QUEEN MOTHER'S PALACE AND GARDENS
The seven or eight thousand square foot "cabin" sits on the top of a mountain at about 3,500ft where the air is cool and the views are stunning. It's quite a tourist attraction, but once again we find ourselves happy to be here in the low season. 130 Baht got us tickets to tour the house and the gardens. We were up in the clouds as we walked the driveway. Banks of thick cloud hugged the ground, making its way up and over the hillside as it crossed the road just in front of us. By far the most impressive thing we saw were the gardens. There are 4 or 5 separate areas, all distinctly different. There are 30-90 people tending to them. Year-round they are immaculate and the plants are very healthy. On the way up the mountain, we must have passed 20 small nurseries that feed these gardens. When 2 guys spend 90min enjoying a garden of all things, you know there's something special about it.
BURMA BORDER TOWN
We arrived at a very heavily-trafficked border crossing between Thailand and Burma. Lining the main road were many dozens of shops selling basically the same counterfeit knives, watches, silver-plated jewelry, local crafts, etc. I had lost my $230 pair of Oakleys in the jungle the day before so I decided to pick up a new pair. I settled on a pair of "jokleys" and they look pretty decent for $3. We had lunch practically under the bridge between the two countries, which crossed over a small polluted river. We had a very good Thai meal, which included local catfish that was tasty. I ordered "spicy noodles" and our waitress thought I was crazy. I fear no food, so the order stood. It ended up not being that hot, even Chris handled it ok. For now on I'm ordering spicy since they make everything very mild for wuss tourist palates. We had to kill some time before meeting back up with Jane so we hit up the local foot massage spot in a nice park setting down the road. Chris got a saucy 36yr old who looked like an Asian queen Latifa if you squinted. Mine was 19 maybe, and spoke no English. We don't know what those two were saying, but it was causing a lot of chuckles from the row of old ladies massaging and being massaged around us. I told Chris her laughing is because she can see up your shorts. Chris turned red. In between flirting, gossiping, and cracking jokes, these ladies gave one brutal foot, calf, and thigh massage. Their grip could possibly break bones in a hand shake. They even broke out a carved piece of wood that they used for acupressure on our soles and various other tricks for causing searing pain. Overall it was great, even if we had to limp for a while afterward.
GOLDEN TRIANGLE & OPIUM MUSEUM
Re-energized from our massage, we made our way to an overlook known as the Golden Triangle. It's another tourist trap, but the views are nice and it's worth a stop if you're in the area. From the overlook, the land to the left is Thailand. A strip of Earth projecting into the left section of the Mekong River is Burma. Across the water is Laos. In Thailand there are no casinos, so like with American Indian reservations back home, there's casinos set up just on the other side of the border. A quick boat across the Mekong into Laos or to Burma gets you to a nice casino. There are no more permits issued to casinos in Burma because too many Chinese were going there and committing suicide after losing everything. So what do the Chinese do? They get a 100yr lease for the opposite shoreline in Laos. As far as you can see is construction sites for new casinos.
We checked out a cool Buddhist temple and museum about the opium trade, which this area is famous for. Thanks to Google Earth, the CIA, DEA, and Thai Govt, opium is no longer grown in Thailand, but in the Southern provinces of Burma. It takes 3,000 poppies in .41 acres to make a kilo of opium, so it's easy to spot the fields with satellite imagery. One the main opium kings, Kun Sa, had 20,000 soldiers protecting his empire in the '8Os.
20 min further East along the Mekong was Chiang Saen, which is the birthplace of Thai culture, apparently. We checked out yet another set of ruins. We've seen so many at this point that it's starting to get redundant. At least this one had major cultural significance, and it's setting along the Mekong with massive 100' tall teak trees all around made it a nice stop along the way home.
At the end of the day we said our goodbyes to Jane and set up a tour with his friend who has been doing tours for 20yrs. More waterfalls, nature, and anything he can think up that's not touristy. We then decided to get a bite to eat. I felt like getting a bit of a taste of home was in order. It was easily justifiable, given our meal of bugs and fried food the previous night. We got pizza and spaghetti in a halfway decent restaurant with A/C. A Pizza Hut, basically. The bacon & cheese sticks were a big hit. Once again, we waddled home, stuffed and exhausted. I'm not sure we made it past 10:30pm, as usual.
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