Word: chiangs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...roots had come two days earlier. Our passenger plane from Thailand dropped through a thick layer of cloud to reveal steep, wrinkled peaks flanking a jade patchwork of paddies. As we whizzed over the treetops to land outside the main town of Jinghong?or in Dai Lue, Chiang Rung, "the city of the dawn"?what looked like dozens of Pizza Huts peeped from the verdure. This was the unique architecture of the Dai?their signature, high-canted roofs perched atop thick teak pillars...
...Thai army platoon fanning out around the village of Wiang Haeng in northern Chiang Mai province was expecting a routine patrol. That overcast afternoon in late March, the soldiers were securing the area for a special visit by Thailand's Queen Sirikit. But along the Thai-Burmese border?where insurgents, smugglers and drug dealers hold sway?little can be taken for granted. Suddenly, the Thai troops were under fire. The enemy: a unit of the United Wa State Army, a tribal force from Burma. Allied with the government in Rangoon and notorious for its dominance of the narcotics trade...
SUNRISE SURPRISE As an antidote to the burgeoning commercial crassness of the Chiang Rai part of the Golden Triangle, take a drive to Phu Chi Fah, one of the most picturesque and unspoiled spots in Thailand. Its name means "mountain points to the sky," and when you arrive you'll realize why. A great finger of earth thrusts up from the Thai border, gesturing heavenward, while hundreds of meters below a seemingly endless valley fans out into Laos, where scattered black peaks sail on a billowing sea of low-lying cloud...
...best to get to Phu Chi Fah while it's still dark to appreciate the genuinely breathtaking sunrise. From Chiang Rai town it's about 130 km, which means leaving at 3 a.m. or thereabouts to get there by sunup. Count on a slow trip?at times the fog blanketing the road cuts visibility to a meter or two, making for an exhausting and eerie drive. From the parking lot, it's a 20-minute hike to the summit...
CULTURE CONTAINED Chiang Saen's National Museum is well worth a visit if history and archaeology hold some appeal for you. Established in 1957 near the crumbling majesty of Wat Chedi Luang, it contains a wealth of fascinating snippets about the Golden Triangle's bloody, tumultuous past. At its heyday in the 13th century, Chiang Saen was one of the most important cities in the Lanna kingdom; it boasts plenty of sites of archaeological significance, some dating to the prehistoric era. The museum has a fine collection of Buddha images, stone inscriptions and ceramics, as well as a section...