Taking a left turn

For our second day of adventure, we were going to go to the Golden Triangle and the Hall of Opium museum. We had heard that the tourism authority of Thailand had done an excellent job with the museum. Somehow we missed our turn, and we ended up in the border town of Mae Sai (at the Burmese border). Shopping at Mae Sai was on our list of things to do so we were ok with the change in plans. We shopped for 3 hours which was totally unusual for me. Usually I don't like shopping at Mae Sai...maybe because I associate it with the dreaded border runs we used to have to do every three months. This time we didn't cross the bridge, but this time the begging kids were on the Thai side also.

After we finished shopping and taking pictures (be sure and ask Rusty how many times the lady offered him fresh coffee) we got back in the truck. We turned down an interesting looking road and we were off on our adventure! Rusty picked a road that was near the border. I admit that it made me nervous as our visas do not allow us to leave the country without prior permission. Rusty told me it was impossible without crossing the border (which we found out later was incorrect). We were enjoying the views when we came upon a military checkpoint. The soldier said it was fine for us to continue on, but we still didn't know where we were going. We went through several more military checkpoints, and then we realized where we were. We were at an area where the king has built several places in honor of his mother. We stopped at a beautiful garden where Rusty talked to a very friendly gardener (he's in the pics). Did you know the stream of compassion in Thailand can be turned on and off? The gardener turned on the stream for Rusty to see (interesting thought about turning the compassion on and off...so glad God doesn't cut His off to us). He also showed Rusty Laos and Burma. Rusty had his own personal tour guide.

We left after about an hour because we weren't sure how long it would take to get back to Chiang Rai. We got back in time for a swim before dark and the bats came out. Rusty was ready to get out of the pool when the bats started diving. I must say I was ready to go too!