After the trekking adventure came relaxing time!
Our next stop, the village of Pai was the perfect place to do so. It is a hippie town with a nice vibe, lots of bars and restaurants, surrounded by bungalows/huts for the backpacker community. Pai is beautifully situated between lush green mountains. Being such a backpacker spot, Pai had tons of activities to offer: hot springs, trekking, visiting serene waterfalls or exploring cute villages nearby. One could attend lots of classes from art, cooking to circus and, and, and. We stayed a couple of nights doing literally nothing. Well we visited a bunny cafe. When we left after a couple of days we felt weak and exhausted from this motionless lifestyle.
Our last stop in Thailand took us to Chiang Rai.
This place felt more like an authentic city, not a tourism village. Less chic but more character. Though the region is one of the economically less developed in the country, the regions capital Chiang Rai felt like a western town, with busy people and lots of traffic during rush hours.
Chiang Rai is on the route for many who travel the South East Asia Loop (Thailand – Cambodia – Vietnam – Laos – Thailand). It is the gateway either to or from Laos. Interesting observation: many Thai – Western – Relationships on the streets. Far more than we came across in other places.
We stayed only 2 nights, rented a scooter and had the chance to explore some sights which were well worth it:
Wat Rong Khun, a white art-temple filled with surrealistic shapes. Britt described it as having a Dali twist. Well worth a visit, but there were crowds of visitors and magaphones guiding tour groups when we were there.
Some photos of Wat Rong Khun:
Another place really worth a visit: The Baan Dam Museum. I wished there were more museums like this one. The museum features architecture and art exhibits from Thawan Duchanee. This dude must have been crazy. His architecture and collection of weird stuff were just super cool and went extremely well together. Never thought I could refer to any building as “super cool”. Gigantic doors, majestic chairs as if they were made for the king of the underworld, and lots of leather and bones.
Oh, if you are an animal friend… let’s say there was a room with about 20 crocodile skins, including their preserved heads.
However if you like animals, in Chiang Rai is also a really huge cat cafe. I have seen this concept in other places (also at home in Cologne) but this one was huge and stuffed with beautiful cats – some breeds were really unusual. Check it out when you are there next time.
Next stop is Laos.