Chiang Rai

One painter has been building it since 1997 and it is not finished. Under the bridge to the hall lies a pit of hundreds of reaching hands. The bridge runs one way, so cross it in order. That gold building in the yard is the toilet, not a shrine.

The inside is painted indigo and drawn over in gold, darker in than out, with a white seated Buddha set in the middle against that blue. It falls between the white temple and the black house, so people take all three in one run, and it charges nothing.

Some forty blackened timber buildings stand round one yard, holding animal bones, hides and carved wood. It is neither a temple nor laid out as a gallery, and there is almost no labelling. One room has bones set out on a table, which not everyone wants to see.

The villa mixes a Swiss chalet with northern Thai carpentry, and you take your shoes off to go in. The garden below grew out of test plots for crops to replace opium, so flowers and coffee trees share it. Villa and garden are ticketed separately.

The Ruak runs into the Mekong here, and three countries meet along the middle of the water. From the terrace the Lao river island and the Burmese hills come at once. Boats stop briefly on that island, and a passport is checked before you step off.

The northernmost town on the Thai mainland, joined to Tachileik in Myanmar by a single bridge. The market at the crossing sells Burmese and Chinese goods side by side and haggling is expected, while the rules for crossing change often enough to check that day.

Nationalist soldiers pushed out of China settled here, so the signs are in Chinese and the speech is Yunnanese. Tea terraces step down the ridge and a memorial to the war dead stands above the village. Over 1,200 metres up, the morning fog is slow to lift.

This one has to be climbed before sunrise. It is a steep half hour up to the ridge from where you park, and from there you look down on cloud filling the Lao valley. That cloud forms from December to February; outside those months you see only the valley.

Old teak posts were gathered from many places and joined into one hall without a single nail. Northern woodwork and textiles are held together inside, and the grounds are wide enough to stay empty. Shoes come off, and one room bars cameras.

On Saturday evening Thanalai Road closes and the stalls go down. Hill villagers bring cloth they wove and silverwork they made, so it undercuts the shops in town. A stage mid-street runs dances from one group after another.

Tradition says the Emerald Buddha emerged here in 1434 from a chedi split by lightning. The original went to Bangkok's Grand Palace, and the hall now holds a newly carved jade image. The teak museum in the grounds is worth a look too.

A gilded clock tower by Chalermchai Kositpipat, the artist behind Wat Rong Khun, standing on the central roundabout. At 7pm, 8pm and 9pm a light show of about 10 minutes shifts its colours to music. From there the night bazaar is a short stroll.

A white Guanyin towers over a hill north of town beside a nine-tier Chinese pagoda. A lift inside the statue rises to windows in the head looking out over fields and river. The lift asks a separate donation.

A huge farm laid out by the beer company, with tea-covered hills and a lake. You loop it by hired bicycle or tram, and the animal zone sometimes offers giraffe feeding. In some years the cool dry season brings a flower festival or hot-air balloons.

A Lanna-era town on the Mekong that keeps its walls and moat. The brick chedis of Wat Pa Sak and Wat Phra That Chedi Luang rise among village houses. It lies about 10km south of the Golden Triangle, so the two share a trip.