Days 70 – 73: A Quick Detour to Chiang Rai, Thailand

As I shared in my last post, Rich and I had originally planned to travel from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to the beaches of Sihanoukville, Cambodia.  However, when Rich wasn’t feeling well, we made the executive decision that a 13 hour bus ride was not in the cards for us.  We decided to fly to Chiang Rai, Thailand for a few nights instead.

Let me tell you: this was a fabulous decision.

Day 70: Travel from Ho Chi Minh City to Chiang Rai, Thailand

Super easy.  We took a flight from Ho Chi Ming City to Bangkok, and then flew from Bangkok to Chiang Rai.    We flew into the Don Meung International Airport which, while the lesser of the two busy Bangkok international airports, still has six Priority Pass lounges.

The moral of the story being that we ate all of our meals for the day in airport lounges and only spent money on a cab once we reached Chiang Rai.  Beautiful.  (Also, beats a 13 hour bus ride).

Day 71: Calm and Lovely Chiang Rai

So we loved our time in Vietnam, but there is definitely an intensity about it: intense smells and loud noises, busy, crowded streets, and motorbikes everywhere.

Our most immediate impression of Chiang Rai was how much calmer and quieter it was.

Rich and I both worked in American high schools.  Going from Vietnam to Chiang Rai was like chaperoning a high school dance for 3-4 hours and then stepping out into a quiet evening when the kids have all made their way home.  The dance was a happy event, you are glad the school has dances, but it is also loud and sweaty and a bit hyped up.  Oh how you appreciate the quiet night when it is over.

Wat Rong Seur Ten, The Blue Temple

Our lovely hotel provided bicycles to explore the town.  Let me emphasize how much easier it was for me, a rather inexperienced bike rider, to ride on streets not filled with motorbikes.  After breakfast, we enjoyed a leisurely bike ride to Wat Rong Seur Ten, commonly known as the Blue Temple.

The locals began construction on the temple in 2005 and concluded in 2016.  It is beautiful.  Rich felt like it was as magnificent as any cathedral in Europe, and it is hard to argue with him.  The deep blues and golds are brilliant, and the statue of Buddha mesmerizing. A must see in Chiang Rai.

I’m not sure I had ever visited a Buddhist temple before, and I have since learned a few basic principles:

• Knees and shoulders should be covered.  Having a big scarf that fits in my purse has been clutch, even if I can’t ever quite figure out how to tie it right.
• Your bottoms of your feet should not face the Buddha. It seems like most people sit on their feet while praying.
• Don’t turn your back on the Buddha.  I learned this one after we left.  Rich and I both wanted pictures facing the camera with Buddha behind us, but it would have been more respectful to have a picture taken facing Buddha. Sorry.

Wat Phra Kaew (More Temples)

From the Blue Temple, we biked over to Wat Phra Kaew.  Wat means temple, so saying the Wat Phra Kaew temples is wrong (like saying St. Paul’s Cathedral Church). I’ll do my best to avoid the redundancy.

Wat Phra Kaew was an older complex with a series of temples as well as a museum.  The space was green and quite serene, with hardly any tourists compared to the Blue Temple.  I could understand how it would be an ideal place to pray and reflect, tucked away a bit from the more popular temples.

Time at the Pool

While Rich and I spent an inordinate amount of time at beaches in Europe (my mom called this year of travel our “beach trip”), Le Patta was the first spot we stayed with a pool.

Rich and I both had great books (Commonwealth by Ann Patchett for me and Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng for Rich), and spending a relaxing afternoon reading by the pool was just what the doctor ordered to cure Rich fully of his lingering sore throat.

After one day in Chiang Rai, we felt fantastic.

Day 72: The White Temple

Gym Time!

I should also mention that our hotel had a gym.  I haven’t talked much about our health journey over the past year, but when we even started talking about even thinking about doing this trip, it was over the holidays, and we were not in the best shape.  We had moved cities and changed jobs, and the weight had just sort of crept up on us.  How does that happen so easily once you turn 30?

When we committed to the trip, we also committed to getting in better shape.  We ran a half marathon.  I convinced Rich to try hot yoga, and we went 10 times (at 90 minutes a pop, that’s not nothing).  Rich and I started making it to the gym before work and going for walks and runs after.

We knew we needed to be in better shape to face all of the physical challenges in our travels.  Rich and I were also just so excited, and the idea of looking better in pictures got us to the gym on the days we didn’t want to go until we really did want to go every day.

And it all paid off!  Since January, nine months ago, Rich has lost 40 pounds, and I have lost almost 20.  We feel great.  Which is the longest way of saying, we had a gym at our hotel in Chiang Rai, and we were glad.

Wat Rong Khun, The White Temple

Local Chiang Rai artist Chalermchai Kositpipat created the Wat Rong Khun as an artistic masterpiece to honor the Buddha.  There is a small entry fee for foreigners, but Kositpipat has largely funded the project himself so that he can retain artistic license over his work.  He started work on the temple in 1997, and it is not scheduled to be complete until 2070.

While photography is not allowed inside the temple, the exterior provides beautiful views in almost every direction.  We had a great time wandering the grounds.

Quick fun story about transportation: We took a bus to the White Temple (20 baht, ~$0.60/person), which while a bit eclectic in decoration, was a pretty normal city bus.

On the way back, however, the “bus” was basically a pickup truck with benches on the sides and a roof, and the bus also doubled as a package delivery service.  Several times we stopped for the driver to grab boxes from local businesses which he then tucked under our feet.  When the back got too full, the boxes were tied on top!  Can’t make it up.

Day 73: We Say Goodbye to Chiang Rai at the Cat Cafe

Our hotel checkout time was noon, and our flight wasn’t until 4:45 PM, so natch I insisted that we pass the time at THE LOCAL CAT CAFE.

Quick backstory: My dear friend Tom had been insisting that he was going to open a pop up cat cafe in DC since we were in graduate school in 2009.  Our friend group thought this was a hilarious but completely ridiculous and outlandish idea, and we made fun of ^^eow~ (get it? So clever.) for years.

Dear Tom, I’m sorry.  You were right and totally ahead of the curve.  The cat cafe was everything.

It was my first visit to a cat cafe, but it’s pretty straight forward: you order a coffee or some food, take off your shoes, and go sit on the floor in a room with at least 20 cats.  You aren’t allowed to pick them up or grab them– they have to come to you– and you aren’t supposed to feed them human food.  If you want to buy their love with food (which you will definitely want to do), you can buy a cat treat for about a dollar.  Which Rich may have argued was a bit expensive since we only spent ~$0.60 on an actual bus ticket the day before.  Love is buying the cat treat for your over excited wife anyway.

So we spent about two hours playing with cats and taking pictures of ourselves playing with cats.  It was really fun, even if I did sneeze and have a runny nose for the next two days.

Rich: You didn’t tell me you were allergic to cats.

Amanda: I have never been in a room with twenty cats before!

And then we headed to the airport.  Next stop: Phnom Penh, Cambodia!