Casual Spelunking, Pai Relaxation, and the Windy Road to the Golden Triangle - Motorbike Adventure Days 5-10

This past week, Northern Thailand experienced (and is hopefully done with) disaster zone worthy temperatures. At first I thought I might be hallucinating actually feeling COLD in a tropical climate, but now that it's in the news, my bundling up feels legitimized. I think today is the first day I've felt warm for more than half the day in a week or so which is exciting news. Before anyone says "ERIN IT'S 30 DEGREES IN SEATTLE," this is relatively freezing to me compared to the norm of 85+. Suddenly it feels a bit like Christmas!

Only one full day left on our roadtrip, so I'm trying to catch up on blogging while I have semi-decent WiFi in Phayao, and before I fall too far behind.

Last I posted, we were at CAVE LODGE, which is situated next to one of the biggest cave systems in Thailand, Tham Lod.

Per the park's requirements, we had to hire a local guide with a lantern, in order to transport us through the river and into the three main cave areas, via bamboo rafts. Super cool!

I don't think I've ever been in a cave that large before, my favorite part being the green limestone rocks, and my least favorite part was the crazy steep stairs in dim light, some covered in bat poop (GUANOOO).

I have to admit I struggled with my camera a bit as I haven't had much practice shooting in the dark, and the humidity didn't help. If you want to see the cave in all of its splendor, check out these photos, taken by the owner of Cave Lodge who has spent the last 30 years in the area.

Up and down, to and fro

Pai dog.
OK, if you can't tell, about 30% of my photos are of dogs.

Pai countryside

We headed to Pai, and after deciding to stay for 2 nights ended up eating way too much pizza, as well as had a lot of downtime. I don't think I'll be able to find pizza that good again in SE Asia (the same stuff I had at Thanksgiving) so things went a little overboard. :)

We made some friends who live in Chiang Mai that we might spend Christmas with, and were determined to track down the Reggae Festival we coincidentally timed our trip with.

Unfortunately Eric left his wallet at a strange carnival/market the night we planned on attending the festival, on the table for a literal cap gun (rifle) shooting game. When we returned a few minutes later it was gone - the first time bad luck has reared its ugly head in Thailand. Boo.

This put a damper on the evening, and while a fun trip to the police station was had (which included police officers fawning over Eric's panther tattoo), no wallet has turned up yet.

We planned on leaving Pai on Sunday morning, but a semi-monsoon came through town so we booked another night at our guest house. Of course the rain stopped about an hour later.

Eric goes to the Police

Fun with bugs

Last Monday we drove longest leg of our journey yet, from Pai to Fang City. This is where we left the Mae Hong Son loop (which we almost completed - we were about 35km short of finishing, but that would have put us back in Chiang Mai).

To be completely honest, the road from Pai to Chiang Mai intimidated me when I was a passenger in a minivan a few weeks ago, so I am really glad we did this (AKA the most challenging) part of the loop last.

This meant that I had more riding experience under my belt, and ended up being able to enjoy myself, instead of somewhat fearing each hairpin (and bumpy) turn as it approached.

I did end up a little "carsick" from the rollercoaster like journey, but this was when I also felt the most exhilarated, finally learning to to embrace how closely I can hug the road on my little bike.

About 3/4 of the way through the mountains is when the cold front became reality. It was almost excruciating and I started to wonder if you could get frostbite in Thailand. 250km later, we found ourselves in Fang City, proving again that we can cover a lot of road in a short period of time.

One of the Mae Hong Son Loop's many hairpin turns

Some gorgeous mountains on the way to Fang

I found a recommended hotel in Fang that is run by the Lahu hill tribe and they cook the BEST FOOD EVER. I wish we'd taken some pictures, but we devoured our 8+ courses (half of which were artfully deep fried) in record time. If I had a travel button and could go back to eat anywhere, I think this place would be in my top 5 spots. It was a very nice, unexpected surprise.

The double rainbow that greeted us at Fang

Endless winding roads

At last - it was time to drive to the Golden Triangle (where Thailand, Laos and Burma meet) via Mae Sai, the northernmost city in Thailand.

I told Eric we had plenty of time and to feel free to turn off whenever something looked fun, so we ended up following a sign for two waterfalls.

We only found a very small one (and ended up at a dead end road to get there), but the road and views leading to it were better than any waterfall I could have imagined.

We did find the trail to a waterfall after we hit the actual dead end of the road, but it was nothing in comparison to the one at Doi Inthanon. On our way back we went through a tiny village, where grain lined the streets in tarps and the families appeared to be either divvying it up or keeping it protected.

The end of the road

Grain?

View from where I ran out of gas - not bad

My scooter luck ran out again when we were almost to Mae Sai, as I run out of gas. Thankfully Eric noticed my absence (the extra gas is in the saddlebags of his bike... maybe an oversight) and showed up as I was contemplating setting up camp next to the side of the road for the night, as well as how the hell to get back in touch with him. Back on the road, we entered the coveted (to me... as it is on my "checklist") northernmost city.

Suddenly trapped in a horrible traffic jam, we turned around just as we discovered its source - we were headed straight for the border crossing into to Tachilek, Burma. Oops. The sun was setting as I ended up more frigid than I thought possible (now "Will I be the first farang to get pneumonia in Thailand?" raced through my head), but we hit the pedal to the metal as they say, and ended up at our intended resort as the sunset faded into darkness behind us.

Almost accidental crossing into Burma

Stay tuned for Part 3 of the road trip, which includes multiple (intentional) border crossings, a flower festival, Christmas partying with a hill tribe, and to be determined.

Remainder of cave photos here, Pai here, longhaul to Fang here, and taking the road less traveled to the Golden Triangle here.

-Erin