Chiang Rai

We switched up the sun and water for the cooler climate of northern Thailand, fliying out of Phuket bound for Chiang Rai. Here we stayed 6 nights, and included a few tours and road trips in between.

Trip in numbers

26: Total number of times Finn ate Fried Rice for Lunch or Dinner during our stay in Thailand
40: Amount of countries Camo has now driven a car in after our road trip north to Mae Sai
1: AUD for a dozen fake pokemon cards at Chiang Rai markets. The entire contents of said packet are apparently ‘strong’ cards – whatever that means – but Finn is stoked, and part of his birthday present for April is sorted!!

Hit List:

Chiang Rai temples. We visited the White temple, the Blue temple and Black temple (museum) all in 1 day, and the contrast of each of these buildings was quite cool. The White temple is a work in progress, and in addition to being painted white, is decorated with a plethora of mirror mosaic tiles which makes it shimmer throughout the day. The blue temple is rather small in comparison, and has an impressive interior, and the black museum is rather spread out with an array of art installations. Whilst we were there, local artist Thawan Duchanee had an impressive display of his artwork throughout the main building. Also impressive were some massive crocodile skins that decorated long tables
Chaing Rai night bazaar. A great spot that we frequented each night for dinner that had cheap food, cheap tallies and live music each night. There were 20 something stalls open each night that had between 10 & 100 dishes each on offer. Some favs were stir fried broccoli and vege spring rolls (Finn), red curry and crispy pork chili basil (Camo) & crispy pork pad thai (Chantal).
A place we also frequented nearly every day was the Cat n Cup Cafe. This was a bit of a reward post-schoolwork, as Finn absolutely loved it. I would recommend staying downstairs and petting the cats with the masses, as there is also an upstairs section that not many people know about……but it is lined with fake grass and fkn stinks of cat piss. I had the misfortune of taking Finn up there – he was stoked as were were the only 2 people up there, but not long after we settled in, 2 male cats started having their way with female cats who werent overly keen. Lets just say it wasnt quiet, I would assume not very pleasant for the majority in the room, and I had to touch on some curriculum content that isnt at Year 1 level with Finn……
We had our first family foot massage at De Lux massage. Finn loved it and fell asleep after 10 mins.
Na Rak O resort. Close enough to the main centre (walking distance) yet far enough way that it was nice and quiet, @ $55AUD a night this place was amazing and we’d highly recommend staying here. Breakfast was included which was tea, coffee, eggs and bread. There were dozens of eggs available each morning so by the end of our stay we got pretty creative with our breakfasts!! Finn loved egg bread (French toast) and Toad in the hole (Classic!!)
Coffee Scene. There were some great cafes open early each morning. Favs were 1:2 Chaing Rai Brew. The Owl coffee was also pretty cool, mainly because it is at the exit/entrance to the Chiang Rai Hospital. This would seem normal for most, however it is nestled in between a plethora of coffin dealers! Not sure who has more business…..
Free bus tour. Leaving at 0930 & 1330 this free ‘tram’ took us around the city to various sites including the Chiang Rai Buddhist College and a number of Wats (temples).
Choui Fong Tea Farm. We hired a car for a few days (was about $50AUD/day) and made it north, stopping in here first thing in the morning. It was pretty busy at 0830, with a number of large tourist buses stopping in at the same time as us. We had a tea tasting, and settled in for an Oolong varietal at roughly $3AUD a cup.
Thamluang Khunnam Nangon National Park. This is where the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system is located, and were 12 members of a local soccer team (Wild Boars) and their coach became trapped in 2018. Leading up to our visit, we watched the documentary on Netflix and Finn was fascinated with the story. As we arrived and entered the cave there are a number of remaining artifacts left over from the rescue, including some of the rescue equipment, 2 of the boys bikes at the entrance to the cave, a number of plaques detailing the depth of the rescue (Some 2+km into the cave system!) and the medical station that was set up a couple of hundred metres into the cave. This is the end point now for the general public.
Raisomtida Café. This orange farm and cafe is run by hilltribe people and is just up the road from the cave system. It serves delicious freshly pressed orange juice, great coffee and orange cake.
Layo Café – this lunch stop is located in Mai Sai district, again just up the road from Raisomtida café. The food was average, beer was warm but views made up for the below average lunch feed.
Driving the Thai/Myanmar border. We followed the border along a winding road for a couple of km. The views were awesome, and military border presence was strong on the thai side and there were a number of stops for pics. We stopped at Chang Moob military outpost – which is now defunct (the bunkers are still there though!) and is a café/viewpoint.
Doi Mae Salong. A bit overrated as a destination to be honest, however we love freestyling when driving so we wound our way back through the mountains from the border/Mae Sai back to Chiang Rai through here, and the drive was very aesthetic.
Chiang Rai Flower Festival. Located next to where the Saturday night markets are held, this was a cool place we stumbled upon after realising the free city tour was closed on the day we were keen to check it out and went walking randomly.
Condoms and Cabbages. This is the name of a restaurant and café we stumbled upon! Upon further investigation, this is a social enterprise connected to the hilltribe museum, that promotes safe sex and family planning with hilltribe communities. It was interesting to visit the hilltribe museum and learn about the various tribes residing across Northern Thailand.
Saturday night markets. This was the only night we didn’t go to the night bazaar for dinner. There were a wide range of stalls selling food – and Camo ended up trying fried insects, namely crickets, grasshoppers and some form of lavae. They were marinated in a range of spices and tasted pretty good!!!

Shit List

Nothing really! We bloody loved this part of Thailand!! The only odd (slightly creepy) bit was stopping off at a random temple on our road trip that was massive and very quiet. It still had some scaffolding near the roof, but it look like it would be cool to explore, so I tried to get in for a look. Alas, all the doors were padlocked, but as I was trying to ‘explore’ this beautiful and deserted temple in the middle of nowhere, a heap of gunshot-type noises started going off fairly close by. Tried to write them off as fireworks as it was Chinese New Year season, but Im not sure of too many people who let fireworks off at 3 in the afternoon. Needless to say we didn’t enter and get ‘abandoned temple photos’ and got out of there pretty quickly!!