The Kok river is a major tributary to the Mekong. It flows from Myanmar into Thailand before connecting with the Mekong near the golden triangle (where Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet and previously an opium growing area). We learned in our recent meetings that the Kok river is heavily polluted with heavy metals as a result of numerous gold and heavy metal mines in Myanmar that lack environmental controls. The boat trip from Tha Ton to Chiang Rai is written up in several guide books and online resources where it is noted that they sometimes stop running in low water months of the dry season from November through February. When we booked the boat no mention was made of shortening the trip due to low water, but when we arrived to start the trip, we were told that it “may” not be possible to navigate past a set of rapids and close to the end of the trip and in that case we be shuttled to the end by car. As it turned out, I think they knew with certainty that they wouldn’t go past the rapids because they pulled over and had us get out of the boat without even looking at the rapids.
None of the information I saw about the boat trip down the Kok River mentioned polluted water, which is not that surprising because the knowledge of pollution is only about a year old. Before traveling on the river I had heard that many people had stopped using the river for irrigation, fishing, and recreation, and that communities were hurting from the loss of river-related commerce. We were interested to see what traveling down the river would be like.
The morning started off very cloudy with the clouds starting to burn off just as we began our trip down the Kok River. I was cool for the first 45 minutes of the trip, but once the clouds burned off and it warmed up a bit, it was quite pleasant.
My general impression from the trip was that there was less activity than I would have expected (and certainly a lot less than I saw later in the trip on the larger Mekong River). There was noticeable digging and dredging activity near the beginning of the trip. I presume the dredging was for sand that was being used for construction though I’m don’t know this for certain. I don’t know whether the soils were being tested for heavy metals, but none of the few workers we saw wore any protective gear (whether for ears, eyes, or respiratory). There were crops growing along the banks of the river as we started the trip and there was some evidence of water being pumped out the river for irrigation. As the trip progressed and the river banks steepened agricultural use seemed to diminish. We saw a few other boats on the river, one looked to have a person with a fishing throw net, another seemed to transporting a few people up river. We saw three people with fishing lines in the water and two men who appeared to be walking across the river. These were the only two people we saw in the river and it surprised me because I had seen pictures of skin rashes that developed on people who had contact with the water.
Our boat ride ended about 18km from Chiang Rai due to rapids that we were told were too dangerous to pass and we were led to a pickup truck that drove us to the ending location. Other descriptions of the river trip mention stops at an elephant camp and a local village or two. I hadn’t heard great things about the elephant camp and wasn’t really looking forward to stopping, but it would have been nice to make the entire trip by boat.
We asked the driver if he would take us to our hotel, which was just a 10 minute drive from where he dropped us off, but language seemed difficult, he wasn’t the friendliest person and he refused. So we got out of his truck and arranged for a ride with Grab, Thailand’s version of Uber/Lyft/DoorDash/Instacart combined. It worked well and after just a short wait we rode to our hotel in an air conditioned car for $2.
After checking in to my room we met up with the rest of the group, had a late lunch and then explored a bit around town. We did not sample some of the more unusual items on the menu, though one person in our group said she wanted to try the Deep Fried Duck Bills!
After lunch, I durian for the first time. I think I lucked out a bit because the durian they were selling wasn’t quite ripe. As a result the aroma wasn’t as pungent as it could have been. I did get a few bites of fully ripe fruit and it wasn’t bad. It’s hard to describe, but seemed rich and custardy to me. I wasn’t able to finish everything I bought so had to throw the rest away. I wasn’t able to saveit for later, because the hotel did not permit durian to be brought into the rooms due to it’s pugnant odor.
Why no durians? What makes them unwelcome? Glad you made it to your hotel with only a little adaptions.
When ripe, durians are very smelly.
Jim, what an amazing time you are having. Thank you for sharing this adventure with us. It opens my eyes for sure! Stay safe!
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