What is one love?
Was it ever yours or mine?
Has it been within our time?
Has it been just one great lie?

Lennon, Marley, Hendrix, whatever the suffix
they were referring to something but
was it only they? the greats who
were sensationalist enough to experience
the greatest feeling known?

No.

But what we're told and sold
is like that crappy bear that spoke
which you gave to a girl when 15.
The one you tore apart and re-recorded
when you realised that lust
can be misplaced or sordid.

We have love.

From the stranger the other side
of the planet, the pavement, the tree,
the car-pool, the old fool who knows
no better about who or what he is

but in some strange twist of life
you co-exist.

That is love.

It dies with your ability to accept or resist.

White Temple, Golden Triangle

After a relatively simple 3 hour trip to Chiang Rai we arrived at night and booked in - moving room a few times because of invading ant colonies we settled in and went out for dinner. It's an interesting place historically but now seems to have the feel of a post goldrush ghost.. This improved in the day time but overall it wasn't our kind of place. We visited a hilltribe museum which made for some interesting reading having met the Kayans before. We visited Suriwun tea shop to and sampled a few varieties and learnt a fair bit thanks to Meow - it was all grown at their farm only a few km away so we asked if she could help sort out our transfer to Chang Khong, visiting the farm, the White Temple and the so called Golden Triangle.

Next morning we set off from Chiang Rai with our driver Chai. First the White Temple - Wat Rong Khun - the Thai equivalent of the Segrada de Familia.. Aiming to be finished by 2070 it's an incredible building, eventually 9, and is very different from others around. With artistry put into every inch of the place and the artwork inside drawing on classic as well as very modern imagery (Harry Potter, mobile phones, Neo spacecraft, the WTC) it was beautiful whilst bizarre.. Moving on to the Suriwun tea farm, it was pretty cool to see. We were taken round the fields by Ning - Meows sister - where Akha tribesfolk did the picking, and then around the processing factory. Taking from 1-3 days to process after around 60 days growing this place puts out a fair bit. If you ever wondered about some of the process i've put a short video up, link at the bottom..
Next we headed way North to the 'Golden Triangle' so called as it was the heroine growing empire before the rises of Afghanistan and Mexico - and the US 'war on drugs' took its focus to the area it had helped create. The region is a crossroads between Laos, Burma / Myanmar and Thailand. It has since dramatically changed its agricultural outlook with government assistance - instead tobacco has taken the drugs place as a cash crop. We visited the Opium Museum there, taking in over 2000 years of trade routes, wars and troubles.. Fascinating stuff but it felt strange for a tourist area to have been made of what caused the focus on the land in the first place..
Around 6 or so months ago a 7.9 richter earthquake hit the area and its effects can be seen at the museum and especially at the next stop Wat Phrasing where the main Pacoda had lost its top 7m and was coated in scaffolding instead of grass.. It was interesting as in this town there were so many broken and worn old Wats that it seemed like a fairly natural process being undertaken.

After a long day travelling we arrived in Chiang Khong feeling much more at home than in Chiang Rai. After a small bit of confusion about which hotel we were staying at on the one street there, we settled and finally had a day to do nothing before catching the boat into Laos and down to Luang Prabang.. An early start friday was our only chance and even then we would be riding our luck..

Www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&hl=en_US&client=mv-google&v=qjwnSaxztpU