We woke up early in the morning to a beautiful and sunny day, which we started with a pampering breakfast. I know it doesn't look like it, but that yellow thing on the top right is an omelette...
We drank coffee, looked towards the pool and after a few minutes Kai arrived.
Kai offered to pick up our laundry, so we put it in the laundromat she recommended, and from there we made our way to the White Temple.
There are parts of the temple where you have to take off your shoes, and other parts where photography is prohibited. We behaved well and walked around there for an hour.
Before entering, make sure that the pants are past the knees and that the shoulders are covered. The shops around do checkout and sell "shel" that you can put on your shoulders and then go inside, into the temple. What not everyone knows is that you can rent a "shel" and return it at the end.
Just to understand the costs. - "Shel" for sale costs about 100-150 baht, and for rent - 20 baht.
Other things we saw there...
We left the temple and drove to a nice farm. The truth is, we didn't know what to expect - but we waited expectantly. On the way there we passed by a military camp and inside I saw... dozens of donkeys.
I asked Kai, why does a military camp need so many donkeys? She said that they are used to move equipment from one place to another.
Not long after we arrived at Singha Park. When you get to the entrance you buy tickets and you can travel in an open minibus with a guide, or take a golf cart by yourself. For those who don't have time and want to enjoy the whole selection, it is better to choose a minibus.
We got on it and went through a number of stations in the park, which include a zoo (really cute!) a tea shop and tea fields (including a station where you can make tea in a variety of flavors)
The open minibus
Feeding fish in the lake
You can buy leaves for 50 baht to feed the animals
And they seem to be happy with it...
And there is a selection of animals
There is also a kit for tiny animals
Here is the tea shop that is there and you can sit and drink tea. We gave it up, as we had other plans for a cafe...
The view from the tea house...
My wife demonstrates picking tea
We finished the trip in the stunning park, and continued from there to a very cool cafe called Lalitta Café. This is a cafe inside which there is a beautiful waterfall and clouds of smoke. You have to pay at the entrance and if you sit down to drink something, the cost is offset with the entrance fee.
Kai and us
Before continuing, we decided to have an ice cream scoop there. We ordered and waited, and waited... and waited. We asked the waitress how long it takes to get a scoop of ice cream, and she said they were working on it. Indeed, after a few minutes, a huge coconut filled with lots of ice cream scoops came to us, and the cost? Less than 20 shekels.
There were six of us and we couldn't finish this dish, so we decided to just move on to the next stop, not before we had our respects too of course. You are our driver in ice cream.
Of course, the ice cream scoop is not considered lunch, so we continued from there to a great restaurant called MELT IN YOUR MOUTH. It has a fine selection of dishes and everyone will find something to eat.
It is located on the banks of a river (a lie - anyhow) and you can eat inside or outside. At first we were seated outside, but then we saw an ant on the table. Then a few dozen more... then we asked to move inside.
Minutes later, it started to rain like crazy outside, and I thought to myself - how lucky we are sitting inside now!
I felt a little sorry for the poor fisherman who sailed his boat looking for a safe beach....
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.
After the restaurant we drove towards the Golden Triangle, where 3 countries meet - Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.
By the way we stopped at the long-necked tribe. It turns out that you have to pay an entrance fee there, and they (and their children) sit there and try to convince tourists. We bought things from them.
When we arrived it was raining, it was gloomy and we were the only tourists in the whole village. Kai told us that since the tribe sits on land that does not belong to them, the profit of half of the souvenirs sold there goes to the owner of the house.
But, if it's about things they make themselves, all the profit goes to them.
And indeed, we saw a young woman with a baby who was selling scarves that she wove on a loom, and she asked about 200 baht for them (about NIS 20). We paid her twice as much and returned to the car, thinking.
The trip lasted about half an hour, then we boarded a boat that had no one but us, and basically we sailed nowhere for an hour... we saw a bit of there, a bit of the map, and came back.
Well, we didn't exactly see, because some of us just fell asleep on the way from the burning sun and didn't survive the journey. So in my opinion, if you don't have to, don't go for it. It was a bit unnecessary.
The water there is in terrible condition. Pieces of wood are floating everywhere and threaten to break up the rickety boat with every passing wave...
On the way back we decided to stop and buy a smoothie to freshen up. It was a cafe in the middle of nowhere, overlooking the brown river when everything around is quiet and silent.
While we are waiting, a motorcyclist stopped next to us. She put her foot down, turned off the engine. She took off her helmet and let her hair play in the wind.
She came to us, with a huge board in her hand. She opened it and asked us: Lotto? lotto?
We gave up, and she got on the motorcycle and continued on her way...
After such a busy day, we already wanted to go home, but we decided to stop at the monkey temple which is on the way to the hotel. At the entrance, everyone takes a stick (!) so that if he/she has a confrontation with a monkey, he/she can defend himself.
I'm less into hitting animals, and it turns out that the monkeys there are less friendly, and when we arrived there weren't really any visitors to the site, except for us. We were numerically inferior to them, and we decided that it was not worth teasing fate and grabbing a bite from a monkey, or transparent would grab us something else. So we managed to take one picture before escaping back to the car....
In the picture: four brave people
You can't see in the picture: dozens of monkeys running towards us from the sides!
Took pictures and didn't run away: my wife
The evening almost fell and we made our way to the hotel, not before stopping at the Blue Temple for a photo, and from there we continued back to the hotel.
The children who slept the whole trip, waded a little in the pool, while Kai went to get us the clean laundry.
By the way, in all the pools here (and there are many) a lifeguard is only a recommendation. We haven't seen a single one...
After the kids were tired from the pool, we ordered dinner for them using GRAB (a local delivery app) and we went to the Chiang Rai market with Kai.
The market here is different from the market in Chiang Mai, and included more food stalls and even... folk dances.
Tired, we arrived at the room, put our heads on the pillow, because the next morning we already had another flight to Phuket.
Comments