BLOWN AWAY in CHIANG RAI Province Best Reason To Visit Thailand 2021
hello welcome back to the beautiful misty mountains of northern thailand specifically in the province of chiang rai we're in chiang rai the northernmost province and today we're going for a drive and we're just going to be getting our first impressions of this province we've come to the very tippity tip of the north of the province and look at this place we have just witnessed some incredible scenes i'll show you around get ready for a real slice of northern thailand and a real adventure today welcome to shanghai all right me and dreamy are about to leave the hotel and i just want to show you something really cool before we head on the road we've got about an hour's drive to go to the um first location for today in chiang rai but i forgot my helmet i left my helmet at the motorbike shop so just opposite my little hotel here there's like a whole array of honda garage shops there's a cub house there's a honda big wing they have a mechanical shop and there's even a third shop in the distance here let me just show you some of the bikes that we're in here so in here this is the cub house this is where they sell these really nice 2021 honda super cubs they also have the honda monkeys which are really cool bikes and inside is a coffee shop and they have some really nice models man and it's incredible and different colors different colorways they also have the honda ct5 the ct125 the the trail which is a dream bike of mine here's my helmet thank you carbon cat thanks thanks a lot cheers these guys have uh replaced dreams oil for me they also gave the chain a little bit of a lube up yeah down here as well they have one of my favorite bikes the honda what's it called adv 150 and so yeah just opposite my little uh hotel there's like a honda dreamer dealer wet dream area like you come on there's no better bike than this one is there let's be honest what do you guys think of the new ones um i am tempted once we finish this the provinces to put dreamy in a comfortable retirement home somewhere where she can uh see out her days and not have to carry me and all my crap around the entire country but yeah we've got about an hour's drive north so let's head up and enjoy the ride there is a very grotesque looking city on the other side of this river i'm just going to park up here and buy the drone and also check on my phone because that is either myanmar or laos so let me just get the google maps out here let's see what's going on to the right here is a town in the country of laos okay the miyakong this big wide river this is a major river here obviously goes all the way through laos and thailand border down to cambodia and out through the delta in vietnam and this is an immense and immense river but yeah that city across there that is laos home to one of the most draconian crazy lockdowns i'm following a few youtube channels that are living in laos and they have been stuck there for over a year bless them and they are struggling they really want to get out of there and um life is very different on the other side of this river let me just say that and i must say i'm glad to just be on the on this side of the water because over there some crazy lockdowns you know thailand we have incredible infrastructure the roads are amazing the railways are amazing the hospitals the healthcare is amazing and over there well it's like going back in time wow this is beautiful here we are at the golden triangle almost at the very very top of thailand not quite just another 20 kilometers north or so and i have to say it's a little bit uh underwhelming because myanmar the incredible beautiful country full of rich culture and delicious food and i've had a great time whenever i've traveled there is represented just poorly by this little bit of a green outcrop that's um that's myanmar technically so there's a little bit of a river break up thing going on and so those trees and bushes and dirty muddy area that's myanmar and then across the way keep going you can see laos and they have a lot of chinese writing there seems to be some sort of hotel complex and absolutely no cars nobody there not even a motorbike i can i can see nobody working the boats and yet here in thailand you know there's shops and there's people here and um souvenirs and people buying coffees and it's all kicking off over here and that giant city we saw earlier in lao ghost town across the river here ghost town and meanwhile meemaw you might be lucky to see a buffalo or something so anyway you know steeped in history you know this is the the area where most of the drugs and the heroin used to get smuggled in i mean how easy would it have been you know you could literally throw a stone from lao into minmah and jump over to laos so really difficult to police and famous for being the entry point an exit point for a lot of heroin the golden triangle where three countries meet at a muddy junction of the mekong and uh it's interesting though so this is amazing i've never seen anything like this before these gold pillars with all sorts of imagery on there buddhism and military might and we have a an old king here i'm not sure which king this is i'm sorry there's nothing here in english at all not a single sign but one of the old g's you know these border towns are a good way to flex your military might in your military past and from what i can see thailand on this border anyway seems to be showing off with their gold and their might and their elephants interesting we're going to get back on the road we're going to head towards the um really super uh famous cave in chiang rai it's about a 45 minute drive through the mountains and it's the scene of one of the most incredible stories in thailand's recent history involving a group of boys i think you know what we're gonna talk about but let's get there first and we'll learn hopefully a lot more because it's basically