An eye-opening trip to Chiang Mai - Part 3

Another popular day trip around Chiang Mai is "the golden triangle" - the border of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar.

This boiling-hot spring is on the way to the golden triangle, before Chiang Rai. It was fun to buy a small basket of chicken or quail egg and just boil them in the hot spring. But you need to remember to return the cute basket.

To the hill tribe villages again, and this time I had an interesting experience. This lady in the tribe clothing, did not have to speak a word and earn (I guess) hundreds of Baht a day. She just wore her full dress and accessoried herself with this big pipe and that's it. We all love to take the picture of her with a hut in the background. She charged 10 Baht per head for photo taking with her. Not too bad, as she did not charge per photo :p

I wanted to hypothesize from this experience. Learn what people want, and make use of what you have (the dress and the pipe in this case), you will make a fortune if you hit the nail right. I also wonder how many such women I would see if I happened to be there again after a few years. I don't think she has the patent :)

This photo was taken while I was on the boat crossing Mekong river from Thailand to Laos. The Buddha statue in the picture is on Thailand, the red buildings far away is on Myanmar, and the group of trees on the bank are on Laos.

Literally, I have been to Laos as I have stepped on the land owned by Laos. But it was just a village on the bank where there was a small immigration checkpoint and a post office. I saw the bottles of liquor in which cobra, scorpion or any possible poisonous creatures were soaked. That part of Laos seems to be quite dry. I was a little uncomfortable being followed by the group of children. I wish they could be studying in the classrooms in stead of chasing the tourists.

This is the golden triangle where, as per the tour guide's explanation, opium used to be traded. The small river between Thailand and Myanmar meets Mekong river between Thailand and Laos. You can see the different colors of water in the picture.

The other side of the river is Tachilake in my homeland Myanmar. Since it would cost Baht 500 per head, while landing on Laos' land cost Baht 20 per person, the tour packages did not include it in the itinerary. I just had said Hi to my homeland from the top of a hill near the border.

The Points I pondered during the trip

On the way back, I couldn't help thinking about the village, the walk in the jungle, the waterfall, the bamboo rafting, the hot spring, the boat ride, all simple functional things which were turned into tourist attractions and they make Chiang Mai become a popular destination.

I believe that the foundation blocks of Thailand's tourism are the smooth roads on which everyone can travel for a few hours (I met many tourists of retirement age); the cleanliness that can facilitate a comfortable stay at most of the hotels, motels and guest houses; and certain degree of safety (I also met many solo female travellers).

The three countries have more similarities than differences. It is worth checking out how much each country could make out of tourism. It means "how we portray what we have is more important than what we have" in creating business? I need to research more to answer this question.

Good Bye Chiang Mai, I hope to be there again soon.