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

Doi (Mt.) Suthep and Thanksgiving in Pai

OK, I'm going to admit it. Choosing a destination (AKA Chiang Mai) for more than a few weeks has made me relatively lazy and ruined the early morning motivation and momentum I had in Phuket.

About two weeks ago, in an attempt to break myself out of my non-routine, I walked about an hour west and caught a songthaew (a red truck type of "bus" system in Chiang Mai) up to the top of Doi Suthep, a jungle mountain that towers over the city.

There is a major temple there that you need to walk 300+ steps up to, giving the Howe St. stairs at home a run for their money.

The golden chedi up top is spectacular, though I'm not sure how it didn't blind my eyes in the penetrating sun.

There were hundreds of tourists adoring the temple and chedi up top. One side of the temple grounds provides an overlook of the city of Chiang Mai - one of the main reasons I came up here. I will definitely have to go back and see the temple for a sunset before I leave because the colors of the sky in the morning here are usually pretty incredible.

I think a favorite part of my trip to the mountain was when I walked back down the stairs at dusk. Suddenly there were neon lights illuminating the stairs and parts of the temple to guide your way back.

It was great to get a little bit out of the city, but I still needed a little bit more of a nudge to get back on track. Thailand always throws a mixed bag of coincidental and unexpected adventures (and people) my way to keep me on my toes. Kristin, a friend of my good friend Nick happened to be passing through Chiang Mai with her roommate Aaron, so we met up and explored the city by foot and bicycle. When they mentioned that they were going to head to Pai for Thanksgiving, I asked to tag along, and I'm so glad that I did.

Pai is about 3 hours north of Chiang Mai by minibus, and the road boasts an impressive 762 curves.

I was amazed to see that there was some type of pine tree thriving at the highest point of our drive. It's hard for me to believe when it's usually 86 degrees in Chiang Mai, but the temperature can drop to below freezing in the mountains.

Once in Pai, we found a bungalow to stay at and quickly exhausted the options of the town itself. Pai is a pretty small and hippie-centric town, though it has developed a lot over the past 10-20 years. The allure of Pai for me isn't really the town itself, but the endless options for exploration, using Pai as home base.

After eating (2 meals for me - soup followed up with pizza, happy Thanksgiving! ;), we connected with a group of Dutch guys that Aaron had met in Vietnam. It was at that time that we decided the best option for the next day was to form a small motorbike gang and take on the countryside of Pai.

I was excited to get some practice with a group of more experienced riders, and to break out of my comfort zone a little. It was beyond worth it and opened my eyes to a whole new world of travel.

We were only on the road for about 3 minutes when we had to pull over to take pictures from a gorgeous viewpoint. I found myself smiling uncontrollably as we rode off to our next unknown destination.

We set out originally to find some hot springs, but ended up at a "trailhead" for a waterfall. Unfortunately after walking about 10 minutes down the river, we discovered that there was no land trail that anyone could find, and we would have to continue up the river about 2-3 hours to reach the waterfall.

Some of us didn't bring a change of shoes (and the hike would have probably left us walking back in the dark), so we turned around and got back on our motorbikes.

We found a national park with hot springs. After haggling (OK, we showed them our driver's license and they thought it was a student ID), we got into the park for a less obnoxious fee. "Farangs," aka white tourists/expats consistently are charged more for services, but I don't mind paying to support the parks. :)

We headed in and found the multi-tiered hot springs, each pool hotter than the next as you approached the source.

I had a worry in the back of my mind because Darryl told me Axle wasn't acting normal (spoiler alert: he's fine, thank god!), so after we grabbed some dinner I went back to our guest house so I could keep in touch.

Aaron and Kristin left the next day to go to a monastery at Mae Hong Son (even further northwest) for 3 days, where they meditated with monks, as well as fasted for 20 hours a day.

I decided I would head back "home" to Chiang Mai so I could keep tabs on Axle as I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to keep in touch via cell phone if I went to the monastery. It turned out that Axle was fine, but I'm still glad I went back. It feels terribly helpless to know something might be wrong when you are thousands of miles away.

The rest of this week I've spent trying to prep for my next big adventure, with a friend (Eric) from my hometown who happens to also have left his life in Seattle to travel the world. We leave this morning - it's 66 degrees out and I'm freezing, which is very confusing.

What's the plan? A very loose 2 week itinerary involving touring the Thai countryside via motorbike. I promise I'll be safe, cautious and focused on the road, but I would have some serious regret if I didn't take this opportunity. Every account I have read has said that motorbiking (they are 125cc scooters honestly, ha!) the north is the best decision they made while in Chiang Mai.

So here we go... no reservations made, just on the open road and taking it day by day.

-Erin

Full set of photos from Wat Doi Suthep here.
Pai here.
And another mini temple exploration I didn't blog about - here.