Today I have the pleasure of being able to sit in a very lovely teakwood bakery and write about the pleasures of the city of Chaing Rai, a small city about the size of Lakeland, Florida, but exhibiting a much greater culture and importance and history (which is fortunate for the tourist). As I have been able to walk around a fair bit over the past day (I arrived here yesterday mid-afternoon after a fairly quick trip to Mae Sai), I can say that I understand why my fellow Legacy Teacher Austin enjoys coming here so often (I saw him a couple of times not thirty minutes ago walking to and from the old bus station near the center of town where I have spent my time).

There are a huge amount of Westerners here. This is not a surprise, though it is fairly intriguing to me that the Westerners I have seen are generally of two types–fairly savage looking backpacker types who enjoy Chaing Rai as a base for their explorations in the Golden Triangle are beyond or very refined types with expensive tastes. I happen to be an intermediate type between the two myself–of a fairly refined personality but generally on a cheap budget. This distance between types is reflected in the fact that Western restaurants and clubs seem to predominate the central area of Thailand, and most Thai businesses are the fairly mundane jewlers and clothing industries (there is even a Boots pharmacy near the bus station and a private Kaplanesque institute for teaching English to the local Thai population that was open Sunday evening, which I thought rather extraordinary.

The distance between the two general classes of Westerners who visit here is demonstrated both in the sort of restaurants and cafes which I have seen as well as the local hotels. Right now I am sitting inside of a bakery that is extremely socially conscious, having been established to provide work opportunities for AIDS orphans. I am curently the only male customer there without a shaggy beard, but the crossiants were very excellent as were their chesse omlette and iced tea, and they have reasonably priced internet, so here I am. Likewise, the hotel where I stayed last night, the City Home, is a hostel that is aligned with eco-friendly hostels around the world. It was a pleasant and comfortable place to rest, except the air conditioner was quite noisy, and I was impressed with their collection of satellite channels, which included at least two Somali channels, a wide variety of Southeast Asian ones, and a couple Nepalese ones as well. Sadly, I couldn’t find a good English-language news channel so I watched some of the several channels for Thai music videos when I was not reading or walking about town.

On the other hand, there are a lot of places in Chiang Rai that are clearly designed for the wealthy tourist. I had a look at the Waing Hotel, for example, but its 3000 Baht a night prices ($100) sufficiently discouraged me from staying there. Likewise, I was a bit puzzled by the high prices at DaVinci’s Italian Restaurant, as well as the absence of chicken parmesian from their menu (it’s not that difficult of a dish to make, people, and it happens to be my favorite food). At least their iced tea was nice, though. Costing 75 baht ($2.50) a glass, though, it was sorely overpriced.

For the tourist in Chiang Rai, there is a reasonable amount of things to see. If you like seeing temples, there are a large variety of Shan-style Lanna temples that have been built over the 750 year history of Chiang Rai. Unfortunately, little of the city’s original walls and moat seem to have survived, though there’s a nice and busy royal monument not too far away from the river or the city center to see where New Year’s celebrations were taking place when I arrived on April 1st, as was the case in Mae Sai as well (at least some people know when to celebrate the start of the new year [1]).

As far as transportation goes, in Chaing Rai the sungtows [truck taxis] are blue rather than the more common red or yellow (or green) ones that predominate in Chiang Mai. In addition there is a smaller sungtow that is also blue that is only slightly larger than a tuk-tuk (which are also fairly common here). Having resolved to do as much by foot as possible, and being irritated by the tuk-tuk drivers in Burma misunderstanding my requests for postcards (which proved impossible to find) for an interst in paying cheap prices for “boom-boom,” I did not see whether the prices were as reasonable for the sungtows as they are in Chiang Mai, so long as one does not hire a sungtow. As it happened, everything I needed was within walking distance, though for a full exploration of the area and its fascinating history, one would need personal transportation or a very budget. I recommend the motorbikes, as they are reasonably priced if you are comfortable driving one (I’m not).

So, in a nutshell, it was worthwhile to stay in Chiang Rai. Assuming you are comfortable going to places with somewhat wild-looking backpackers and you have a sufficient sense of adventure, it is an enjoyable experience. Alternatively, if you are wealthy enough to only desire a five-star living experience, there is also sufficient enjoyment as well, even if one wants to slum a little by singing karaoke or visiting the night bazaar, which happened to be right next to the hostel where I stayed, in between there and the bus station (it’s a pretty busy night bazaar, of the same nature as Chiang Mai’s justly famous and larger one). If you’re a sports fan, try to check out Chiang Rai’s team–they’re pretty good, and I met some Western soccer players at the DaVinci’s as well last night, having enjoyed the city’s local sports scene no doubt. In addition, the town has a vibrant artistic and jazz music scene. It’s full of quirkiness and very friendly to Westerners on a variety of budgets. Now, if only I could find more historical cites or a good historical museum…

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/id-rather-be-an-april-fool/