CHIANG MAI - CHIANG RAI 2005 Part 2

Hi, all!! Welcome to my another part. I hope you all like clips inserted in my last part. It takes me some more times to do the research on my visited place but I think that with pictures and video clips, you can be closer to what I want to describe. You can give your comments on video clips I put in my posts to help me do it better.

If you still do not read part 1, you may find it here.

**ONE NIGHT @ DOI MAE SALONG**

(source: TRIPTHAILAND)

Doi (in Thai: ดอย) is a Northern Thai word means "Mountain". So, Doi Mae SaLong means Mt. Mae SaLong. Doi Mae Salong is located in "Mae Fa Luang" District, Northwest of Chiang Rai province. The area is around 950 - 1,200 metres above sea level.

The name Mae Fa Luang was given by Princess Mother Srinagarindra, who was commonly known as "Mae Fa Luang" (lit. Royal Mother from the sky) by the hill tribe people of the area.(source: Wikipedia)

The slogan of the District (in Thai) is "พระตำหนักดอยตุงล้ำค่า สมเด็จย่าเป็นมิ่งขวัญ เผ่าพันธุ์หลากหลาย มากมายชาดี งามสดสีซากุระบาน". I'm so bad at translating these kinds of slogan to English...so...help me if you can.

After the great Wat Rong Khun, I and my family drove to Doi Mae SaLong where we'd planned to spend our night there if our rented car can get to the village. The road was not so bad even though it was still in the rainy season. The weather there is very fresh and the cool wind is breezy. The Santi Khiri village was small and peaceful. Most people in the village are immigrated from China during the Chinese Civil War period. The area around here is very famous in the old day as a great opium field but nowaday, there's none. Thanks to the King's mom and many people that worked so hard in changing villagers' agricultural system. Since 1980s, the Thai government integrated the villagers into Thai society and as part of the process introduced a policy of substituting opium production for growing tea. Currently, the areas around here produce a very well known quality tea, e.g. Oolong tea, Green tea.

Thanks to "ezytrip" to provide beautiful pics since my pics on Doi Mae Salong is lost T.T

In the village, you can buy excellent Tea; Local and Chinese, Tea sets, Chinese candies and fruits. The food in the restaurants is also good, among them I love mushroom with oyster sauce (Thai: เห็ดหอมสดผัดซอยหอยนางรม) the most.

(source: hflight)

The weather was getting cold when dusk came. There I've learnt how to prepare a good tea and how to drink a good tea from a shop owner who was very kind and ready to instruct even you buy nothing from her. The warm tea helped me a lot from the cold weather. It made me warm enough for night-walk but we didn't go too far since it was dark very quickly. So, we desired to go to back to our rooms.

Tomorrow, after exploring the local morning market, we drove to the great "Doi Tung Royal Villa", it's not far from Doi Mae Salong and is still in the Mae Fa Luang District. However, it's very beautiful place where I want to dedicate one whole part for it. So, it's better to stop here...until the next part.

CHIANG MAI - CHIANG RAI 2005 Part 1

Hi all and welcome to this series of mine. It is my pleasure to share with you a trip in my own country. Let's start then...

**GETTING TO KNOW CHIANG MAI AND CHIANG RAI**

FIRST, CHIANGMAI;

source: http://www.chiangmai.go.th/)

Facts about Chiang Mai;
Country: Thailand
Government;
- Type: City municipality
- Mayor: Duaenduangtem Na Chiangmai
Area;
- City 40.216 km² (15.5 sq mi)
- Metro 529 km² (204.2 sq mi)
Population (2006);
- City 150,021
- Density 3,730/km² (9,660.7/sq mi)
- Metro 692,148
- Metro Density 1,308.41/km² (3,388.8/sq mi)
Time zone; Thailand (UTC+7)
(Statistics by WIKIPEDIA)

Sample of Chiang Mai by You Tube

From: InterMediaEnglish
Date added: October 15, 2006
Video description: Chiang Mai - March 2005. Thailand's 2nd largest city Chiang Mai is the most famous place to visit for real culture, enjoy elephant riding, bamboo riding, trekking and other sightseeing ares in this video of Chiang Mai, Thailand

NEXT, CHIANG RAI;

source: WIKIPEDIA

Facts about Chiang Rai;
Area: 11,678.4 km² Ranked 12th
Inhabitants: 1,129,701 (2000) Ranked 13th
Pop. density: 97 inh./km² Ranked 46th
Governor: Pricha Kamonlabut(since October 2007)
(Statistics by WIKIPEDIA)

Sample of Chiang Rai by YouTube

From: wsamran
Date added: October 07, 2007
Video description: Trip to Chang Rai

**General things on my Trip**

I went to this trip with my family, mom dad and my younger brother. We travelled north, to Chiang Mai by plane and then we drove to Chiang Rai and spent two nights there. After that we travelled back to Chiang Mai and had some visits before flying back to Bangkok. It was a very nice experience travelling like this, especially when you don't have enough days off. Travel by plane is not too expensive now, thanks to the low cost airlines for entering the market. We firstly decided to spent one night on each province but since we'd ever visited Chiang Mai before, we, then, spent our 2 nights at Chiang Rai. It was a very fruitful trip for me and I'm sure it will be for those who is going to go there, too.

**WAT RONG KHUN: A labor of love and devotion**

Wat Rong Khun (Thai: วัดร่องขุ่น) is a buddhist temple in Chiang Rai, was designed by Chalermchai Kositpipat. Construction began in 1998. Below is the virtual model created by a university student I found from YouTube;

from: vf750
Date added: September 09, 2006
Video description: Senior Project's Chiang Rai 3D Virtual Tour Trailer. Finally, the dean ask me to give him this project as an example for his next 5,000,000฿ CAI project.

“Only death can stop my dream, but cannot stop my project,” says Chalermchai Kositpipat, the creator of Wat Rong Khun whose intention is to create one of the most elegant temples in Chiang Rai, which he believes will give him “immortal life”.
The first 18 million baht and 5 years construction has only allowed 50% of the construction to be completed, but is enough to show anyone who visits Wat Rong Khun about Chalermchai and his followers’ faith in their religion and how much they have thrown themselves into this obligation as faithful Buddhists.
Wat Rong Khun is a white temple; inside it contains murals and paintings of the Buddha image and painted enamel ceramic floor that will take another 5 years to complete. The outside is being created with lime sculpture Thai designs decorated with small pieces of mirror that make the building sparkle and shine under the sunlight.
The impression of this temple is not only in its bright and splendid form but also the atmosphere it has. Even though the temple isn’t very far from the city, it is calm and peaceful even during the day.
It seems that the creator and his followers put all of their energies into creating this imaginative temple. Unlike many temples, Wat Rong Khun refuses to accept donations of more than 10,000 baht and the donors cannot have their names recorded on the buildings.
Chalermchai wants to create this Buddhist art for his beloved homeland and all human beings by donating all of his ability and his life to the Dharma. Nobody knows when he will pass on but he insists that all the money be used to continue the project and his followers are ready to do that.
The second building is a pagoda, which has just been started behind the wat. There are eight buildings in the grand plan including the wat, pagoda, hermitage, temple, crematorium, monastery hall, museum, and pavilion will be created on the temple’s 7 rai area.
Wat Rong Khun’s white color indicates the religious gracefulness that attracts pure hearts of Buddhist people or anyone from other nationalities to touch and feel the aesthetics.
(source: ChiangMaiMail)

Hmm, the story can tell you its history and passion of its builder, Ajarn Chalermchai. Some people believe that he is a greedy man who want to build a temple for his own will, reputation, and money. I'm quite object to this because I believe that a man building up a great temple which can be a landmark in the future deserves some great things back to him. Here are pictures and a clip of the temple at the time of my visit;

RECOMMEND: I believe Wat Rong Khun is 'a must' visit of Chiang Rai now. Don't forget to include this magnificent temple in your Chiang Rai trip.

I will end this part here since it's getting too long...see you in the next part!!!

HANOI 2005 Part 5

Here is the last part of this Vietnam trip of mine. Thank you for keep reading and waiting for it. If you're new to my blog or still don't read the former parts of this trip...they're here: part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.

**EXTREME SATURDAY @ HA LONG BAY**

Source: WIKIPEDIA

This picture can tell why I put the headline 'EXTREME'...Ha Long Bay (Vietnamese: Vịnh Hạ Long) is a UNESCO World Heritage site located in Quảng Ninh province, Vietnam. The bay features thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various sizes and shapes. The following is some hi-light information on Ha Long Bay from WIKIPEDIA;

The bay has a 120 kilometre long coastline and is approximately 1,553 square kilometres in size with 1969 isles. The area admitted by UNESCO as world's natural heritage is 434 km² with 775 isles of which the core zone is limited by 3 points: Đầu Gỗ island on the west, Ba Hầm lake on the south and Cống Tây island on the east, the protected area is from Cái Dăm petrol store to Quang Hanh commune, Cẩm Phả town and the hinterland zone around.
The bay is a sea islands in tropical wet with 2 seasons: hot and moist summer, dry and cold winter. Average temperature is from 15°C- 25°C. Annual rainfall is between 2000mm and 2200mm. Halong bay has the typical diurnal tide system (tide amplitude ranges from 3.5-4m). The salinity is from 31 to 34.5MT in dry season and lower in rainy season.
The bay consists of a dense cluster of 1,969 limestone monolithic islands, each topped with thick jungle vegetation, which rise spectacularly from the ocean. Several of the islands are hollow, with enormous caves. Hang Đầu Gỗ (Wooden stakes Cave) is the largest grotto in the Halong area. Its three large chambers contain large numerous stalactites and stalamites.
Some of the islands support floating villages of fishermen, who ply the shallow waters for 200 species of fish and 450 different kinds of mollusks. Many of the islands have acquired their names as a result of interpretation of their unusual shapes: such names include Voi Islet (elephant), Ga Choi Islet (fighting cock), and Mai Nha Islet (roof). 989 of the islands have been given names. Birds and animals including bantams, antelopes, monkeys, and iguanas also live on some of the islands.
The bay was World's Natural Heritage listed by UNESCO at the 18th meeting of the Committee of the World Heritages of UNESCO (in Phuket, Thailand on December 17th, 1994) for its outstanding universal aesthetic value according to the criteria (vii) explained in the Operational Guilined for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention. On December 2nd, 2000 at the 24th meeting of Committee of the World Heritages in Cairns city, Queensland state, Australia, Halong bay was admitted as World's Natural Heritage extensively for its outstanding universal geological and geomorphological value according to the criteria (viii) of that Convention.
Halong bay was introduced to nominate by New Open World Foundation as World's 7 Natural Wonder having result on 08/08/2008.

WOW!! that's amazing, isn't it? (I know, also amazingly long for readers who skipped read it ^_^) Being one of the World's 7 Natural Wonder is very terrific.

INFORMATION: For those who stayed in Hanoi and decided to visit Ha Long Bay as a one-day trip, it is possible to do so but be prepared for more than 10 hour trip start very early in the morning.

It is very kind for me, my colleagues, and for those who joined in this training that the host arranged the whole things for us. I'd like to express again my sincerely thanks to them again here.

My Saturday trip started at about 7 a.m. The kind host arranged 2 vans for bringing us from our hotel to Ha Long, a city located 160 km northeast of Hanoi. After sitting for 3 hours in the van, we reached Ha Long Bay just before 10 o'clock. We're at the harbour where I can't see much of famous long beach. It's windy. The air was fresh and not so hot.

After waiting for some minutes, our dear hosts led us to a boat. The pricing in 2005 was 120.000 VND per person (fare+lunch). The boat brought us straight to the core zone of this UNESCO World Heritage site.

After a while on the boat, we arrived at Hang Đầu Gỗ (Wooden stakes Cave) which is the largest cave in the Halong area. Its three large chambers contain large numerous stalactites and stalagmites.

stalactites = a column of rock that hangs from the roof of a cave and which is formed over a very long period of time by drops of water containing lime falling from the roof of the cave (in Thai: หินย้อย).
stalagmites = a column of rock which rises from the floor of a cave which is formed over a very long period of time by drops of water containing lime falling from the roof of the cave (in Thai: หินงอก).
(source: Cambridge Dictionary Online)

It's quite hard to stay long in the cave, even it's very big, because of breathe difficulty. I and my Thai colleagues finished the inside-the-cave walk 30 minutes before the promised time with the rest of the team. We, then, walked to another cave. There, I and Mr. Suteep walked quickly through that big cave...my stamina depleted (The last picture above is me running in the 'another' cave).

From the cave, our boat started again. This time it brought us around the core zone, let us looked at terrific scenes of Ha Long Bay. We also had our lunch, a yummy sea food lunch, in the boat.

Our trip ended where we started at almost 3 p.m. I was exhausted and slept all over my trip back to Hanoi. One good thing was that my flight was on Sunday so I didn't need to be hurried...

+++++++++++++++++++

YES!!! I've completed another series!!! If you ever wrote something and can finally ended it, you might know my feeling...If not, try one yourself now and post your link as comment here. I'll be your reader for sure ^_^

The next trip I'll write about is in my hometown, THAILAND!!! YAH!!!

Bye you all... 'Till next trip...