The Plan B Adventure

Back in Chiang Mai after a brief jaunt to the sleepy oasis of Chiang Dao, located just on the outskirts of the Golden Triangle in Northern Thailand. Since the title of this posting is a bit confusing why don’t we dispense with the uncomfortable parts first and quickly then move on to our recent fulfilling adventures.

Night One: We arrive home from a great local BBQ with our new friends, Andy and Vanessa, to find that an ant colony has taken up residence in our bungalow walls. After much spraying and cleaning the problem was taken care of, yet we are sure you can all imagine the itchy, sleepless night that followed as our Larium-induced dreams led us to believe there were ants everywhere. The next morning, our host, O, graciously moved us rooms to the back of the property.

Night Two: After a jaunt to town where we narrowly avoided being caught in Chiang Dao Storm 2006, we arrived home to our new bungalow to find that a local gecko decided to make himself at home in our bamboo-weaved walls. The problem was fairly minor until you realize how much noise a ceature that small can make when he can’t get out of the walls and scratches at the bamboo alllllll night lllllllong…..ugh!!

Night Three: We needed a good night sleep and decided to stay in the same bungalow since it seemed “Gordon” (the gecko….Get It??) had made his way elsewhere. After returning from a great dinner Becca and Gordon were briefly introduced in the bathroom. Well, you can all imagine the reaction that ensued, Jeff attempted to corral him but just doesn’t have the quickness he use to (in his 20’s)!! It goes without saying Jeff was relagated to night-watchman duty and we both had another sleepless night.

Needless to say, we have come to the recent conclusion that we would like to think we are comfortable in “rustic” settings but it just might not be our cup of tea. We will chock this one up to character building, seems to be a lot of that going on!
Ok…..now to the good stuff!!! The Nest 2 we stayed at in Chiang Dao was great. Hidden away at the bottom of Mt Chiang Dao (the 2nd highest mt in Thailand) our bungalow provided us with a great little getaway without a tourist bus in sight. Chiang Dao is about two hours north of Chiang Mai and has just recently been bitten by the tourism bug. We decided to leave Chiang Mai by local bus and experience the wonderful world of Thailand (not Chinese) bus travel. What a difference!! The trip was relaxing, quiet, and extremely ($1.50 for both) cheap. This is definitely the way to travel in Thailand when you know where you are going and the route is simple. The first day at Chiang Dao was pretty laid back. There isn’t an enormous amount to do in the city but the surrounding treks and sights offered some interesting experiences over the following few days. We ventured up to the local monastery and wat which is perched in the mountain. This has to be one of our favorites yet as we were two of six people exploring the wat and the views from the top provided some great vistas of the greenery below. As we wandered back to our place we bumped into Andy and Vanessa (check out their blog @ adwrighty.blogspot.com). Andy is from England and Vanessa from Australia. They are at the end of their four month journey and had lots of info and stories to share. (Thanks guys!!) We had a good time sharing dinner at a local BBQ with them and then heading back (by flashlight) to Nest 2 where the afore-mentioned issues have been discussed ad nauseum.

The next day we woke up lazily, knowing the Seahawks were fighting for the Championship, and walked down to explore the famous Chiang Dao caves. These caves were quite an experience. The Burmese had discovered these caves in the 1300’s and decorated them with Buddhist relics. Many years later Thai Buddhists re-discovered them and then more…almost 20 kms of cave networks. (Yes….we explored them ALL!!) All these caves are located under the giant Mt Chiang Dao and our guide, Wasan, has been giving tours for 30 years. We had a blast ducking in crevices, seeing the bats, and spelunking for almost 2 hours. The pictures don’t do the heat, lack of oxygen, and amount of flowing water contained within these caves…quite amazing!! After a great time and much education, we decided to give in and go check the Seahawks score. As soon as the half-loaded page showed “Steeling the Show” we knew the results weren’t favorable for Seattle fans. Oh well! There’s always next year!! Dinner that night was great as were all the dinners. The cooks at Chiang Dao Nest 1 and 2 are great. We were quite impressed with the level of cuisine provided.

Our third day was our busiest and definitely one of the most fulfilling. We had scheduled a full day to ride elephants, float down the Ping River, and trek through a few of the local hill-tribe villages. Our trip was scheduled through the Nest 2 ($50) and was a great deal, in our opinion. We started out with 5 other travellers in the back of a pickup and drove into the mountains to begin our adventure. Our first activity was meeting, feeding, and riding three local elephants. We hopped on Dao and were off into the mountain wilderness. Our elephant, Dao, is 45 years old and has quite an aggressive appetite for bamboo and bananas. After about 40 minutes, Dao delivered us to the first local village of the Lisu people. It’s quite interesting to see the similarities between these ethnic tribes and the others we met in China. Our first impression is that they have quite a few physical and cultural similarities but the tribes in Thailand have a bit more tourist saavy than the Chinese tribes. We trekked for about an hour through the mango fields and rubber trees to the Ahka village. This is the smallest minority group in Thailand totaling about 25,000 people. Our guide, Tory, took the time to help us understand the different religions (Christian vs Buddhist), the crop production, and money-making ways (rice, arts/crafts, opium) of each tribe. We have realized the importance of a knowledgeable, partially English-speaking guide and will definitely have to employ them in the future. It just really adds to the experience and understanding of what you are seeing. After Jeff was taken down (by the cute kids) for his first knick-knack purchase of the trip we were off to explore the Ping River by bamboo boat. We don’t have any pics as they made us leave our cameras in the truck, in case we encountered any issues. But what we can help you visualize is that this is the low-water season in Thailand. The river we were floating on is at least 8-10 feet below its normal level in the wet season. The ample mango plantations flanking the river were bountiful as were the number of locals sifting through the river floor for stones, sands, and rocks. It was very relaxing and extremely peaceful. Quite a trip altogether.

Well, we are back in Chiang Mai now. The nights of sleeplessness have caught up with us a bit (a little under the weather) but we had a vitamin-packed breakfast and lots of water. We have to recommend the next time anyone visits Chiang Mai to eat at the Nice Kitchen. It has to be one of the best breakfasts we’ve had. Half a plate of fresh fruit, French Toast with honey, fresh wheat roll (rivals Great Harvest), fresh Orange and Carrot/Ginger Juice, and hill-tribe coffee…..yummmm all for 170 baht ($4.5 dollars)!!!! Chiang Mai has been a welcome destination for us in Thailand. We can’t imagine anyone visiting Thailand without a trip here.

Tomorrow we are preparing to venture into the Land of a Million Elephants, Lao. We will be taking a minibus to the border and then crossing into Lao on a ferry where we will make our way to a slow boat and a 2-day float down the river to Luang Prabang. As we’ve come to expect nothing is exactly how we envision it so stay tuned for our reality in the days to come.

Tags: Bungalows, Thailand, Travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 8th, 2006 at 11:25 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.