The Terrific3 travel blog

Today we awoke at our home stay in the countryside refreshed. Well, kinda. I slept with S last night while Z got his own bed and he kicked me and stole the covers from me all night. Now I remember why I’m single 😂. We awoke around 5am as sharing a hotel room with 2 noisy boys means we get up when the first person does. Though it allowed us to hit the road at 730am, as it was a day of driving over 5 hours.

First we drove to the Chiang Dao caves, an intricate cave system that was also a temple and housed thousands of bats. I’ll have to admit this wasn’t my favorite and I wouldn’t have been sad to skip it. Between the sensory experience of dark, damp (but lit) cave, the stink of bat feces, and shrill noise of all the bats, walking (with shoes thankfully) on said bat feces, and my utterly irrational (or somewhat rational?) fear of one of us getting bit by a bat and needing rabies immunoglobulin in a developing country, I was happy when this experience was over. It was kinda cool though, if you remove all the above factors.

Next up was the very long 3.5 hour drive to the Golden triangle, the infamous border between Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. To break it up, our guide Tom stopped halfway at a temple on a hill, with a view—Wat Tha Ton. This was truly lovely, and the temple was one of the newer constructed ones, so more of a modern style.

We proceeded with our drive and arrived at the Golden Triangle and had lunch with a view of the Mekong river at a Thai restaurant that had a Thai only menu. Tom was very helpful in helping to order.

Tom excitedly came to tell us that the Laos border was actually open as of 2 weeks ago and we could take a boat across and cross over. We boarded a long tail boat and took a 20 minute ride in the Golden Triangle and then crossed into Laos, though they took a photo of our passports before we got on the boat, there was no passport control or stamp at the border.

We next drove up to the Golden triangle viewpoint for more photos.

Next in town was the opium museum, very interesting but not as much so with a 7 year old who wanted to run through. S really likes reading everything at museums but it’s hard to balance that an an energetic younger brother who can’t quite read at museum level.

We then drove to one of the tribal villages—the Karen longneck tribe, originally Laotian refugees which the Thai government accepted, taught how to be self sufficient, and gave them land. This was the first time my kids were in a real developing world village, and I tried to impress upon them their privilege, pointing out the modest bamboo huts and tiny rooms that housed 5 people to a room. Not sure if I got through, but maybe? Tom had brought chocolate crackers and he directed them to give them to each kid who was sitting with an adult. We saw no men, but lots of women, most in the traditional longneck metal rings.

30 minute drive later and 530pm, we were approaching our hotel in Chiang Raí after a very long day. It was witching hour as Z had woken at 430am and I was wondering where we would find dinner without a meltdown. Too offered to drive us to dinner and also suggested using Grab to get take out. I asked him if it was ok for him to drive us to a restaurant so I could go grab take out and he said he would. We were a little stuck in rush hour and it took longer than I expected and I was really concerned I was overstepping and taking advantage of his hood will, but alas, close to 6pm I was grateful to be dropped off at our hotel with some pizza as Z was definitely on the edge of very tired. These are the moments it’s especially hard tu travel alone as an adult with 2 kids. There’s no one to tag team with or send out to get dinner or split up the kids. Not that I’ve ever known differently but I imagine this is where it is SO much easier to have another adult present—when you’re all at your edge, and everyone needs something different and nobody has any reserve left for best behavior.

Anyways, it’s 830pm and I have 2 sleeping kids and I am soon to follow. Recap of the day—lots of driving, some ok experiences (cane, opium museum), some very cool ones (views, Laos, hill tribe, golden triangle). Tomorrow we explore the temples of Chiang Raí then drive 3 hours back to Chiang Mai. After that, we will only have a little over a week left in Thailand. Kinda unbelievable.