PART 2 OF THE CHIANG MAI / CHIANG RAI TOUR -- trip to Chiang Rai

On our third day in northern Thailand, we headed in a van towards Chiang Rai. Thankfully, this was a more normal van, and John and I were the only two aboard, so we had plently of room. On the way, we had a number of stops including an elephant training center (where they train most of the elephants used all over Thailand), the Myanmar border (where I had to get my visa renewed), and finally the Golden Triangle -- the highlight of the trip.
Of note, my camera's battery died during the first part of our trip, so Johnnie captured the 2nd half of our trip.

Our first stop was the elephant training center. We had to cross a long bridge to get to the facility, which was quite picturesque.


We arrived at an ideal time, as they were just beginning the bathing process. The elephants all lined up, and rolled in the water in unison -- quite impressive!


This little one was especially playful, and clearly had the most personality. The trunk up pose is supposedly good luck.


This was the king of the males, as shown by his massive tusks.

The elephants then put on a show for us in a staged program, where they practiced many of the things that they have learned. Here, they are working as a team to stack logs.

..and a close-up

They then worked individually to lift separate logs on their own. With the massives tusks on this one, he had no problem.

He then set it on the pile.

The playful one then put on a show, lifting his trainer with his leg...

..and then taking off, and putting back on, his hat

Finally, one of the elephants showed off his artistic skill, and made us a painting.

Johnnie thought it was appropriate to capture this sign, which showed that these paintings were available for sale.

The training center also showed us an old picture of Chiang Mai which captures the wall surrounding the entire city.

For lunch, we stopped at a restaurant on the river side, and John's fascination with boats promoted this picture.

John's fascination with farm animals got the best of him on this one as he claimed to track this chicken for over 30 minutes before capturing this "perfect" shot. He would not stop talking about it for the rest of the trip :) (this was worth plenty of laughs)

We then stopped by a Jade carving studio where they make and sell Jade carvings. This guy had supposedly worked there for 20 years. We learned that one guy was truly a specialist -- for 7 years, he had only carved elephants!

...and a close-up

We then arrived at the Golden Triangle, home of the intersection between Burma, Laos, and Thailand. There is a huge Buddha at the port.

The Buddha is captured in the background as we set out on our boat journey.

A picture of Johnnie with our boating guide.

For this part of the trip, Johnnie was using a borrowed camera from the stone ages. However, he was very proud of the 10x zoom, and it came into good use on this shot.

However, it was quite useless on others -- i.e. most of this boat is missing. We had a good laugh at this later on...

We found some cows on the riverside, and John's love of farm animals would not allow him to miss this opportunity.

We then stopped at a market in Laos -- John is seen here with the Laos flag ...and he especially liked the flower ambience in the foreground.

Upon our return to Thailand, there were a number of incredibly cute kids singing loudly and willing to greet any foreigner wanting to pay 20 baht.

These two were worth a close-up.

We then headed back to Chiang Rai, but stopped at a famous Wat -- i.e. Buddhist temple -- along the way.

There was a huge tree on the ground, used by Buddhists for centuries to pray and meditate. Having engulfed myself in Asian culture for ~3 months, and having recently read a book about meditation (i.e. 'Turning the Mind into an Ally'), I have become quite enthralled by the Buddhist / Meditation philosophy.

a view of the temple

...and finally, a big map of the Northern area of Thailand. Thanks John! :)

We had one day left in Chiang Mai upon our return, and we used it for one of the greatest pasttimes known to man....