{"id":2376,"date":"2026-02-19T15:26:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T15:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/?p=2376"},"modified":"2026-02-19T15:26:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T15:26:56","slug":"thur-19th-feb-doi-mae-salong-to-chiang-rai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/?p=2376","title":{"rendered":"Thur 19th Feb – Doi Mae Salong to Chiang Rai"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DW: All good trips need a central premise to be built around. This gives vision and enables the trip to be properly scoped and avoid becoming a series of rapid transits between “must-see locations”. The core focus of this trip is the northern Mekong and surrounding regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today is Day 2 of our driver-enabled sub-trip, we saw the Mekong for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomorrow we depart on our 3 day hike (the replacement for our Laotian one). We expect all three days to be wrapped up into a single post on our return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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CR: A classic East meets West feast for breakfast.
DW: Stay tuned for Neil Perry to plunder another culture and open a new Eastern Suburbs brunch place after seeing this spread.
CR: The only other party at this hotel was a German couple staying in the villa pictured. We were told on check in that breakfast would be at 8am and delivered to the room. Every five minutes from 8am onwards one of the couple would frantically open the door and check if breakfast had been silently delivered. Breakfast arrives after 8.30am. This German couple clearly haven’t adjusted to Thai Time yet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my morning coffee.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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CR: Declan did not swing with much gusto, for fear that he’d be launched off the edge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: It is easy to avoid buying tea as I assume that customs would impound it all as soon as the plane touched down in Australia. This is good as I am pretty ambivalent about tea.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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CR: The tea plantation was pretty average. I was hoping for a demonstration or a guide or even just some a static display of equipment. None of that was apparent. There was Cafe 1 and when you were done with that you could walk a short distance to Cafe 2.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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CR: The Golden Triangle was the highlight of today’s attractions. In the picture we are standing on Thailand, Myanmar is to the left and Laos on the right. Borders are a concept we never think about in Australia, being just one big country\/continent combo. It’s actually really cool thinking about the intersection of three different countries. The large river in the centre is the Mekong, so it’s the first time the Mekong hits Thailand, and the end of it for Myanmar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: The Hall of Opium was an interesting narrative museum that explores the history of Opium more broadly and its role in the Golden Triangle region. It didn’t dwell on the question on Thailand’s recent legalization of marijuana.
CR: We were asked in the opening video projection (which hadn’t changed since the operation had opened in the 80s) to take time at the end of the museum to reflect on the impact of drugs. I did that at the end. I do believe ultimately that drugs are bad. But drugs can open up experiences and perceptions not available to us in every day life and shouldn’t be instantly discredited because they are not the social norm. Therefore the best that society can do is educate. From there people will always make their own choices. Opium was only made illegal about 70 years ago in Thailand, having previously swung from illegal to legal in cycles. It made me question what is legal now that will be indisputably illegal in another 70 years. Declan skipped reflection time he was working to a timetable and we were lagging behind.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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CR: I wonder where all that time went…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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CR: Old v. New in Chiang Saen. The obviously old bit was built in the 19th Buddha Century. This is equivalent to the 1200s. I don’t really understand how it can be around 1000 years old. That feels too old. That is 10 lots of Grandma Aileen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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DW: Everyone loves roti everywhere.
CR: Photo for mum of our cheese roti becoming cheese roti.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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CR: Rain and fire.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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CR: Spa booties. I don’t love the smell of these Mum but I am looking forward to nourished feet, ready for a three day jungle trek tomorrow.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Golden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2376","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\/2376","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=2376"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2421,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376\/revisions\/2421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}