Final Thai Adventure Blog

Forgotten in the last blog, somewhere along the way we went to a huge, modern, white temple called Wat Rong Kuhn. This was unlike any other temple we had seen and it reminded us of a fairy-tale type place. Construction on the temple began in 1998 and is still ongoing. To get inside, we had to walk across a long bridge, over a "moat" of hands reaching up toward us. This represented greed and was supposed to depict people in Hell.


The White Temple


Greedy hands reaching up from Hell

Inside, the walls were covered in very modern, weird murals. The pictures included a huge painting of the twin towers being bombed with evil people coming out of the fire. Another on was a huge demon, taking up the whole wall. In one of the demon's eyes was George Bush and in the other was Osama Bin Laden. Other things in the mural included random stuff like Superman, Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, and lots of references to oil and the problems it is the root of (gas pumps, etc.). Unortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside. This is the only one I could find online.


Twin Towers Mural

After we wandered around for awhile, we were standing outside the temple when the artist himself showed up! He is like a celebrity in Thailand so all kinds of people we crowded around him, having their pictures taken. So, we joined in and met Chalermchai Kositpipat up close and personal. Really nice, funny guy, and it was exciting to meet someone with such amazing talent.

Now that we're all caught up from last week's blog, I'll start where we left off: after the Ladyboys show. The next morning we hopped on another bus for one last ride to Chaing Mai. The first thing we did in Chiang Mai was head to Doi Suthep Temple, on top of a huge mountain. To get up there, we had to ride in the back of pickup trucks. Unfortunately, the one in front of us blasted black exhaust into ours all the way. That, combined with the twisty turny road and crazy driving ended with the majority of our group feeling nauseous. We then took an elevator up higher until we reached the top where the temple was. The main feature of this temple is it's view over Chiang Mai - beautiful.

While there, we attended a short service delivered by a monk. We had to sit on our knees while he spoke and splashed us with water. Then, one by one we walked on our knees up to the monk for a personal blessing. Craig was ahead of me and got his blessing, including a bracelet made of white string. I eagerly followed only to be gestured at and told something I didn't understand by the monk. I finally figured out that women weren't to receive their blessings from him, but from the guy sitting next to him! So, I sheepishly wobbled over to receive my very own string bracelet. The significance of the blessing was good health and long life (we think). It was actually a pretty cool experience.


Craig receiving his blessing from the monk

Next, we headed to the Tiger Temple! I was really excited because I knew we would have the chance to enter the tiger's area to pet them and have our pictures taken. Craig had already made up his mind that this was a completely unnecessary risk but I was really keen to do it. When we got there however, I changed my mind. The tigers were in a fairly small area (for a tiger) and if you paid, you could go in and spend 10 minutes posing for pictures with the tiger. However, all you could do was squat behind in and put your hand on it's back thigh area. And, you were only allowed 3 pictures with your camera, had to buy the rest that they took. The other off-putting thing was that your only protection in there was 2 workers armed with sticks! The tigers looked totally bored and somewhat annoyed so I decided to leave them alone.

We left the tigers and headed back into town to get ready for dinner at the famous Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. We ate at another open air food vendor area. I was finally able to enjoy a small amount of food and ordered pad thai as it was known to be the best in Thailand. The noodles were tasty and my stomach told me I should give the shrimp part to Craig. Craig ate some chiang mai chicken curry which was good but he liked my meal better. This area was smack in the middle of the market so after we ate, we all split up for some shopping. The market is difficult to describe other than to say it was GIGANTIC. Literally, we weaved in and out of rows and rows of vendors for hours. It was probably about one square kilometer (half mile) of solid street vendors, both inside and out. We of course got lost, bought some cool stuff, and then continued to wander until we found our hotel. We tried to find the spot where we ate dinner but never made it. It was complete insanity but we had perfected our haggling skills by then and ended the evening at about midnight with some great loot!

The following morning was our optional activity day and we had chosen a day tour that included bamboo rafting, more elephant riding, swimming by a waterfall, and visiting a hilltribe called Karen Village. We were picked up bright and early, 7am and went straight to the bamboo rafting. Our minivan had to drive up this tiny, muddy, hugely potholed trail to the rafting spot. Now, if you've ever rafted in the US, you're picturing some type of barn or building where you are educated on the risks, shown a safety video, given life jackets, and practice some techniques before you even see the river. Not here! There was no shack, just a muddy trail to the water. We were herded to the river's edge and stood there for about 30 seconds thinking we would be getting our life jackets any time now. Nope. Instead, a 3 guys standing on 3 "rafts" made of bamboo came downstream, yelled at us to jump on as they barely stopped and we were on our way! The rafts were about 3 feet wide and 20 feet long. They were flat on the water like an inflatable raft for a swimming pool, and were constructed simply of long pieces of bamboo held together by 2 or 3 wooden sticks as cross pieces. To our surprise, it was fairly easy to stand on them as we floated off down stream. We were paddled through the jungle on a fairly tame river with a few class II-ish rapids (still standing!) for about 45 minutes. It was a really beautiful ride and lots of fun. Unfortunately, we didn't bring our camera after being warned of them getting wet so we have no good pics.


