The adventure of Captain Thailand and team continued! After two nights in Chiang Mai, we commenced our day trip to Chiang Rai. The sky was still dark when we left Novotel and headed to McDonald's right on front of Tha Phae Gate. We had our breakfast there, then waited to be picked up.
The tour guide name was Gesara. In the van, she briefed us about our destinations and their origins. None of the main attractions is very old, apparently.
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| Visting the hot spring. |
The first stop was a short one. We were just there to admire the Mae Kachan hot spring. The big one was kind of cool, though. It kept spouting water to the sky, but I had no idea if it was natural or relying on a mechanical pump, hehe.
About one hour and 40 minutes later, we reached Wat Rong Khun, better known as the White Temple. Like I said earlier, the temple isn't from bygone era. It is new and the toilet, according to Cicilia, was easily the most decorated toilet she had even seen. The main temple is all white and very much ornamental. We were told that we could only go straight and we shouldn't turn back because the only way in heaven was forward. Inside the temple was a mural depicting popular characters such as Superman, Pikachu, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, etc. Ruling on top of them is, of course, the Buddha.
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| At the White Temple. |
We had a buffet lunch before resuming our journey. Next stop was the Blue Temple or Wat Rong Suea Tan. The newest among the three destinations of the day, this temple has a lot of gigantic statues as well as the 12 animals of Chinese zodiac. Inside the temple was a statue of Buddha. While we were at this temple, we got the impression that Chiang Rai was bloody hot.
After white and blue, the next color theme was black. It was a museum, though. The Black House, locally known as Baan Dam Museum, somehow reminded me of the traditional houses of Dayak or Minang ethnicity. The main building is filled with paintings and animal skins. There is a QR code next to each painting and scanning it would animate the object if you view it on your phone. There are also arts showing distorted male and female sex organs. It was a cultural thing. According to our tour guide, the northern part of Thailand used to be a kingdom called Lan Na and the people were naked then.
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| Queuing at Aroy Dee. |
That eventually concluded our tour. We headed back to the starting point: Tha Phae Gate in Chiang Mai. From there we walked to Aroy Dee. The Thai food here was cheap and good. I mean, we had stuff like omelette, green curry, tom yum, morning glory, chicken, coconut, smoothie and beer for five people and the bill was only THB 800! Highly recommended!
Then, as the day turned into our last night in Chiang Mai, we went to Rimping Supermarket at MAYA to buy some Thai flavored gift to bring back home. We saw some neon lights across the street when we first came here, so went to check it out this time. It was a happening place for beer and hangout, but after taking some pictures, we decided to go back to hotel instead. We still had one last agenda on the following day.
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| Visiting Doi Suthep. |
And the last destination was Doi Suthep. We started early in the morning, we climbed 320 steps and, after doing a quick round of temple visit, we went to the viewing spot for sunrise. The city of Chiang Mai was right beneath us, but it was cloudy and foggy, so the rising sun wasn't visible.
We returned to the hotel area for breakfast. There's this place called Black Gooseberry. Must be a popular eatery in Chiang Mai, because it was fully packed and we had to queue. And it didn't disappoint. The four colored custard, the charcoal toast, the noodles, all good! After breakfast, we walked to a post office nearby because, you know, we had a postcard tradition.
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| Even the logo has panda! |
It was still early in the morning when we were done with the errand, so we headed to Chiang Mai Zoo that was located near to our hotel. It has a panda on its logo and pretty every corner of it, so imagine our surprise the counter lady told us that the panda had died. She told us this right after I paid for the entrance tickets! It was so shocking and hilarious at the same time that we couldn't stop laughing for a while.
So we went in to a panda-less zoo. It was big, but not well-maintained. We had to walk a lot and some path was an uphill climbing. After we saw the Indian rhino and the peacocks, we decided that we had enough, then jumped into the tram and made our way to the exit.
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| Coffee break at Wawee Coffee. |
We returned to hotel and checked out, had our lunch at MAYA and were on our way to the airport. As it was still too early to check in, we had a coffee break. About two hours later, we were in the plane to Singapore. The touch down in Changi officially ended the reign of Captain Thailand. We took the last picture together and parted ways. All good things must come to an end, but they left behind a couple of memories that made us richer than before...
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| Back to Singapore! |
Kapten Thailand Di Chiang Rai
Petualangan Kapten Thailand dan tim berlanjut! Setelah dua malam di Chiang Mai, perjalanan pergi-pulang sehari ke Chiang Rai pun dimulai. Langit masih gelap ketika kita meninggalkan Novotel menuju ke McDonald's di depan Gerbang Tha Phae. Kita sarapan di sana sekaligus menunggu jemputan.
Pemandu kita bernama Gesara. Di dalam minibus, dia bercerita tentang asal-usul tempat-tempat yang akan kita kunjungi. Ternyata tak ada satu pun yang sudah berusia ratusan tahun. Semuanya masih tergolong baru.
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| Di sumber air panas Mae Kachan. |
Pemberhentian pertama hanyalah sekedar persinggahan sejenak. Kita mampir untuk melihat sumber air panas Mae Kachan. Yang besar sumurnya lumayan menarik karena airnya terus menyembur ke atas. Entah itu alami atau dibantu dengan pompa air, hehe.
