Chiang Mai & Chiang Rai, Thailand

After our visit to Pai we headed back to Chiang Mai. We had a flight booked on the Friday to Hanoi so we had a few days to relax and visit Chiang Rai.  We stayed at The Opium hotel in Chiang Mai this time as it had a pool and gym facilities. Our bus ride back was tiring and so we wanted to relax when we got to the hotel. The area was a little further from the centre of Chiang Mai in the university area. One thing that was a priority at this point was for Chris to have a haircut ( he has them every 2-3 weeks). We asked the hotel for a recommendation on a barbers and headed there. Luckily for Chris, the lady at Porn Barbers spoke English so understood what kind of style he wanted and it looked good in the end ( better than we expected). It was the cheapest haircut to date at 100B (£2.50).The following day we went on a tour to Chiang Rai; the main thing we wanted to do here was see the White Temple and it was beautiful! It is a very touristy destination which meant it was hot and crowded! 

Before we got to Chiang Rai, we stopped at a hot spring where you can boil some eggs. 

After the White Temple, we stopped for lunch at an all you can eat buffet restaurant which was really good!  After this, we headed to the Golden Triangle where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet. This was pretty good and it was interesting to hear the history of the opium trade in this region. 

We caught a boat over to Laos where there was a market on the other side. On the boat, we were promised some whisky for free which Chris got pretty excited about. We arrived at the stall and discovered the whisky was in a container with a dead snake! Chris still had a shot of whiskey here ( no stopping him). After this we had a long journey back to Chiang Mai.

The next day we had a chilled morning by the pool and visited a shopping mall in the afternoon. We decided to go to the cinema ( so much cheaper here). After this, we found some food before rushing to collect our laundry before the laundrette closed. It was nice having a day to sort ourselves before Vietnam.