We arrived in Chiang Mai on our “private jet” and quickly got back into the Thai way of life. We stayed here for five days to visit the town, the various bazaars and shopping centres as some clothes shopping was in order and to celebrate my birthday.
We arrived on a Sunday which was lucky as we were able to go to the Sunday Walking Street Night Bazaar. Basically the main roads in the Old city are closed off and all the usual hawkers selling everything and anything lined up their stalls. It seems that most of the town turns up and it was very busy with locals and tourists. We didn’t buy anything save some street food but we did bump into Ismail and Holly (we’d met in Myanmar) again as we thought we would.
The next couple of days were spent shopping and seeing some of the amazing temples of Chiang Mai, the nights were spent at the Night Bazaar as the food is cheap and tasty, we also enjoyed an amazing frozen desert (a rolled ice cream) made from whatever ice cream flavour and toppings you wanted, really delicious. If you’re interested, someone has uploaded a video so you can see how it is made (sorry about the abysmal singing in the background) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjgGlTCobPs
The next day was my birthday, so I decided we would eat some French delights from a Patisserie that had just recently been opened by a real French Patissier with 40 years experience, he was an ex-pat or I guess not (sorry couldn’t resist the bad pun) who’d opened up other businesses in SE Asia, including one in Hanoi so we look forward to going to that one when we get there:-). The Mille-feuille and Tarte aux Fraises were perfect, if we didn’t know any better, we would have thought we were in France.
Next we went to the Illusion Art (or 3D) museum. What a silly place this was, we had great fun posing with the art to make our own photos. That night, we enjoyed some nice cocktails etc. not only to celebrate my birthday but also 14 years together. It was a fun night and we also had a dance. The next day wasn’t quite as much fun as we were a little hungover, we are not used to drinking cocktails anymore!
With Songkran (Thai New Year) just days away, we wanted to get out of Chiang Mai as it is notorious for being where the madness happens (basically a huge water fight) which sounds like fun for 1 day but can be overwhelming for 3 or 4 days, so we moved on to Pai.
After a 3 hour journey in a minivan up the mountain and back down again in and out of 700+ curves and chicanes, we arrived in Pai. Somehow managed to not vomit on the way which was a minor miracle.
Pai was great, we really enjoyed our time here, so much so the initial 5 days we had planned to stay there turned into 11. It wasn’t so much that there was so much to do and see but just a really nice place to relax. We stayed in a cute little hut that also came with a hammock. The hut was set in this lovely garden area which was in a peaceful location and gave us some nice mountain views. During our time here, we hired some Scooters for the first time in our trip which was really essential as the various sites to see where quite far away from this little town. We visited a WWII memorial bridge, a canyon, some waterfalls (although being the dry season these were somewhat underwhelming). We also went up to some awesome viewpoints and even spent one day fishing at a catch and release lake (I caught two but Wend and Ludwig let theirs get away).
We met a really nice couple from the UK, Tom and Sam, on their way to Australia to work via Thailand and Cambodia and spent many days with them. We met lots of other people that we would stop and chat to everyday, it wasn’t difficult to start becoming one of the locals after a few days as it is quite a small place.
Of course we did get caught up in the New Year festivities and spent one day with our water guns being big kids and having a great water fight. The locals didn’t really use pistols, moreover they threw buckets of water. After walking around Pai and getting soaked through in about 5 minutes we set up camp with some locals and basically soaked passers by. Pai has become a very popular tourist place not only with backpackers but with the Chinese in recent years so being stationed quite near to the bus station as we were, we had plenty of dry tourists to ambush, such fun! In addition, the locals would drive around in the town in their pick-up trucks with a truck full of kids and adults alike chucking water at anyone. It really was a silly day and we laughed like kids all day long.
