This morning we travelled north again to a town called Chiang Rai where we went to the Hill tribe museum run by the PDA (Population and community Development Association). At the museum we were shown a video of what to expect from the next three days of trekking and also told us about the hill tribe people and their cultures and also what we should and shouldn't do while there, for example, me and women (including married couples) do not sleep in the same rooms. After the film, we got to have a look around the museum and see some of the tribal artefacts that were there.

The PDA-Chiang Rai office is located at the northern most province of Thailand. One of its initial goals was to demonstrate that it was not difficult to implement a community-based family planning project even in one of the farthest provinces of the kingdom. Concentrating initially on lowlanders, the project soon expanded to include hill tribe communities which had high rates of mother and child mortality. One of the reasons for the high rates of mother and infant mortality was poor health conditions and access to medical services. These basic services were provided by the Chiang Rai office of PDA

http://www.pdacr.org/

For lunch we went to a restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms, which is also run by the PDA to raise funds for their work. A strange little restaurant with a live band playing and many comic pictures of condoms and funny slogans around the place. I took a few pictures for you to see. They even had a full size model of a man (Mr Condom) and Father Christmas covered head to toe in condoms. I must add here, that Christina at the age of 27 ordered the Mini Mouse children’s ice cream for dessert while everyone else had "adult" deserts, I had deep fried ice cream balls.

You may wonder how the Cabbages and Condoms or “C&C” got its peculiar name. Mr. Mechai (aka- Mr. Condom) said that you can go to any shop around Thailand and you will always find cabbages. Condoms should be like cabbages – ubiquitous. And so the name Cabbages and Condoms (C&C) was conceived.

http://www.pdacr.org/cabbages-and-condoms-restaurant/why-the-name-cabbages-a-condoms?70a3eb2a34e1e94bb2afa44869e6980d=0f2e988b839cb4989adf194a89999d7e

After lunch we sorted out our luggage as we had to take one bag of clothes and things to last us the three days as we would be trekking through the jungle on foot and we had to carry everything that we needed. We left the big rucksacks, our wallets, passports and phones at the PDA.

On the way to our first nights home stay we stopped at another temple, but unlike all the other temples we had been to in Thailand, this one was amazing! It was completely white and looked nothing like the others. It is hard to describe, so I have attached some pictures for you to see. It is a fairly new temple and is still under construction.

History lesson....

Wat Rong Khun is a contemporary unconventional Buddhist and Hindu temple in Chiang Rai, Thailand. It was designed by Chalermchai Kositpipat. Construction began in 1997.

Wat Rong Khun is different from any other temple in Thailand, as its ubosot (Pali: uposatha; consecrated assembly hall) is designed in white colour with some use of white glass. The white colour stands for Lord Buddha’s purity; the white glass stands for Lord Buddha’s wisdom that "shines brightly all over the Earth and the Universe."

The bridge leading to the temple represents the crossing over from the cycle of rebirth to the Abode of Buddha. The small semicircle before the bridge stands for the human world. The big circle with fangs is the mouth of Rahu, meaning impurities in the mind, a representation of hell or suffering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat_Rong_Khun

We then continued our journey to a the village Baan Huay San Pla where we would be staying in someones home for the evening before starting our trek in the morning. When we got there we did the cursory tour round the village including the market and temple, this time being followed by about 10 kids. Oh, we did stop somewhere strange, we stopped at a home that had a cricket farm in the back garden to pick up some fresh ones for dinner. YES, I did try some!!!!

Dinner was followed by a group of 10 of the local children playing music for us and dancing. Afterwards we sat and talked to them as they wanted to learn some English and then they tried to teach us how to play their musical instruments. I tried one and it was a bit like a violin but with only two stings, I must add that I was pretty rubbish!

As it got dark the bugs came out, and we had a little visitor to the garden. I big frog or toad that was hopping around trying to catch the bug. At the same time, I was trying to catch him with his tongue out catching them, but failed to get a good one. This was also the first night where the girls slept up stairs and the guys slept on the floor downstairs.....let’s see who snores the loudest.