February 23, 2015 (Chiang Rai, Thailand)

White Temple, Black House, Mountain Village with Tea Terraces- became Red Bull, Karen people, Long Neck Karens, Dinner along the Kok River 

The day started off with going to breakfast and getting right in the van for a big touring day with Mom, Kendall, Wanna, and A. We first drove next door to the magnificent White temple. The White Temple is one of the top 5 ranked temples in the world, and was also built over a time of 15 years! The temple was designed and painted by Rong Khoon. Rong Khong didn't just design and paint the temple but he also paid for the temple. He got his money from receiving a commission from the king. The king gave him a commission of contemporary art because most of the other painters were painting old style paintings. Anyways the White Temple had heaps of detail, it didn't just have art based on religion it also had contemporary art too.

Next we traveled over to the Black House on the way to the Tea farms and Chinese town. The Black House was the artist, Tawan Dutcha's home which includes many buildings filled with his antiques. Tawan Dutcha has many horns of animals as part of his antique collections. Tawan Dutcha died three months before we visited his old home. After Tawan Dutcha opened his house up to the public he moved out to another house nearby.

We had a pretty long drive to our next stop, the tea farm. The tea farm was sort of similar to the rice terraces. The tea farm had rows and rows of tea one over another up the mountain. This tea farm wasn't always a tea farm it used to be an Opium farm! Opium is a drug used to relieve pain but has addictive methods.

At the China town we didn't to do much but Mom shopped and we also saw a school that was getting out. The women did have interesting and colorful tribal headdresses on. 

Back down from the mountain and on the flatter land we stopped by a market and the Long Neck Karen’s! The long neck Karen’s is the tribe from Myanmar (Burma) who came to Thailand pretty recently. They get their names, the Long Neck Karen’s from there many rings around there neck not stretching there necks but pushing down their shoulders. Only the women have the long necks with brass rings pushing there shoulders down. Some of them had many rings around their neck particularly the older ladies. The young girls start putting rings on when they are around 5 or 6 and begin with 1 or 2 and add one every year until they decide not to keep stacking.

We ate dinner with insanely fast service then drove back to the hotel. We finished the night off with riding the rickshaw around the loop pulling and getting pulled by Kendall and Mom.