We all hopped into a Songtaew (pickup truck) and headed off to the Border between Burma and Thailand. We had all planned to go over the border to see what Burma was like but realised we wouldn't have been allowed back into Thailand as we only had a single entry visa, good job we found out really. After about 40 mins we pulled off the road onto a dirt track and followed that for a few minutes, we had arrived at one of the 'Karen' Hilltribes. This particular tribe put the brass rings around the women's neck giving them the appearance of having much longer necks, in actual fact because of the weight of the rings, it pushes the shoulders down and doesn't stretch the neck, but still gives the illusion of a much longer neck. Hence the name 'Long neck Karen tribe' (there not all called Karen though!).
Their village consisted of bamboo huts on a small ridge and then the area we mainly explored was just lined with bamboo stalls selling souvenirs and many arts and crafts the tribes people made themselves, such as scarfs and blankets and carved animals. This was one of their main sources of income apart from the little farming they could do. It was very interesting to see and talk to them, we had seen them on documentaries on TV before but the long neck thing had so much more impact seeing them in real life. It just looked so uncomfortable, but because the women wear them for so much of their life, its not an issue. They had a small version of the neck rings we could try on ourselves and it really was so heavy, it definitely made us appreciate how this could affect their posture and shoulders.
We left after about 45 mins and headed on towards Chiang Rai (Our group leader's hometown). We had to stop and change pickup trucks a bit further down the road and after nearly 2 hours travelling we arrived at the Monkey Caves, which was a welcome relief as the Songtaews aren't really made for comfort over long distances. At the Monkey Caves we got out and their was only one monkey about that you could see, their was a stall where you could buy bananas or nuts to feed them. The reason we found out that there were so few monkeys is the day before someone had come in and set off some fireworks, scaring them all away...Rubbish!! We got lucky though as after about 10 mins 5 or 6 monkeys including smaller baby monkeys came down to get fed. This was super cool and really bizarre having a monkey grabbing food out of our hands, you could also toss them a nut a they would quite easily pluck it out of the air. Many of them would also store the nuts in their neck for 'Ron'...(later on!)
Time was getting on and it was lunchtime, so we headed off again to the Thai-Burma border. This was only about 20mins, so wasn't too bad. We popped into an off street 'restaurant' had our fill and checked out another temple at the top of some quite demanding steps. At the top was a giant stone scorpion which had some meaning but I forget(doh!) Looked pretty sweet though! As we were a little behind schedule we didn't spend too long at the border and we moved on again to the 'Golden Triangle'.
'The Golden Triangle'
This place was cool as it was the intersection of Thailand, Laos and Burma, and got its name from when the Opium trade was at its most prevalent. Because of Opium's demand and the price it could be sold for was worth almost as much or more than gold at the time. The triangle is form a the point where two rivers meet, so we went down and a few of us took a speed boat onto the river and were taken right the central point between these three countries. There was a small loophole in the law or something so we could actually go onto a small island in Laos for a short amount of time. We got off the boat and headed up onto the island which was just full of stalls selling souvenirs again, but this time there was actually some different stuff to see, which was nice! The best thing being 'Scorpion Whiskey', which in a similar way to Tequila having the worm at the bottom of the bottle, actually had a huge scorpion in it.
Along with that there were also bottles with snakes and to our surprise after having a taste test, Tigers 'wang' - which is supposed to help with 'Boom-Boom' in the bedroom!! The taste was intense and definitely tasted like a lot more than the 40% proof the guy said it was. We had a little wander about some of the others picked up a few things and we went back to the mainland where we had a mooch around the opium museum. After this we got back into the Songtaew for a 1 1/2 hour drive to Chiang Rai. I think the driver was giving it some as we arrived earlier than expected...nice!
As this was Mai's hometown she was really keen to show us around so gave us around 30 minutes before meeting in reception. We headed out for some food and went to the night bazaar where you can pretty much get whatever food you like for really really cheap whilst having a few also pretty cheap drinks. After some starters we were still hungry, probably because one guy said he was serving chicken balls, lovely I thought, until I bit into them and they were actually chicken knuckle balls.......fried chicken ligaments!!!
George headed for the sausage stand as he loves a good sausage!
After meeting Tom the guy from the night before in Tha Ton, he appeared behind us with his whole family and proceeded to buy us a tower of beer and we chatted to his family and son for a while.
We got out the Scorpion and Snake whiskey and gave him a shot before some of the group who hadn't tasted it yet tried it. Two of them were fine as they didn't think about it and just drunk it but Belinda was dwelling on it for too long and eventually knocked it back. It immediately came back up again and she spewed it straight back into the glass....good shot though, she didn't spill any of it.
We then went to Mai's favourite bar called TeePee Bar. The guy who runs it is a proper rocker and has worked in the bar and lived above it for 17 years. He loves any rock music and as soon as we sat down and had all donned wigs that were scattered around the place he proceeded to pretend to play his guitar for about an hour all around the bar, he put a hat and wig on and looked like slash from Guns & Roses, funny man! The wigs got us in the mood and the buckets of Whiskey and Coke came out, we and Ian (an Aussie guy) finished 3 off pretty quick. Feeling the effects and the bar was closing we started to walk home, I got lost with Ian. We were about 20 metres away from the hotel but still managed to get lost and were walking around for about half an hour....maybe more, so decided to grab a couple of bottles of Thai Whiskey. Eventually we got home and we ended up polishing off the bottle and getting to bed around 7am, oooops!
The next day we woke feeling a little hazey so did what us Brits are known best for, we headed straight for a cafe and had some tea and cake, although I think one piece would have been enough. That evening we went out as a group for a meal to a restaurant called Condoms & Cabbages (!) which had a Santa Claus and super hero made out of condoms in the corner. The name seems funny but it is a non profit restaurant and all proceeds go to the promotion of the health and safety aspects of condom use in Thailand as families were getting extremely big and a large number of younger Thais were doing the boogie woogie without their shin pads on if you know what I mean. After the meal we had a few games of pool in a bar run by a Thai guy who had the best cockney accent and sayings ever, nice one bruv! We stayed for a couple of drinks with Stefan and started to go home when we decided to have a night cap, we walked into a bar, sat down and ordered our drinks without realising we were the only people in here except about 20 girls who all immediately flocked around us......crap, we had walked into a prostitute bar!! As we had already ordered our drinks it was difficult to leave and one of the girls asked if she could have a coke, being gentlemen we said okay and proceeded to get one for all the girls!!! It was very hectic and a bit overwhelming, Stefan had a big grin on his face but we decided to get the bill and leave. When it arrived it was 1700BH, about 35 quid!!! fleeced, we decided to pay up and leg it especially because one guy with long hair was getting a little pally with me!
The next day we made the overnight train back to Bangkok ready to start our journey to the South of Thailand.
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