Sekitar satu jam 40 menit kemudian, kita mencapai Wat Rong Khun yang juga dikenal dengan nama Kuil Putih. Seperti yang saya katakan tadi, kuil ini bukanlah peninggalan masa silam. Bangunan terlihat baru dan menurut Cicilia, ini toilet paling indah yang pernah ia lihat. Bangunan utamanya putih dan penuh ukiran. Menurut Gesara, kita hanya boleh berjalan lurus dan tidak boleh berbalik arah karena di surga hanya boleh terus berjalan ke depan. Di dalam kuil, lukisan di dinding menampilkan tokoh-tokoh seperti Superman, Pikachu, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley dan lain-lain. Di atas semua karakter itu Budha duduk bertahta.
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| Di Kuil Putih. |
Makan siang kita adalah menu prasmanan di seberang kuil. Setelah kenyang, kita lanjut ke Kuil Biru alias Wat Rong Suea Tan. Kuil ini adalah yang terbaru dari tiga bangunan kontemporer yang kita tuju. Selain banyak patung raksasa, terlihat juga patung 12 zodiak Cina. Di dalam kuil ada patung Budha. Selagi berada di sinilah kita mendapat kesan bahwa Chiang Rai sungguh panas.
Setelah putih dan biru, tema berikutnya berwarna hitam. Rumah Hitam bukanlah kuil, melainkan museum. Nama lokalnya adalah Baan Dam Museum. Bangunan utamanya mirip rumah khas Dayak atau Minang dan penuh dengan lukisan dan kulit hewan liar. Ada kode QR di samping tiap lukisan. Bila dipindai, lukisan tersebut terlihat seperti bergerak di layar telepon genggam. Selain itu ada banyak ukiran alat kelamin pria dan wanita juga. Pemandu kita bercerita bahwa ini adalah budaya Lan Na. Sebelum Thailand menjadi negara, bagian utara dulunya adalah kerajaan Lan Na dan penduduknya tidak berbusana.
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| Antri di Aroy Dee. |
Rumah Hitam menjadi penutup tur singkat ke Chiang Rai. Kita lantas kembali ke Gerbang Tha Phae di Chiang Mai. Dari sana kita berjalan ke Aroy Dee. Makanan Thai di sini murah dan lezat. Kita memesan telur dadar, kari hijau, tom yum, kangkung, ayam goreng, kelapa, bir, smoothie dan lain-lain, namun total biaya makan malam cuma THB 800 (sekitar IDR 350 ribu). Sungguh layak untuk direkomendasikan!
Seusai santap malam, kita belanja oleh-oleh di Supermarket Rimping yang berlokasi di dalam MAYA. Di malam pertama kita di Chiang Mai, kita sempat melihat cahaya neon di seberang jalan, jadi kita pun melihat ada apa gerangan di sana. Ternyata ini tempat minum dan kumpul. Setelah berfoto-foto, kita kembali ke hotel karena masih ada satu tempat tujuan lagi di keesokan harinya.
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| Mengunjungi Doi Suthep. |
Dan tempat yang hendak kita kunjungi di pagi hari adalah Doi Suthep. Setibanya di sana, kita mendaki 320 anak tangga. Setelah melihat kuil, kita pergi ke sudut bangunan dengan pemandangan mengarah ke lembah. Kota Chiang Mai tepat ada di bawah, tapi kondisinya berawan dan berkabut sehingga kita gagal menyaksikan matahari terbit.
Kembali ke kawasan hotel untuk sarapan pagi, kita makan di Black Gooseberry. Tempat ini sepertinya memang populer, sebab padat pengunjungnya, bahkan sampai harus antri. Dan makanannya tidak mengecewakan. Kastar empat warna, roti bakar hitam dan mienya memang enak. Sesudah sarapan, kita berjalan ke kantor pos karena mengirim kartu pos adalah tradisi liburan.
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| Bahkan logonya pun ada panda! |
Hari masih cukup pagi sewaktu urusan pos sudah beres. Karena masih ada waktu, kita putuskan untuk ke Kebun Binatang Chiang Mai yang terletak tidak jauh dari hotel. Kebun binatang ini memiliki panda di logo dan di hampir setiap sudutnya, jadi bayangkan betapa kagetnya kita saat penjual karcis mengabarkan bahwa pandanya sudah tiada. Yang lebih kocak lagi, kabar tersebut disampaikan pas uang dan karcis berpindah tangan. Semua kaget dan tergelitik di saat yang sama, sampai-sampai kita tergelak cukup lama.
Jadi kita pun masuk ke kebun binatang yang tidak berpanda. Tempatnya luas, tapi tidak begitu terawat. Kita berjalan mendaki karena tanjakan di sana-sini. Setelah melihat badak India dan merak, kita naik tram ke pintu keluar.
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| Ngopi di Wawee Coffee. |
Kita kembali ke Novotel untuk mengambil koper, makan siang di MAYA dan meluncur ke bandara. Karena masih ada waktu sejam, kita pun ngopi dulu. Dua jam kemudian, kita sudah mengudara menuju Singapura. Pendaratan di Changi pun mengakhiri liburan bersama Kapten Thailand. Kita berfoto untuk satu kali terakhir dan berpisah jalan. Hal yang baik memang harus ada akhirnya, namun semua ini menyisakan kenangan yang membuat kita sedikit lebih kaya dari sebelumnya...
