{"id":2291,"date":"2026-02-18T06:30:48","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T06:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/?p=2291"},"modified":"2026-02-18T23:56:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:56:53","slug":"tues-17th-feb-chiang-mai-to-chiang-rai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/?p=2291","title":{"rendered":"Tues 17th Feb – Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DW: This holiday requires us to be more dynamic than Japan. Thailand requires some flex, but nothing too much. Laos is shaping up to be more nebulous. Planning is irrelevant and in fact overplanning is to your detriment as it inspires false confidence. National elections have been called during our proposed trek, I reach out to Somhak (I have no idea what would have happened if I had not) and he says we need to shift a day earlier as he must vote (NB: Laos is in fact a one-party state…). He also notes that unfortunately his car is not licensed for us and we need to navigate the public bus instead. I pivot to a different Thai based trek. Somhak says “no worries, thanks for letting me know”. Vientiane accomodation seems unable to accept any form of realisable payment (Laos is a closed economy and Kip is not allowed to be taken out of the country). I feel another pivot incoming. Thai time is one thing. Laotian looseness is a different level altogether I expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CR: Half of today is transit to Chiang Rai, our second Chiang (not to be confused with Chang, as Claude helpfully tells us, which means elephant). Chiang Rai is very northern Thailand and its outskirts border Myanmar and Laos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bus we get from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai is very much a tourist bus. There’s only one Thai person on it. It has comfortable reclinable seats and well functioning airconditioning. The trip goes smoothly. I listen to an ABC Bookshelf podcast where Tim Rogers is a guest reviewer and spoils the entire plot of a book I am interested in and Declan listens to a podcast from an ex-Tesla employee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chiang Rai gives off a poor first impression. It looks completely dilapidated. The searing heat doesn’t help either. There are definitely nods to tourism – such as the beef ribs restaurant next to the hotel – but the region clearly does not pull in enough money to improve its facade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’re concerned that we won’t have enough to fill the next two days so, given it was my idea to come here, I am tasked with “fixing it”. I am hopeful I achieved this but following blog posts will determine whether this is true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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DW: There appeared to be continuous roadworks for the entirety of the road between Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. Despite this, our bus was perfectly on time.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: I can definitely imagine this river flooding. That height marker goes up a long way.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: South East Asia is much more efficient on a micro level with their land. An enterprising soul has setup a banana tree plantation in this vacant block next to an Ibis apartment building. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: I am not sure why the Blue Temple had more skull motifs and gods with six packs compared to other temples we had seen. It felt more modern in construction (the elephants were made out of reinforced concrete) and design (the intricacies were all at the level of mass produced structure, not handmade artisans). It also had a signature blue icecream being hawked, demonstrating my point in an earlier blog about Buddhism more directly engaging with commerce than other religions.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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CR: The inside of Blue Temple is equally as intense as the exterior. No one would be able to accuse the Thais of being minimalist. It feels ridiculous watching Thai people pray here. It’s all so gaudy that it is hard to take seriously. On reflection though it’s equally as feasible as going to a church and listening to a man in robes. All religion is a strange way to spend time.
DW: I had forgotten my modesty pants and did not see the interior of the Blue Temple.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: This was my third fun drink of the day. Thailand has a big drink culture and you see Thai people everywhere walking around with some form of sweet drink from a cafe. I am just trying to culturally assimilate.
CR: I love these seats. Each group of Thai friends walked around taking photos and then sat down and individually reclined and started playing on their phones. We’re not so different after all.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: I have an appreciation for DEET after this holiday. Prior to purchasing DEET I was experiencing a constant flow of minor bites. Post-DEET acquisition I am bite free. I worry my tolerance is increasing though. I started at 12%, but that doesn’t hit the spot anymore. I secured 28% in anticipation of our jungle activities. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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CR: Chiang Rai grows on us in the evening. So much money and time and social capital at work is expended on taking a longer holiday. The weight of expectation is heavy. When a location doesn’t quickly satisfy there is such disappointment. But it only takes the sun to set and the air to cool to calm down and enjoy thinking about a map of the world, and then about where Chiang Rai is on that world map, and about how far and strange that place seems at home in Australia, and that we are there right now.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: The broth was the rich, dark colour of eucalyptus leaves in a stagnant pond.
CR: Long twirled rice noodles covered in a deeply savoury broth, adorned with meats of your own choice (I avoided the offal) and a boiled egg and herbs. This was so delicious and I loved that it was a meeting place for locals to catch up about their day. It was chatty Tuesdays around us.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thailand-laos-cambodia-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2291"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2379,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2291\/revisions\/2379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}