The Kok River runs through Chiang Rai from west to east before joining the Mekong further north. In town it is a pleasant place to walk in the early morning, when fishermen are out in long-tail boats and the mist sits on the water. The riverside path near the boat pier is one of the quieter spots in the city.
The more interesting use of the river is to travel upstream. Longtail boats run the 80km journey to Tha Ton, passing through a stretch of forested hills with Karen and Akha villages along the banks. The trip takes four to five hours upstream and considerably less coming down. This is not a tourist cruise but a genuine river journey, and the landscape along the way — jungle, rice fields, bamboo groves, occasional small settlements — is the closest most visitors get to feeling genuinely remote without leaving the province.