Bamboo Raft

At the end, we jumped off the rafts and piled back into the van to the elephant camp. This camp was much different than the wonderful one we were at earlier. It was clear that the elephants were mistreated (we saw one guy kick one of them in the face) and that our driver guys were likely high on something other than life. We rode the poor elephants through the jungle for a few minutes until our drivers all decided to get off the elephants to eat lunch, leaving them to wander around with us high up on top. Fortunately, the elephants were only really interested in drinking water and eating some bamboo as it was a swelteringly hot day. Eventually, our drivers climbed back on and we returned to the start where we all happily dismounted and left. I think we all wished we could take the elephants with us to get them out of that terrible place. We had to settle for writing to our tour company to inform them of the conditions.

Sadly leaving the elephants, our next destination was a really pretty waterfall. We hiked down to it and then swam at it's bottom. The current was unbelievably strong and we had fun playing and trying to stand in one spot.


Swimming by the Maewang Waterfall

After we had some fun, we hiked back out and headed to the Karen Village. This hilltribe is known for it's custom of the women wearing neck rings to elongate their necks. Another disappointment though, no neck ring ladies around that day. Only regular thai ladies selling their wares. It was interesting to see the poor living conditions though.


Karen Hilltribe member

Next stop was lunch. We stopped along the road at a tiny little picnic type area. We were led inside where we sat on the floor around a low table for a traditional thai style meal. Unexpectedly, we were served what was probably my favorite meal of the trip. Several dishes including sweet and sour veggies and some other unknown yummies, all over steamed rice out of a huge clay pot. And fresh pineapple and watermelon for dessert!

That was the end of our tour and we were dropped back at the hotel where we had already checked out. We changed in our guide's room and hung by the pool for about an hour before showering and getting ready to head to the train station. As we were strongly advised not to eat the train food for dinner, we walked to Subway and got some safe food for the trip. Then it was time to board the sleeper train for our overnight ride. I had never been on a sleeper train before so this was very exciting! We sat in restaurant booth-like seats and chatted with our group friends for awhile until it was time to get ready for bed. At about 9pm, a train worker came around and converted our seats to bunk beds in about 1 minute flat, including making up the bed with sheets. So cool! I got the top bunk which was about the same width as me lying on my back with no rails to keep you up there. As the train was pretty rocky side to side, I had a fair amount of concern that I would be tossed off into the aisle while I slept. So, I smushed myself against the wall with my feet jammed at the end and went to sleep. Craig's bottom bunk was fairly roomy (maybe a bit wider than a single bed) but not so hot in the length department. All in all, no complaints considering it was a train but neither of us got the best night's sleep.


Katie in her sleeper train bunk

We were woken in the morning by more yelling. This time it was the same worker guy coming through to change our beds back into seats. We were rushed off the bunks and before we knew it, they were folded up and we had seats again. We arrived at the Bangkok Train Station at about 8am and our tour was over. We collected our things, said goodbye to our group friends (except for Tammy) and then headed to Tammy's hotel. She had kindly offered to let us hang there with her for the day so we could nap and shower before flying out that evening. We spent about an hour in a cab since our driver had no clue where our hotel was and had to stop for directions from another hotels internet. When we finally arrived, we decided to toss our stuff in the room, eat breakfast, and head back to the JJ Market (the huge market from the first blog) for some last minute souvenirs. We found what we wanted as quickly as possible as it was absolutely disgustingly hot, and then made our way back to the hotel with better success this time. We both showered, packed one final time, and took a nice long nap for a couple of hours before heading to the airport.

Last batch of pics

I guess that marks the end of our trip and our blog. All of our flights were uneventful. We managed to get an exit row for the long overnight from Bangkok to Sydney which allowed us, especially Craig to sleep a bit. We almost missed our flight from Sydney to Christchurch because nobody told us we had to re-check in even though we had our boarding passes already. Figured that out when we were being paged urgently to the counter. Then, in Christchurch, our flight to Dunedin was delayed for about an hour but we could deal with that since everything else went so smoothly. We arrived back home around 7pm Sunday night, ate a quick spaghetti dinner, and went to bed. I had to be at work for students the following morning at 8.30am while Craig got to sleep in til 11. It took us the week to get back into the swing of things but now time is flying by again.