just opened you can now visit the cave and learn a lot more about the scene of one of the most incredible rescue stories in humankind i reckon i can't think of a more amazing story but yeah let's get on the road and head towards the beautiful cave i just seen something crazy this is a five-star hotel they probably won't let me in but are you ready look at this little fella all covered in mud wow this is at the anatara five-star resort please don't come over here i don't have any food wow he's like you can't afford to be here get out um yeah i just as i was driving past i just saw the elephant walk past the entrance um yeah you can stay in this hotel and then the elephants come to your room and they feed outside it's not very natural um and i didn't really feel like paying 700 to you know encourage elephants to be at work in a hotel um but seeing one just walk by like that that was quite an interesting experience i am petrified of elephants i must admit but anyway just wanted to show you thailand is obsessed absolutely obsessed with um instagram cafes you know places what they build so that people can come and take lovely little photographs and be like oh so cute hi sally cow yeah yes just just i wanna ice cream and i wanna walk around yes ice cream two thousand that's expensive do you mean 200 sangroi 20. okay see that was good bartering i got it down from 2 000. how did they get the water like that color wow cute little hearts with a little netting and then look at the color of this water i'm not color correcting this in any crazy way this is this is how it looks oh there's fish in there as well so it's obviously natural otherwise the fish would be dead if it was all chlorine right nice spot for an ice cream hashtag ice cream for life let's do another one from this angle and they've got fake cactus here and stuff i don't understand let's go wide no that's not let's come back a little bit boom oh my gosh guys i'm just so good at taking instagrams can you see all the fish i think they must put dye in the water i've never seen water this color in my entire life have you have you ever seen water like this and there's a pink windmill for some reason i'm not quite sure what the theme of this place is oh my god this chocolate ice cream is incredible it's got like coffee beans now is this the source of the collar look at this they seem to be treating the water here and then it gets pumped into the pond we must be getting close because we're up towards this amazing mountain range look at this let's get past this truck noisy trucks yeah um this very imposing rock formation i think the cave is somewhere amongst there isn't that something else looks like i have to park up is that ready cam ticket how much is it sit back okay so it looks like we're gonna have to get on a little bus and do a tall kind of thing which will be nice wait for me how long how how long for the next one yeah about three minutes yeah three minutes three minutes remember like i mean signature oh that was lucky i just missed a bus full of people and i thought i'm gonna have to wait for another one to get full but we're just leaving straight away private bus for the phalang i don't know where everybody is because uh ah this is the cave i recognize this from the telly oh there's loads of people here let me put my mask on okay so at the entrance of the of the cave i actually feel amazing because i recognize do you remember these images of the people coming to rescue them but not only the thing that i remember the most is this railing i remember this railing because the boys they eerily you know parked up their bicycles and they left their bicycles here and they just went into the cave and obviously didn't come out for a long long time and what's amazing is obviously they have some photographs of the people here trying to rescue their kids and then over here just at the entrance they have all of the artifacts from the rescue you have you know divers equipment rescues equipment netting lighting equipment and shovels and things to help dig them out and walkie-talkies and radio material and pumps to get all the water out scuba diving equipment obviously and here's the boys stuff look if they've even got their muddy shoes and the bikes that they left at the entrance before they got lost and trapped in there and they've got the football kits on and their football bags even their football boots this is so cool because you know we're this is the location of the most recent incredible story and all of the artifacts are still are here and this will go down in history for hundreds of years this will be a major tourism attraction in in 10 years and 20 years and for hundreds of years i hope and they've just opened this a couple of days ago and they've got lights and there seems to be more information so let's go down let's hope it doesn't flood wow i know you're not going to be able to see me very well but uh this is really tastefully done the lighting and the staircases and the railings if you've been following this journey for a while you'll know we've been in some crazy caves with no lights giant insects and bats flying everywhere but this seems to be really well done like i said and um now the one thing that i'm a little bit upset about is we have these signs that tell you information about how far in we are and what this area was used for and obviously how it was formed it's all in thai there's a really cool image here that seems to show you how the water leaks down and creates the pores during the rainstorms i mean to be fair look behind me here just look at that it's amazing isn't it the way the light comes through but yeah so far i don't think i'm getting much information i mean how far down did they go okay it's really really dark in here but um the the unfortunate thing is i think for health and safety reasons they've learned their lesson and when it is raining or has just been raining or is potentially