Crazy Songkran

Well before I get started on the craziness of the Thai New Year, I am happy to report that we only had to pay 2.50$ for the lost motorcycle key.  That along with $2 for a replacement lock, about $7 in transport for Dan to go back and forth, so the whole fiasco cost us less than $12...not including of course cost of frustration and mental anguish :>) ha ha.  We have found an absolutely wonderful place to stay here in Chiang Rai.  We are spending twice what we paid in Chiang Mai (our place here is $15 per night), but it's beautiful!  Our place in Chiang Mai was really not much more than glorified camping, with cracks under the door big enough for a rat to fit under (and believe me, I was worried, I have seen enough of those ugly little beasties since we've come to Asia...I didn't see any the last time I was here!)  But our place now is on the 3rd floor so we have a nice view of the temple across the street, and the courtyard below filled with plants.  Our bathroom is clean and HUGE, we have a TV so we can watch the news, and air-conditionner, an extremely comfortable bed, AND we get fresh towels everyday...it's amazing.  Oh, and free breakfast.  What more could we ask for?  So we have ended up staying in Chiang Rai longer than we expected because we love this place so much.

So now I must describe for you the madness of Songkran, the Thai New Year.  Traditionnally, monks and the elderly are gently sprinkled with water, and all the Buddhas around town are all cleaned as well.  But among the rest of the population, it has pretty much turned into a country-wide waterfight.  The actual day of celebration is April 13th (at least it was this year), but there were people with water guns out as early as the 10th, and apparently the worst day is the 15th.  And we are not even talking waterguns, not even super-soakers, that's nothing for these people.  We are talking hoses, and huge buckets of water that they just dump to top of you to utterly soak you.  And they are relentless.  We wanted to see some of the countryside so we have been riding around on a motocycle the past 2 days, and we discovered the hard way that people on motorcyles are these kids' favorite target.  These little rascals wait on the side of the road with thier big buckets of water and start screaming in anticipation when they see you coming, and trust me, after doing this as much as they do, they have pretty good aim!  So after both days out and about, we came home absolutely dripping wet.  The funniest are the people who basically do laps around the blocks in pick up trucks with a bunch of people in the back with a big bucket of water soaking everyone and anyone!

So the first day of our motorcycle adventure we went to the Golden Triangle, which is the area where Myanmar, Thailand and Laos all meet at the Mekong.  We took the road home through the mountains, which was absolutely gorgeous.  There were big craggy cliffs rising around us and tiny villages tucked in between them.  The road close to Myanmar is pretty well guarded, as we passed several "checkpoint" with armed policemen...a little scary.  This whole area used to be all planted with opium and was a major trading centre, but the Thai government has apparently successfully stamped it out with the help of programs to replant with coffee and tea, so the local people still have a source of income.  On our second day we went to a little village in the mountains called Mae Salong.  It is actually more of a Chinese village than a Thai town and Chinese is more often spoken here than Thai.  The surrounding scenery with tea planted on a steep mountain slopes was stunning, especially since the visibility was so much better than the previous day.  We had a big thunderstorm overnight and I think it cleared a lot of humiditiy out of the air because the day before it was pretty foggy (I think just from the heat!).  We also passed some rice fields, beautiful and impossibly green, the first ones we've really seen here and a treat for me as I have a bit of a soft spot for them :>)

We had meant to head off to Laos today, but we decided to stay one more day and take it easy walking around the city since we havn't really seen much of it yet.  So far I can say that I liked Chiang Mai better, it definitely had more charm, but it's been really nice to explore the countryside here.  So tomorrow we plan to head off to Loas, we will take a bus to the border town of Chiang Khong, then a boat across the river to Laos and stay in the Lao town of Huay Xai overnight and hopefully get a boat to Luang Prabang the next day.  But for now, we are off to find some lunch...and maybe a watergun so we can be more than just victims of this crazy crazy tradition...Bye for now!

Hanna and Dan xoxo

Market in Mae Salong

 Songkran soaking!