Into the unknown

We're now at the northern Thai border town of Chiang Khong. We have just checked in at Siam Riverside hotel, and the river in question is the mighty Mae Khong (Mekong), on the opposite bank of which lies the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Once again we find ourselves alone with our backpacks, heading in to unknown territory, and after another couple of days of pampering and cream-of-the-crop sightseeing, it feels perhaps a bit more daunting than usual!

As promised, Sara picked us up in Chiang Mai on Friday morning with her rental car. We brought along an extra passenger for her: Taro, a Japanese solo traveler we'd been hanging out with a lot from our dorm at Woody's, who also was heading north roundabouts now. Sara was taking us to the vacation home of a friend of hers, deep in the hills beyond the town of Chiang Rai, and to our pleasure Taro agreed to come along. Chiang Rai is about three hours' drive from Chiang Mai, and we stopped for lunch at a charming a resort/restaurant on a hill just outside of town. Then followed a shocking round of sightseeing a la Sara:
There are over 40 000 Buddhist temples ("wat" in Thai) in Thailand, but there's only one Wat Rong Khun. Our jaws dropped the moment we stepped out of the car, and remained dislocated the entire time we took in this stunning site. Known among foreigners as the White Temple, it is designed by the (in)famous Thai artist Chalermchai Kositpipat and still a work in progress - he reckons the whole nine-building complex should be finished in 60 years time. It is all white and overwhelmingly decorated, with ornaments ranging from sublimely beautiful to desperately grotesque. Pictures speak more than words, however eloquent they may be, in cases like this.

Me and an impressed Taro.

We were greeted by creatures similar to the dwarves, goblins and orcs Bilbo encountered.

In order to enter the temple you had to walk a narrow lane through a sea of skeletal hands and anguished faces. Inside the temple was, in addition to the "normal" Buddha images, a gaudy mural painting in a space travel setting with 21st century figures like Michael Jackson, Superman, Transformers, George Bush, Robocop. Other buildings were in various stages of completion, looking funny next to the temple with their naked, unornamented frames. Fulfilling the artistic genious/madman stereotype, Chalermchai oversees the work on the temple to tinyest detail, as each element is packed with symbolic value. The megaproject is, in his own words, "a gift to mankind", which he hopes will become a modern world heritage that every human being should visit. Well, if it really becomes nine times what it is today, we're not dispute him.

The symbolism is that in order to know heaven you need to know hell.

The toilet was also moderately extravagant.

The next stop was Baan Dam, the Black House. Seemingly the direct opposite of the White Temple, it is the residence of another famous contemporary Thai artist, Thawan Duchanee. A large garden full of all-black, wooden buildings with characteristic elements of traditional northern Thai architecture, the main draw is the eccentricity of this artist, revealed inside the buildings: Everywhere is packed with animals remains - skins, antlers, horns, endo- or exoskeletons, furs, shells, tusks and more. According to Sara he "gets inspiration from them". A morbid but unstoppably fascinating place, we walked around for a while, until an attendant... released the Boa constrictor. Yup, this massive snake was apparently perfectly people-safe, and although reluctant at first, we were soon petting, close-up-shooting and even carrying the boa.

The toilets at the two sites competed in eccentricity

Oh yeah, midst the zoological specimen were absurd wood carvings like these.

But this guy stole the show. What is this strange, slithering sensation?!

The day's program completed, we drove towards the hut in the mountains. After several ventures down dirt roads more fit for mountain bikes than rental cars, Sara eventually had to give up maneuvering the forks in the road by memory, and call a fellow from the hill tribe in the area, who came to our rescue by motorbike and led us to the hut just as darkness was falling. It is not your typical Norwegian mountain cabin, but two spacey clay huts with bamboo roofs, surrounded by a lovely garden, and with hill tribe people doing gardening and maintenance. After settling in we drove down to the nearby Phu Chai Sai resort for a moonlight swim in the pool, a delightful dinner, and an interesting array of card games from Norway, Thailand and Japan.

After sleeping like a rock in the mountain peace and quiet, I got up early for a morning run, reveling in finally having some proper hills again. The cool morning air and the mystical mist hanging low in the valleys made for a great start to the day! We packed up, enjoyed an extensive buffet breakfast at the resort, and headed even further north - to the Golden Triangle. This is the area around where the Thai, Lao and Burmese borders meet, which for many years was a main site of illegal opium production and trade. We visited the Hall of Opium, an excellent museum about the fascinating and horrible history of the drug. Thailand has very successfully rid its hills of opium trade, through a series of crop replacement projects, rehabilitation centers and educational programs for the rural hill tribe people, many of them founded by members of the exemplary royal family.

Barrelriders + 1 at the lovely Phu Chai Sai resort this morning. Life's OK!

After a stop at the tri-country border, doing obligatory tourist snaps and eating lunch on the Mae Khong, our beloved tour guide and private chauffeur drove us to our current location, before going to drop of Taro in Chiang Rai and driving back to Chiang Mai on her own. We can't thank her enough for everything she has done for us. As we turn towards Laos, the less developed, less visited and more remote version of Thailand, we don't really know what lies ahead, but we sure know we'll miss Sara!

Aforementioned obligatory tourist snap.
This bank: Thailand; opposite left: Burma; opposite right: Laos (w/casino)

Our first stop in Laos will be Luang Prabang, which we will reach by a two-day slowboat journey down the Mae Khong. See you there!