It was 350 baht (£7) each to take a 3 hour boat trip from Thaton to Chiang Rai. It certainly beats the road trip. We and five other tourists took the boat at 12:30pm. It was a covered long boat with an outboard motor, which they levered up out of the water in the shallows. The ride was at quite a pace and we all got an occasional soaking. Apart from the winding ride snaking through the valleys and hills, we also got to witness a smooth Scot called Cameron chatting up a German girl in the boat. There was only one break stop on the banks during the journey, where you could have your photo taken with an overweight lizard or a big albino snake (kept in a very small glass case). We declined and had a Cornetto instead. The journey was only 2 and a half hours long and we were dropped off at the northwest pier. We were staying in the south of Chiang Rai, so we had to get a Songtheaw (10 seater open back van). The price started at 250 Baht but soon got down to 100 Baht. Our hotel was £9.37 per night for an air con double with a large fridge and an all you can eat Thai buffet breakfast. The best thing was that it also had a large swimming pool and a well equipped gym. Fab! We soon relaxed into the pace of this chilled out city. Chiang Rai is much smaller than Chiang Mai and it is mainly geared to domestic tourism, Thais come here in December for the cooler weather and to see the flowers. There weren't too many western tourists here, but then again that has been the case throughout our whole trip round Thailand. The pro-royalist military coup and the period of martial law has scared many of the tourists off, although it just doesn't affect travelling at all.
We hired a scooter from the Honda dealer for most of our stay and got out to two contrasting attractions Wat Rong Khun the fairytale, Disneyland white temple and the Black House (Baan Dam). Both are the products of imaginitive and wacky architects. See photos. Wat Rong Khun was a gleaming, intricate white temple set on a small pond filled with Koi carp with a bridge across. It was decorated with figurines, skulls and weird masks and inside there was a strange mural (damaged by a recent earthquake). The mural featured families travelling on dragons to heaven, but there were also surprise inclusions of Star Wars characters, Michael Jackson and Neo from the Matrix. Outside was a "lake" of upstretched arms and so many other curiosities. The temple swarmed constantly with tourists. The Black House, which was north of Chiang Rai, was a huge structure made from a dark hard wood. It was filled with animal skins, guns, skulls, large shells, carved furniture and many phalluses - I think the architect has some issues. We spent a couple of days travelling out to a couple of lakes south of Chiang Rai but they were very natural, so no nice walkways around - I don't think the Thais get that they might make a nice tourist attraction.
We also explored the tribal villages north of the river Maekok. The hilltribe villages are pretty poor; there are wooden stilted houses with water supplies set up by western charities. We visited the tribal village museum. It was a tiny place displaying traditional clothes, trinkets and tools of the various tribes, Akha, Lisu, Shan and Karen. At the end of our tour of the little room, we were ushered in to a hall to watch a video. Many of the younger village kids piled in with us to watch it. It was a very sad little film. It claimed that a change in government policy in Thailand had meant that "for administrative purposes" the mountain tribes would have to relocate to the lowlands. This relocation has had them struggling to adapt to the economic hardship, lifestyle change and the cultural influence of the more western lowlands city life. We just couldn't fathom out why a government would want to destroy a perfectly lovely culture that once lived in harmony with nature. Paul supposed that they may have wanted to clear the area so that they could start the economically beneficial process of deforestation - the hilltribes had previously been the guardians of the forest. Who knows? In our 7 days at Chiang Rai, we certainly did it justice, visiting every temple in town and riding out in every direction. We sampled some northern Thai dishes such as Kaosoi and tasted the full range of Thai and asian curries at the Curry Hut. We had a Christmassy meal at Chivit Thamma Da ... well there were Christmas songs, a Christmas tree and Santa hatted staff. I had not so Christmassy English style fish and chips and Paul had Swedish meatballs. A trip across the border to Laos next!