3 Best Sights in Northern Thailand, Thailand

For $30 (B984) you can get a three-night visa that lets you travel 63 km (39 miles) north to Kengtung, a quaint Burmese town with colonial-era structures built by the British alongside old Buddhist temples.

Visit this remote mountain village northwest of Chiang Rai, and you could be excused for believing you'd strayed over a couple of borders and into China. The one-street hamlet—the mountainside leaves no room for further expansion—is the home of the descendants of Chinese Nationalist troops who arrived here in the 1960s after spending a dozen or so years in Burma following the Communists' ascension to power in China. The settlers established orchards and tea and coffee plantations that now drape the mountainsides; in December and January, visitors crowd the slopes to admire the cherry blossoms and swaths of sunflowers. Call at any of the numerous tea shops for a pot of refreshing oolong. A local bus service runs from Chiang Rai to Mae Salong (the village's official, Thai, name is Santikhiri), and most Chiang Rai travel agents offer day tours for about B3,000.

Foreigners may cross the river to visit Tachileik on a one-day visa ($10, B328) obtainable at the Burmese immigration office at the bridge. The town is a smaller version of Mae Sai, but with a vast tax-free emporium, a busy market, and three casinos packed with Thai gamblers.