One of the main reasons we decided to stay longer was an upcoming music festival that we thought would be great to go to. There wasn’t anyone famous playing (we think) as most of the bands were Thai playing western rock covers and some playing reggae covers but they were good. The setting was really nice, next to a lake with mountain views and of course we met some really nice people at the festival and drunk far to much Chang than is good for us, we would pay for that the following day…
We finally left Pai behind and headed to Soppong for a couple of days to visit the Tam Lod Cave.
Soppong was only one hour up the road so as soon as we arrived and checked into a hut at Cave Lodge Guest House we went off to see the cave which had some impressive stalactites and stalagmites and we also took a boat (a bamboo raft really) through the cave and that was pretty cool.
We went back home which was only 10 mins around the corner from the cave for an hour or so but then returned for sunset to see the swifts coming in for the night. Wow what a sight, thousands and thousands of them flying back in, apparently there are as many as half a million. We had also expected to see lots of bats coming out for the night but I think we only saw about 3 of those…!
When we arrived at Cave Lodge we didn’t know what to expect, we thought we were just going to visit the cave and that would be it, we weren’t aware of the activities they offered. So, much to our surprise and delight, we booked in to a 3 cave trek for the following day which was described as “adventurous”.
Well adventurous is certainly the word, we set off in a group of 6, a canadian couple, two american girls and us along with our guide, Mr Wat at around 9.30 and trekked to the first cave. We put our helmets and head torches on and went into the darkness, walking or crouching low through the cave trying not to slip or put our hands on bat shit, there were some interesting fossilised sea shells and the usual stalactites and stalagmites. It really was so dark in there and to prove the point, Wat asked us to turn our lights off for 2 minutes and we sat in the dark, it was a little eerie but not too much so, there was absolutely no light at all for our eyes to pick up.
We then trekked to the second cave where Wat got changed into shorts only, this obviously meant we were going to get wet in this second cave, called the waterfall cave and so we did. So again, helmets and head torches on and in we went, this cave was so tight and low we had to crawl through water on our hands and knees even on our bellies to get through it at times. It was so low we may as well have been potholing. The waterfall at the end was impressive enough but the “potholing” experience was the most fun.
We stopped for lunch for an hour or so and attempted to dry off our boots a little which was pretty futile! After lunch we then hiked to the third cave, it took us around an hour or so and in the heat of the day with quite a few ups and downs, it reminded us of Nepal again.
We put our helmets and head torches on one last time and entered the third cave, we descended about 50 metres or so into this one but once in this was much easier to move around, no crawling this time. This was like a small version of the Tam Lod Cave we had seen the day before but perhaps more beautiful as it was very white, it was called the Christmas cave but Santa must have been out as he was nowhere to be seen.
Our last cave visited, we trekked back home for well needed showers and rest, What a day and great fun, we were so happy to have done it, neither of us have never done anything like this before.
After nearly two weeks in the mountains of Mae Hong Son province, we headed back to Chiang Mai for a couple of days so as to make our way to Sukhothai. We checked into a little cheap hotel and got upgraded to the best room in the place (always nice) which served to get our legs back into life after having used muscles we haven’t used for ages during our caving day. It was nice to have a duvet day and watch movies for a change.
We took a 6 hour bus journey and checked in to another nice hut just outside the old city of Sukhothai, this time with aircon (much needed as very humid here) so we could explore the old temple ruins.
We were the only people in our “resort” as it is now the off season so got offered a free upgrade to the deluxe bungalow. I do like an upgrade especially two in three days!
For the next couple of days, we hired bikes and cycled around the old city to visit the ruined temples. These are some of the most impressive ruins in Thailand and really worth seeing, they are set in a beautiful park with lakes and many old trees, it’s a very serene atmosphere especially now as not many tourists are about so you almost get the place to yourself.
After the excitement of the two weeks before and meeting lots of new people, it was nice to have some time just to ourselves.
Well we’re off to Laos now, It’s going to be three or four buses probably around 12 hours or so of journey to make our way to the border crossing at Nong Khai so we can make our way to Vientiane.
