We arrived in to Chiang Rai in the dark and picked up a tuk tuk which took us to our guest house - Chat House. However, when we got there, they had no reservation. Turns out there are two Chat Houses so off we went to the next one. We checked in to our no-frills room, but it was clean, with aircon and a comfortable bed.

Chiang Rai is very close to the borders of Laos and Myanmar and is within the Golden Triangle, but apart from that we didn't know anything else and were clueless as to what we were going to do with our two full days there. However, things always have a way of working out and day one turned out to be an unexpected delight.

We walked the half an hour in to town to admire the gold clad clock tower and saw a large banner which said in English "International Balloon Fiesta" 13th - 17th, but the remainder was in Thai. We decided to have a coffee and use their internet and looked up when and what this was all about - turns out it was happening during our stay. Not really knowing what to expect we decided to take a tuk tuk out to Singha Park (which was on our list to see anyway).

We got there early as didn't realise nothing really happened until 5.00pm but there was a hill tribe village set up where we watched some traditional dancing and looked at the various handicrafts before settling down with a beer to watch the many balloons being inflated with giant gas burners and parade themselves around the lake - no health and safety here. It was amazing to see and along with some great traditional dance groups it was turning in to a very pleasant afternoon.

As darkness fell, all the food stalls and huge bar selling towers of Singha beer opened up. The field enclosed by the food stalls and bars, with hundreds of tables and chairs was filling up - where all these thousands of people suddenly came from we had no idea. The stage was set up, we got our jug of beer, found some seats and waited for the first band to come on. They were excellent and were clearly well known as all the Thai people were singing along to the songs (Hugo - sang country, blues rock, bluegrass). At 8.00pm the balloons started inflating again and circled the field and gave us a light show with their gas burners - amazing. We stayed to hear another two bands (Singto Numchok and Palmy), also excellent, but decided at 10.00pm we should try and find our way home before the masses of other people left.

We had been brought up to the event by shuttle so we joined the queue to get a shuttle back where we had seen signs to get a taxi. We seemed to be in the shuttle for a lot longer than we remembered and when we got out, we were in a different place - a field filled with cars and no taxi. We obviously looked distressed and an Englishman came over to us to ask if we needed help - we explained our situation and he lived in Chiang Rai, had a car, and gave us a lift home together with his wife and his Sister visiting from France. We were very relieved and oh so very grateful.

As we only had one full day left, we had booked a tour to go and see the "must sees" of Chiang Rai and set off at 9.00am the following day. A brief overview of everything we saw :-

The famous white temple - Wat Rong Khun - A unique temple that stands out through the white colour and the use of pieces of glass in the plaster, sparkling in the sun. The white colour signifies the purity of Buddha and the glass symbolises the Buddha's wisdom. The Wat Rong Khun was designed by Chalermchai Kositpipat, a famous Thai visual artist. To date the temple is not finished. There are murals inside of the twin towers' atrocity, Elvis Presley, Harry Potter, Minions - I wonder what generations to come will make of it when they visit. Eventually there will be nine buildings including a hall to enshrine Buddhist relics, a meditation hall, the monks living quarters and an art gallery. A very impressive structure. It also has the most beautiful toilet block in the whole world - see pictures.

Blue Temple - built by a student of Chalermchai Kositpipat who built the famous White Temple and was successfully completed in January 22nd 2016. Another spectacular building with beautiful murals inside and a great white Buddha.

Baan Dam (Black House) - an eclectic mix of traditional northern Thai buildings interspersed with some outlandish modern designs by National artist, Thawan Duchanee and other contemporary Thai artists. Some of the artwork and themes were definitely strange (see pictures) and not everyone's cup of tea. The first main building houses a huge table that wouldn't look out of place in the Lord of the Rings and it has a crocodile skin and head as its table runner. There is quite a lot of dark imagery, animal skulls, buffalo horns and phallic statues - probably not something you would want kids to see! Interesting art studio /museum.

Tea plantation - owned by the Chinese and exported back to China - the Thai people prefer coffee!

Monkey Temple - speaks for itself really - an old temple against a mountain backdrop and full of monkeys. So many, that you had to walk around with a stick in case any of them got too friendly. We didn't stay long.

Our final stop was The Golden Triangle - the meeting of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand and in past times an area well known for growing opium. We visited the Hall of Opium museum which was interesting, took the tourist photos under the Golden Triangle sign to prove we had been there and then started the journey back in to town.

It has been a long day so we finished with some local Northern Thai food and a few beers in the one main street and went back to pack ready for the next leg of our trip to Chiang Mai.