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Monday, January 21, 2008

Day 3 - Holiday To Mae Sot & Chiang Mai

Read Day 1, Day 2, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6

23 December 2007, Sunday

After breakfast, we headed towards Myanmar -Thai friendship bridge, Mae Sot town. Its a small town with very little happenings except for shopping. We went to the market just beside the border selling all kinds of good. I am not sure who are the frequent shoppers but there are a mix of Thai, Myanmar and electrical goods from China. If I am to guess, I would say that the Myanmar comes over the border to get goods which are not easily available in their own country. There were imported mushrooms from Japan and dried kiwi fruits from New Zealand too.

Thai-Myanmar friendship bridge

"No Man's Land"

At the border

On the other side of the market, there are a lot of goods from Myanmar. I can spot them because of their make up and Thai slang. They were selling seafood, huge life prawns and crabs. Dried seafood e.g. shrimp, anchovies and lots more.

Lots of crabs!

special make-up worn by the Myanmar women

Peeping over the makeshift divider, we can see 'No Man's Land'. Such a difference from Thailand... the poverty and lack. It was pretty sad, I must say.The shopping at Mae Sot market is excellent. The prices of clothes are at least B100-B150 cheaper than in Bangkok.

Good shopping

Some locally made clothes for export market

Wood carving seems to be popular and cheap

Chiang Mai, Thailand

By noon time we left towards Chiang Mai and arrived at 4pm to Baan Nam Ping Riverside Village. The resort is located in the "middle of nowhere", 30 mins from Chiang Mai town. Its a very cosy place, just beside the river. We purchased their rooms through the Travel Exhibition in Queen Sirikit. We often frequent those exhibitions to get good deals. Look at my online album to see pictures of the place.

After check-in, we went out hoping to go to the Night Bazaar but was distracted by the sign "Chiang Mai Night Safari". Yes, the famous Night Safari. So, we headed there. Due to my ability to speak a little bit of Thai, we paid the local rate B250 per adult and B150 per child. That was a 50% savings!


The building was very nice and impressive. It had a musical fountain which was simple and nice. Not as impressive as the one in Singapore but still nice. There are 2 tour routes, inclusive of English translation and that was very enjoyable. The animals looked very healthy and they boast the safari to be the "Most Beautiful Night Safari in the World". There are only 3 in the world - Singapore, China and Thailand. Quoting their website, "Chiang Mai Night Safari was established after Singapore Night Safari and China Night Safari Guangzhou. Chiang Mai Night Safari is 2 times larger than Singapore Night Safari and it is considered to be the most beautiful night safari in the world."

I particular enjoyed some of the jokes told by the guide on the 2nd route. He said, if you want to know the gender of the Zebra, you need to look at the bottom of its feet. If the stripes begins with white, then its a female. So, all of us busied ourselves counting the stripes. A few minutes later, he said that it was a joke not a fact. All of us broke into laughter at being fooled!!! That was a good one ;-).

The other comment he made about the hippopotamus.... Many women likes to go on diet eating vegetables and fruits hoping to loose weight, its not true. Just look at Mr Hippopotamus.

We didn't manage to get any photos for both of the safari route because we were not allowed to take photos. It might affect the animals. For more photos of the Chiang Mai Night Safari, visit my online album.



2 comments:

Paul said...

How did you get form Mae Sot to Chiang Mai??? Thanks!

The Seasonal One said...

Hi Paul,
Thanks for dropping by my blog.

We drove. Its was about 4-5 hrs with a few toilet stops.