Chiang Mai
We arrived on a Sunday which was lucky as we were able to go to the Sunday Walking Street Night Bazaar. Basically the main roads in the Old city are closed off and all the usual hawkers selling everything and anything lined up their stalls. It seems that most of the town turns up and it was very busy with locals and tourists. We didn’t buy anything save some street food but we did bump into Ismail and Holly (we’d met in Myanmar) again as we thought we would.
The next couple of days were spent shopping and seeing some of the amazing temples of Chiang Mai, the nights were spent at the Night Bazaar as the food is cheap and tasty, we also enjoyed an amazing frozen desert (a rolled ice cream) made from whatever ice cream flavour and toppings you wanted, really delicious. If you’re interested, someone has uploaded a video so you can see how it is made (sorry about the abysmal singing in the background) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjgGlTCobPs
The next day was my birthday, so I decided we would eat some French delights from a Patisserie that had just recently been opened by a real French Patissier with 40 years experience, he was an ex-pat or I guess not (sorry couldn’t resist the bad pun) who’d opened up other businesses in SE Asia, including one in Hanoi so we look forward to going to that one when we get there:-). The Mille-feuille and Tarte aux Fraises were perfect, if we didn’t know any better, we would have thought we were in France.
Next we went to the Illusion Art (or 3D) museum. What a silly place this was, we had great fun posing with the art to make our own photos. That night, we enjoyed some nice cocktails etc. not only to celebrate my birthday but also 14 years together. It was a fun night and we also had a dance. The next day wasn’t quite as much fun as we were a little hungover, we are not used to drinking cocktails anymore!
With Songkran (Thai New Year) just days away, we wanted to get out of Chiang Mai as it is notorious for being where the madness happens (basically a huge water fight) which sounds like fun for 1 day but can be overwhelming for 3 or 4 days, so we moved on to Pai.
After a 3 hour journey in a minivan up the mountain and back down again in and out of 700+ curves and chicanes, we arrived in Pai. Somehow managed to not vomit on the way which was a minor miracle.
Pai was great, we really enjoyed our time here, so much so the initial 5 days we had planned to stay there turned into 11. It wasn’t so much that there was so much to do and see but just a really nice place to relax. We stayed in a cute little hut that also came with a hammock. The hut was set in this lovely garden area which was in a peaceful location and gave us some nice mountain views. During our time here, we hired some Scooters for the first time in our trip which was really essential as the various sites to see where quite far away from this little town. We visited a WWII memorial bridge, a canyon, some waterfalls (although being the dry season these were somewhat underwhelming). We also went up to some awesome viewpoints and even spent one day fishing at a catch and release lake (I caught two but Wend and Ludwig let theirs get away).
We met a really nice couple from the UK, Tom and Sam, on their way to Australia to work via Thailand and Cambodia and spent many days with them. We met lots of other people that we would stop and chat to everyday, it wasn’t difficult to start becoming one of the locals after a few days as it is quite a small place.
Of course we did get caught up in the New Year festivities and spent one day with our water guns being big kids and having a great water fight. The locals didn’t really use pistols, moreover they threw buckets of water. After walking around Pai and getting soaked through in about 5 minutes we set up camp with some locals and basically soaked passers by. Pai has become a very popular tourist place not only with backpackers but with the Chinese in recent years so being stationed quite near to the bus station as we were, we had plenty of dry tourists to ambush, such fun! In addition, the locals would drive around in the town in their pick-up trucks with a truck full of kids and adults alike chucking water at anyone. It really was a silly day and we laughed like kids all day long.
One of the main reasons we decided to stay longer was an upcoming music festival that we thought would be great to go to. There wasn’t anyone famous playing (we think) as most of the bands were Thai playing western rock covers and some playing reggae covers but they were good. The setting was really nice, next to a lake with mountain views and of course we met some really nice people at the festival and drunk far to much Chang than is good for us, we would pay for that the following day…
We finally left Pai behind and headed to Soppong for a couple of days to visit the Tam Lod Cave.
