Chiang Rai and the Golden Triangle

We went up north, at Chiang Rai, a smaller town than Chiang Rai where there is too a quite active night bazar with a wide range of food and many temples. Among them, the white temple which is brand new and rather different.

From there you can easily reach the golden triangle. After one more time renting a motorbike, we choose to rent a car for 3 days.

Driving in Thailand is okay and after practising on a motorbike, we feel secure.

We went to Mae Salong, a chinese village up the mountains, at 1.200 meters high. For the first time in Thailand, we need a sweater in the evening.

The area is superb with rice paddies, and lots of tea plantations.

Mae Salong is home to a chinese community which settled down after the chinese revolution and seems to keep its chinese roots very much alive.

Hugo and Luc were so happy to play football with some children. Apparently, they had been missing ball a lot. When we bought it, Hugo even said that is was the best day of the trip so far.

The next days we went uphill and down hill up to the myanmar border, enjoying being in a car rather than on a motorbike on such roads. The scenery was impressive.

We stopped in Mae Saie, a town on the border with not so many tourists before going to the place where actually Myanmar, Thailand and Laos are connected at the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers.

On our way back to Chiang Rai, we could see people picking up rice.

We are now back to Bangkok before our next flight to Australia on the 1^st of december.

You can see more photos with the french text.