going to rain they close off the deeper sections there is like a little rope uh so we can't go super far deep down to where the flooded caverns were um because like i said it could rain and flood again and they would then the last thing they need is to save a youtuber okay because nobody's gonna come for me they'll be like let him die he's an idiot i'm just kidding obviously we don't want loads of thai people and tourists getting trapped in here again however it's really really cool here i really recommend you come even if you can't go all the way down and learn more the scene of all of the mayhem and the the memories that i have especially when you know i was teaching at the time in chiang mai province one province south from here and i remember every morning we couldn't start the day without talking about it and trying to console our students who are dead worried for the kids and trying to say you know it's day nine now it's day ten and back in the mind you're thinking there's no chance they've survived like how have they got food how they got water surely they're just going to find them and couldn't believe it when they got rescued and they were like oh yeah you're right yeah yeah yeah we're fine um i'm quite hungry and uh and then obviously within a couple of days they were all out the cave and they do have some relics and some you know flowers and statues in memory of the people who died trying to rescue them bless them um and like i said the whole thing's done really well prepare to sweat and mind your fitting because it's wet and slippy but otherwise fantastic oh so that was awesome however as you can hear there's a mad storm just coming and it's coming this way which is kind of the direction i want to go into but i've looked on google maps and these beautiful mountains if we loop around these mountains you can hear it right if we loop around these mountains there's quite a few places to get food and coffee i don't really want to drive into that and i'm hoping that if we go up and around these mountains maybe the storm will get caught up up into the mountains and won't be able to get up and over because i don't really fancy driving in a lightning storm and i'm hungry we haven't eaten since breakfast come on let's get back on the road i swear to god google you are gonna get knocked out she always ruins the moment i'll be saying something epic and then she'd be like turn left shush okay ready look at this view in 400 meters shush lady look at that incredible absolutely beautiful fuel yes i really don't want to get stuck in these mountains with no fuel and we're running low 70 or 80 baht will fill me up and you just make sure that that's in there and then you just press the green button oh it plays music this is the best gas station ever 75 baht oh we got some more time let's get down get down and dirty that was the best night out i've had in a long time i mean it's narrow and i'm worried that cars are going to come driving around the corner but it is something else this road is unbelievable oh my god i'm just i've just seen a village that looks like it's on the on the edge of a cliff in the distance i mean what this part of the world is just absolutely unbelievable and now we're in the pine trees and the sun's going down and there's oh the afternoon rays are just oh i mean thailand thailand how it this isn't fair you can't have tropical beaches corals amazing wildlife whales whale sharks sharks incredible ocean limestone formations and and have all the mountains and the city of bangkok and all the history and temples and ancient wisdom and buddhism and teachings and oh it's rolling green hills and bears and 7-elevens how can you have all of this it's not fair oh mama oh this is steve oh jesus are we in heaven is this heaven oranges and mint this will be the last view before i give up officially because i'm so hungry oh my god okay so um this is the name of this village everything's written in thai here's the map and i'm just trying to figure out where i am but uh i'm not quite sure what to make of it but it just it it all looks equally incredible there's a little v-shape a little valley and i think the storm is spilling into the valley have a look at this it looks like any water sauce and then look at that and just like that we have now been surrounded by the storm it's just spilled into the valley look you can i mean look let me just in real time without slope you know without speeding it up look if i zoom in just look at the speed of these clouds you know they're moving and now they're coming into these roofs where we are you see that see how fast it's moving here it comes welcome to china wow and the view is gone now the view's gone finally find a little place to get some food i'm freezing this place says it's a wine bar talk about a wine bar with a view oh chop the cap tastes good just gonna have the one because we've got to drive back down after this but um yes it's half past five the sun's going behind we're gonna lose light i'll definitely be getting back to chiang rai in the dark but i hope you've enjoyed this video i've ordered some pad kapalmu and i'm gonna have a cheeky little beer enjoy some food and just soak up this incredible view it was quite the fun drive highlights include this exact moment right now and um dancing at the gas station that was so much fun anyway we're going to delve more into this province in the next video i'm going to aim for um the other mountains where they grow better or more coffee trying to find a really scenic coffee area we're also gonna look at some of the classic places here like the white temple and other areas it's a big province with lots to discover so if you're new subscribe go check out the other videos from all the other provinces so far and if you don't mind i'm gonna have dinner have a quiet beer and soak in this incredible view before i have to go back in the dark ciao you
2021-10-28 16:55