Soppong was only one hour up the road so as soon as we arrived and checked into a hut at Cave Lodge Guest House we went off to see the cave which had some impressive stalactites and stalagmites and we also took a boat (a bamboo raft really) through the cave and that was pretty cool.
We went back home which was only 10 mins around the corner from the cave for an hour or so but then returned for sunset to see the swifts coming in for the night. Wow what a sight, thousands and thousands of them flying back in, apparently there are as many as half a million. We had also expected to see lots of bats coming out for the night but I think we only saw about 3 of those…!
When we arrived at Cave Lodge we didn’t know what to expect, we thought we were just going to visit the cave and that would be it, we weren’t aware of the activities they offered. So, much to our surprise and delight, we booked in to a 3 cave trek for the following day which was described as “adventurous”.
Well adventurous is certainly the word, we set off in a group of 6, a canadian couple, two american girls and us along with our guide, Mr Wat at around 9.30 and trekked to the first cave. We put our helmets and head torches on and went into the darkness, walking or crouching low through the cave trying not to slip or put our hands on bat shit, there were some interesting fossilised sea shells and the usual stalactites and stalagmites. It really was so dark in there and to prove the point, Wat asked us to turn our lights off for 2 minutes and we sat in the dark, it was a little eerie but not too much so, there was absolutely no light at all for our eyes to pick up.
We then trekked to the second cave where Wat got changed into shorts only, this obviously meant we were going to get wet in this second cave, called the waterfall cave and so we did. So again, helmets and head torches on and in we went, this cave was so tight and low we had to crawl through water on our hands and knees even on our bellies to get through it at times. It was so low we may as well have been potholing. The waterfall at the end was impressive enough but the “potholing” experience was the most fun.
We stopped for lunch for an hour or so and attempted to dry off our boots a little which was pretty futile! After lunch we then hiked to the third cave, it took us around an hour or so and in the heat of the day with quite a few ups and downs, it reminded us of Nepal again.
We put our helmets and head torches on one last time and entered the third cave, we descended about 50 metres or so into this one but once in this was much easier to move around, no crawling this time. This was like a small version of the Tam Lod Cave we had seen the day before but perhaps more beautiful as it was very white, it was called the Christmas cave but Santa must have been out as he was nowhere to be seen.
Our last cave visited, we trekked back home for well needed showers and rest, What a day and great fun, we were so happy to have done it, neither of us have never done anything like this before.
After nearly two weeks in the mountains of Mae Hong Son province, we headed back to Chiang Mai for a couple of days so as to make our way to Sukhothai. We checked into a little cheap hotel and got upgraded to the best room in the place (always nice) which served to get our legs back into life after having used muscles we haven’t used for ages during our caving day. It was nice to have a duvet day and watch movies for a change.
We took a 6 hour bus journey and checked in to another nice hut just outside the old city of Sukhothai, this time with aircon (much needed as very humid here) so we could explore the old temple ruins.
We were the only people in our “resort” as it is now the off season so got offered a free upgrade to the deluxe bungalow. I do like an upgrade especially two in three days!
For the next couple of days, we hired bikes and cycled around the old city to visit the ruined temples. These are some of the most impressive ruins in Thailand and really worth seeing, they are set in a beautiful park with lakes and many old trees, it’s a very serene atmosphere especially now as not many tourists are about so you almost get the place to yourself.
After the excitement of the two weeks before and meeting lots of new people, it was nice to have some time just to ourselves.
Well we’re off to Laos now, It’s going to be three or four buses probably around 12 hours or so of journey to make our way to the border crossing at Nong Khai so we can make our way to Vientiane.
Chiang Mai
Pai
Soppong
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| Spot the Snake and Crocodile |
Sukhothai
Love the 3D paintings - especially the flying carpet! Big Lurve D xxxxx
ReplyDeleteWow! What an amazing time you're having... thanks for sharing your journey and hope the next leg is as interesting and enjoyable! Take care and hugs to you both xxxx
ReplyDelete