My ol' lady is still registered at her mother home in Chiang Rai, this offers her and excuse to raid the refrigerator (bare), see mom and the siblings a couple times a year. it also offers me a weekend home, alone. Sunday was Election Day and try as I might, I just couldn't steel myself against the whining, tears and cajolery this time. Anyway the bars were gonna be closed, so why not?
I did have work to do. A lot of work. I made the ol' lady promise we wouldn't stay at her family home, we would only visit a few hours and come home directly after voting. She was good to her word. We made the road trip; in twenty-six hours, twenty-three minutes and forty-two seconds.
We left at 14:00 hrs. heading north out hiway 118 for Chiang Rai. As long as I've lived in Chiang Mai there has been serious road work on that hiway, this time was no exception, after passing through Doi Saket the road goes to dusty road base until the hot springs on the lower edge of Amphur Wiang Pa Pao.
It gets nice shortly after that and although I took a few pictures of the ride up I'm not gonna post 'em here. The Construtction of a Khmer-looking wat/hotel/restaurant/resort/whatever has been going on
for nigh on to three years now and it's as yet uncompleted. If you've traveled the roads of Thailand you've all seen the never-endig construction along the way. No point in more of the same.
We arrived in Chaing Rai at about 4:30 or so and went tothe Sun & Moon Guesthouse/Hotel. Very nice and clean with rooms at 700, 800 & 1300 per night the ol' lady bristled and didn't even try to negotiate a 600 night (with the state of their parking lot I'm sure they would have gone for it).
No, Moms "had a friend" and we could get a room for 300 Baht. So we drove around another half hour (it's amazing our easily the ol' lady can get lost in her childhood home-town) and found the Lan Come Hotel. The ol' lady argued, cajoled (she's pretty good at cajolery) but the young man at the counter wouldn't budge from 400 Baht. At this point I'm tired of driving and I don't care if it's a stone floor & a sleeping bag; "just rent the goddam room" was enough to wear the ol lady down.
The musty aroma of mildew on the fourth floor was greeting enough to remind me of a hundred other cheap rooms I've stayed in for an hour or two all over Thailand, I'm getting to like it. What the hell, we'll drop on over-nighter splash some hot water on our faces and head out to town any way and spend maybe eight hours sleeping and be on our way. The bed was kind of clean, the sheets; threadbare and the shower's HOT.
After a quick clean up we left the car and our stuff at the hotel and went into town in search of nourishment and entertainment. A light snack of noodles dumplings and pork were enough, for now. I wanted to sit at the night bazzaar food court, eat and people watch before bed.
We go to the food court a little ahead of schedule:
It's changed a bit since my last visit But all for the better I think. took a stroll around the downtown area to kill an hour, I wanted to see how much other things had changed. Not much really. There's a place called "The Old Dutch" on the main drag advertising Thai food and an American Style BBQ buffet Dunno if they're related to the one in BKK but the prices seem to be.
This is one thing I noticed in Chiang Rai prices for western food seem to be much higher than Chiang Mai, I only had one western meal (breakfast) in town and it was more a Thai imitation of a western breakfast at the "Nice Cafe" where for 10 Baht extra I could have non-instant Coffee - 145 baht two eggs, toast orange juice, three half slices of (streaky) bacon and a tiny banana. A full breakfast it ain't. The coffee, brewed or not was crap. The restaurant is situated across the street from Wat jet Yod:
I digress. We made our way around the city for a while visiting some of the people we'd met in previous trips I noticed a much higher concentration of Farang walking the street, most with that "I'm really Doing Thailand, and look! A guy with a Thai girl!" look on their faces. OK, not 'most' but there were a few "old Hand" hippie types I saw smiling at my Pony tail turning to frowns when they say I was in the tow of a Thai Woman.
By the time we got back to the night bazzaar, things were looking up and we Settled under clear sky with nearly full moon:
And loaded up on finger-type food and a couple of fruit shakes: