Golden Moments at the Golden Triangle

A bit of silence lately, but back with the updates. Thailand is just full of beautiful sights, out of the way places, and new experiences to discover. We took a detour after Chiang Rai, and went over to Chiang Khong, then up the Mekong River to Chiang Saen and the Golden Triangle. Neither were on our original itinerary, but that’s the beauty of traveling, right? New cities, new countries and new adventures.

Chiang Khong was uneventful, and probably could have skipped it. But Chiang Saen was a wonderfully sleepy town on the Mekong. We really enjoyed our 2 days here. We opted to rent a motorbike and drive up to the Golden Triangle, which was worth it. Easy drive, and real pretty. Golden Triangle gets a bad rap by some travelers, but we liked it! Sure it’s touristy, and there’s stalls covering every inch of the main road, but it is what it is. We decided to do the boat ride over to Laos, and it was definitely the highlight of the trip. A leisurely ride through the waters of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos was exactly what we needed. Then a half hour stop at the port city of DonSao, Laos, which is literally a tourist stop. We took our Laos photos, and laughed at the lady with the passport stamp offering fake Laos stamps to travelers. We didn’t take her up on it. But we did buy postcards and send them to our family back in the States. From our half our in Laos. Then we took our boat ride back, and enjoyed the beginnings of sunset on the Mekong.

The rest of the Golden Triangle is almost as touristy, with about 10 signs noting the triangle, and a HUGE ship with a very large Buddha atop. We had fun taking our photos, drinking bags of chai yen [iced Thai milk tea], and just relaxing together.

We drove back to Chiang Saen, and enjoyed a beautiful dinner on the banks of the Mekong, and watched the sun disappear. It was an unexpected romantic stop on our otherwise busy travel route. It’s why I love traveling. The beauty, the romance, the unexpected that makes you stop and look around. These two days in Chiang Khong & Chiang Saen paused our whirlwind, and made us look at the world around us. It’s funny that we can forget to do that while traveling the world.