer. It is very strange to think women would do this to themselves but each to their own!!  

The Golden Triangle - This is an area where Thailand, Burma and Laos meet. You can stand in one point and see all 3 countries at once. You would never think that these countries are joined together considering how vastly different they are. We were tempted to do a day trip to Burma which is now open-ish for tourists but it is still meant to be quite a dangerous place so we decided against it.