Chiang Saen,

[MP5]

Could some one please give me a run down on Chiang Saen?

Are there any expats there?

Thanks!

[alleykat]

Not anymore, I left about 6 months ago! Ha ha!

No seriously, I was living up there for about 3 months last year, worked in the Golden Triangle village, Sob Ruak.

I never encountered any other farangs living there, though I did hear there were one or two.

I found it a very depressing place. A bit too far from Chiang Rai also.

[Thetyim]

Chiang Saen used to be a sleepy, 2 horse town on the riverside with nothing going on.

I was surprised at how much it had changed last time I went there.

The new riverport has made it a busier place and there is a fair bit of new building going on.

There still isn't much there but it is changing.

[Limbo]

Not anymore, I left about 6 months ago! Ha ha!

I never encountered any other farangs living there, though I did hear there were one or two.

I found it a very depressing place. A bit too far from Chiang Rai also.

Thanks Alleycat, I was just as curious as MP5 to hear something about it.

I knew a nice Belgian gentleman who was living there. He was working as a volunteer teacher at a local school. Didn't see him for at least two years.

I once went there by bicycle from Chiang Rai, arrived at four o'clock in the afternoon and asked myself 'what am I doing here?' (the food is excellent; In the evening the foodstalls along the river open and the specialty is fish cooked with herbs in bamboo pipes)

Then I biked on to Ban Sob Rak and thought no, this isn't the place to spend the night.

I biked back to Chiang Saen, could hardly make it to the nearest soupstall after 105 kilometers, had my soup and fell in coma in the excellent guesthouse in the street opposite the museum.

The harbour with the many Chinese ships talks to the fantasy. The old ruins (ok, what is old? 700 years? As a European who for many years made holidays on Crete, where you bump on remains of the Minoan epoque of 5,000 ears ago in almost every village you are not really impressed) get every year one year older. The museum is charming.

Just a couple of days somebody told me that Chiang Saen is the 'secret tip' of the moment.

He didn't elaborate.

I will soon go and have a look what he meant and report back.

Limbo.

[MP5]

Thankyou

My wife is from Chang Rai and wants us to go back me I'm keen for the new old if you know what I mean.

I can see potential here already!!

Again thanks

[kayo]

The only time I was there was in 2000. At the time, I arrived, checked into a pleasant, yet farily run down guest house. The lady ran it, (about two blocks back from the river) was pleasant, and minded her own business, and in the garden behind her house were 8 or 10 rooms. I was the only person there with a norwegian traveller guy I had met. We walked around town for a bit and then decided to just stock up on 7-11 whisky and pringles and kick back with my guitar in the guest house.

At some point this indian english guy entered, "hello lads, is there anything going on in this ghost town?"

To which we replied, "go back out, get some more whisky, and come to the best place in town..."

A sort of Forerunner to Baan Kayo, chai mai?

Otherwise, pleasant enough, for peace and quite. It was fun watching the loading, unloading of supplies from the river boats.

I think I have still, an old text I wrote back then.... Hold on...

here it is... Short, and well, short...

The following day Norway and I said a sad goodbye to our new found friends, and made our way to a ghost town called Chiang Saen. After spending over an hour trying desperately to find something worth seeing doing, we decided to return to my guitar in the little abandoned guest house, and had decided to make our own little party, when a London City man, also abandoned in this (frankly rather shit) place, who'd heard the music, thought it a good idea to join us "hardcore travelers".... Needless to say, he'd stocked up on rice whisky....