Ain't no mountain high enough...

A friend of ours told us that when a guidebook says there's nothing to see in a certain town usually there are many things to discover, and he was damn right. According to the lonely planet Chiang Rai is a gateway more than a touristic attraction so our plan was to just stay one night but plans change especially doing a trip like this.

After visiting a not so clean guest house we decided to walk some more and look for something a bit better and our intuition was not wrong because we found a hidden gem the Baan Bua Guest house, a lovely and dangerous place to stay. Lovely because of the clean and spacious room, the beautiful garden, the extremely friendly owner and Kees an experienced Dutch guest and dangerous because you want to stay there forever!

A discovering nigthwalk in the city brougth us to Cabagges and Condoms, a restaurant serving excellent food, the name of the place is related to it's purpose: make condoms available for everyone as easy as they can get cabbages. After a tasty dinner we went to see the clock tower, at the center of Chiang Rai, an impresive golden tower where every nigth a show of ligths and music stops the traffic arround it for 7 minutes.

Our Dutch guru recommended us to visit the unkown (by the lonely planet) White Temple, so we rented a basic bike to get there. The 15 kilometers distance were a unique biking experience, because we were doing it on the highway, something impossible to do in Belgium, and we even drove against traffic without having someone beeping or giving us the bad look. For some footage please click here

The Wat Phra Kaew was a big surprise to us, not only because of its colour but also because of it's amazing beauty and modern feel, built by the same architect that designed the clock tower. The white structure was decorated with tiny mirrors that sparkled whenever the sun light reflected on it. Around it immaculate ponds with white fishes swimming in it were the welcoming greeting for the few visitors.

The closer we got to the structure, the more we were able to appreciate the strange and in some cases creepy details, like some hands carrying skulls, the images of two naked dwarfs at the beginning of the bridge and a very strange and contrasting inside.

Like most of the temples, the main wall had a beautiful painting representing Buddha, and a fake wax monk. Everything seemed normal until we turned round and gazed at he the back wall. Just above the door there was a mural, that had a representation of hell. As modern as was the temple's design were the contents of the wall painting which had many figures representing our present, the twin towers on fire, the fight for fuel, GSMs, the matrix, star wars and so on, but what was most striking was that the central monster had in his eyes the reflection of Bush and Bin Laden.... weird!

After visiting heaven and hell we decided to keep on biking to our not so far (we thought) destination, the Khun Kon waterfall, located only (!!!) 19 kilometers away from were we were. Of course we thought that the way would be as easy as the first 15 kilometers, were we drove on a very easy way surrounded by rice fields and flat surfaces. But no no no as with many things the closer you get to your goal the harder it gets and this ride was no exception. Our way got tougher and tougher but indeed waterfalls are on mountains so for obvious reasons our way became steeper and steeper. The lack of gears on our city bikes, together with the heat turned our smooth bike ride into an alpine leg of the Tour de France.

Just one kilometer before arriving we had to get off the bikes and start walking, and the moment we reached the entrance Angela just laid on the grass completely exhausted, but the waterfall was still 1.5 kilometer away.... aaaaaahhhhhhhhh we had to keep on walking. What we saw there washed away the tiredness.

The view spectacular, a very powerful waterfall 70 meters height, with a very strong wind and an army of hungry mosquitos. After a nice rest it was time to get back and as everything that goes up has to come down and so we also did on our little bikes..... what took us 3 hours to get to became 1 hour and 40 minutes thanks to the steep downhill, needless to say that it was lots of fun, and perfect timing because we got back just before sunset.

According to our calculations the total kilometers of that day were 70, not bad considering we're supposed to be on holiday huh? We needed a well deserved treat after all the effort: a nice and relaxing foot massage of one hour, and a chocolate rotti, heavenly!

It was time to move on and we took a small bus that brought us to the even smaller town of Chiang Khong, were we stayed at what at first looked like a normal place the Baanrimtaling guesthouse but once we entered saw that it had a stunning view over the Mekong (the 12th biggest river in the world), so there we were having a cold Chang beer and enjoying the view of the river and the first sights of Laos.

The room we had included a huge balcony (no we did not paid a fortune), and because of that we were able to sleep with the doors open, and like that we saw the first lights of the day and the foggy morning.

After a huge and delicious Thai breakfast we left for the border, got a stamp on our passport and took a small boat. By crossing the Mekong we were leaving behind the refreshing 7 eleven shops, the posters with images of King Bumibol, and the Thai Baht.

On this side of the shore the greeting sawadee changed to sabaidee, the kip notes appeared in our wallet and the shy but extremely friendly Laotians were waiting for us... but for stories about this truly amazing country you will have to wait for our next post

Sabaai dee