We also took a day trip to Lamphun, which I would recommend. It's only an hour's drive, but is totally off the tourist track. It's a separate province, amazingly little Thailand has almost 70 provinces, so it's easy to breeze through a bunch in a day if that turns you on. Lamphun actually predates Thailand, as it was the capital of the Mon kingdom. The Mons lived in Thailand before the Thai tribes moved down from China. The defeated Mons took off to the hills after the Thais moved in, and are still around today as one of the many colourful hill tribes in northern Thailand. (wow I sound just like a tourist brochure, this has got to stop). Lamphun became part of Lanna, and then ultimately Thailand (which as you all recall from the King and I was called Siam). These are two different temples from the Mon period, and as you can see are quite different from the typical Thai temple.

The next day we took the very short flight to Chiang Rai, the northernmost province in Thailand. This is probably as good a time as any to say that Thai Airways is awful. You can't really avoid them when flying domestically, and actually they're no worse than other domestic flights and Thailand is so small you're never stuck for more than an hour. But please avoid taking them long-distance. The food isn't bad, but the business class used to seat 8 across! That's worse than economy in most countries. They rarely have personal tv's and the main movie is always a cartoon. It constantly gets rated one of the best in Conde Nast Traveler surveys, but anyone over here knows that the poll is somehow rigged. Avoid.