Chiang Rai

Change Rai experience

A slow awakening after a peaceful nights sleep. Time for breakfast. A delicious buffet spread with all choices you can imagine and real coffee!
We were also offered 'eye openers' in shot glasses. Exotic flavors of fruit such as honey dew, passionfruit with a hint of chilli! A really lovely value add.
The staff in the restaurant were all great, very friendly and attentive. The food and beverage manager, who was French, spoke to us several times to ensure we were enjoying the food and to ask for any inputs or improvements.

After breakfast we decided to take part in the group activity run by the fitness center manager, Kong, Thai kick boxing.. Lucky for us it was a private class just for 2. We headed out amongst the hotel gardens, donned our boxing gloves and Kong proceeded to teach us the basics of Thai kick boxing. We were very keen students and I think we did pretty well. Certainly built up quite a sweat and would be a huge threat now to anyone who decided to rob or mug us! We could hit them with an A or B punch, or a C kick, or a D push kick! If all else fails.. We can run backwards and defend ourselves with a 1 or 2 defensive moves, then run fast. Kong was hopeful that we mastered thai boxing perhaps a little better than we did and proceeded to give as the tutorial in his Thai english for a further 20 minutes.. Bless him.

After a quick cooling shower and change we grabbed a quick bite if lunch before our City Tour if Chiang Rai. Unfortunately it was raining (seems to follow me on holiday now!) our local guide Charlie was a 30 year old local guy who grew up about 2-3 hours out of Chiang Rai. His English was excellent and his passion for his country was very special. He also knew of Australia and our cities but had not yet visited.
We started with a visit to the Hill Tribe Museum and watched a short video on the different hill tribes through Thailand Including their traditional dress, interesting customs and provinces they inhabited. We then viewed some of the artifacts and photos along with handicraft work made by local villagers .

We were then greeted by 3 tri-shaw riders for a ride to the market area. The drivers or riders were happy very tiny Thai old men with huge smiles. It felt strange having them ride us around but it was a good way to see the city, despite the rain. The local market was huge. Stalls and alleyways all over selling all kinds of goods including seafood, clothing, you name it they sold it. Including live eels, tortoises, and frogs...

We then stopped at the buddhist temple Wat Phra Kaew with the largest emerald Buddha in Thailand. The emerald buddha is said to have been discovered in 1434.

After a short drive we arrived at a hall of master work of Chalermchai Kositpipat whose painting blew us away. So colorful with much detail. The first section of the gallery was of Buddhist style paintings of Buddha and his many faces and Ganesh god of many things. Mystical, fanciful, spiritual and so striking they took out breath away. The artist then moved to integrate his painting to the real world but very contemporary with paintings showing George Bush mounted on a rocket alongside his nemesis Osama. The rocket was floating in space with the world revolving at the bottom and the twin towers burning in the background. my favorite was Global Warming showing the earth at the bottom, with things floating in space.. Such as a coke can, McDonalds hamburger, Nike shoes floating and other itme of our materialistic world. The earth also showed flood, fire, rains and gases.
It was a great painting with a huge message done in a very contemporary way. I would have loved to buy that painting to remind myself the impact we humans are having on the earth by the choices we make.

the artist has invested heavily in building a huge white and mirrored temple which looks totally surreal. It's hard to describe and we didn't find out much about the inspiration and meaning for this temple other than a place to hold is artwork on the inside walls, floors and ceilings.

A short drive back to the hotel and bud fair well to Charlie we headed for happy hour at the bar.. Sipping a Chocolatini and a frozen margarita..
Then another 90 minute spa experience and pamper! Bliss...

Dinner again sampling more if the delicious Thai dishes. Starting with a glass of Verve! As you do..
I had the sweetcorn, basil and truffle oil soup, followed by stir fried prawns with cashews and mushrooms, ending with sticky rice and mango..a Thai favorite. Carole had the rocket salad again with fried tofu in a curry sauce, finishing with chocolate fondant and banana ice-cream...

We then tottled off to our room for some beached whale watching!
Another comfy night in luxury.
And a great day two....


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