Up early we checked out of our room and waited for our transport to take us to the bus station. Getting into a 12 seater air conditioned minibus was a luxury compared to what we would soon be on after being dropped off..... but that didn't happen and after half an hour we realized this was actually taking us all the way to Chiang Rai! Sweeeeet. There was another British couple on our bus from Stoke on Trent doing the same journey around Asia as us, so it was nice to share stories!

We turned up at our guesthouse which was again Thai lanna style, a perfect little setting just to chill for a few days. We dumped our bags in our room, grabbed our swimmers and took a much needed dunk in the pool. We thought it'd be easy to find a tuk tuk..... we were wrong. We ended up walking for about 25 minutes with only 2 taxis passing by, and pretty much ended up in downtown Chiang Rai! Not as big as Chiang Mai, but still a relatively lively place with another night bazaar. We got dropped back to our guesthouse by a tuk tuk driver called Mr Tong, who kindly asked if we'd like him to take us to the White Temple the next morning.

So 10 o clock on the dot he was there waiting. Mr Tong took us to the temple and waited an hour while we looked around and took lots of photos. The White Temple itself is pretty incredible to look at, with a lot of detail and no tack for once! Back in the tuk tuk and he asked us if we wanted to go to the Black House, which was about half an hour away. We did not think we were going to make it as the tuk tuk sounded like it was on its last legs! The Black House was very different to the temples we'd seen already, but stunning nonetheless. It was almost like a museum, with lots of different historical artifacts everywhere. The grounds were also pretty nice. After waiting another hour for us, we ended up going to see the long necks in the hilltribe villages. This was really interesting to see their way of life, but unfortunately has been changed by the amount of Westerners coming in to their natural way of life and treating them like circus animals.

A really good day, all for the cost of 1300 baht, which is about £26! We eventually made it back to the guesthouse after Mr Tong's tuk tuk sounded like an old man with a reaaaaally bad cough!! One more night out in Chiang Rai then off to Chiang Khong in the morning, not without a little confusion with our bus ticket first!!