Day 68 - Chiang Rai Day trip

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Today we took a trip from Chiang Mai at 7am to take the 4 hour drive through Chiang Rai, and then back again. On the way up our small mini-van stopped at a hot spring in which locals had made a very big tourist attraction by boiling eggs in it and surrounding it with a large market. It was interesting for about 1 minute. We continued our drive then stopped over brielfy at another temple, which again was interesting but the same as all the rest. Our next stop was the Golden Triangle. The is basically where Thailand, Burma and Laos meet, and up until 1959 was where Opium grown from the 3 countries was traded. 2 Rivers meet dividing the 3 countries so we took a long boat over to Laos and looked around a little market there (which was the same as the rest), took the long boat back and then continued our drive through the Chiang Rai province. We ended up at a large very busy town called Mai Sai, where instead of looking around the market we walked up some very steep steps to a view point where we could see for miles and also into Burma. On the way back we stopped at two hill tribes. Unfortunaley it is impossible to get a real feel of what the tribes live like as they are now too influenced by the tourists visiting them and spend the whole time trying to sell you things. We then took a long drive back. Today was ok, but a little bit boring as there was alot of travelling but not much to look at.

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