Northern Thailand - A good place to be, travel and enjoy

It seems like ages ago that we were in the north of Thailand, it's already three weeks :( Time flies!!!

We loved the north and had at least three good reasons for it:

1. people are so friendly! 
   They smile :) are honestly concerned about your wellbeing and treat you with politeness. "land of smiles" - It made more sense here!
2. it's nice and cool!!
   Even though during they day, it gets pretty warm, by night it is so refreshing! We even slept under a blanket :)
3. nature is really pretty.
   If you like forests, mountains, waterfalls, hot springs, this is where you should go!

CHIANG MAI - A LITTLE BIT OF HOME

Chiang Mai, capital of the north, was our first stop. Unfortunately also the place where we spent over 3 !!! hours finding a place to sleep. "full". "full". "maybe free tomorrow". "full". First we thought it had something to do with the flowerfestival we didn't know about, but it's never a really big happening. The biggest problem is the fact that there are busloads of Chinese tourists being dropped off! A recent movie that was filmed in Chiang Mai and released in China, makes the whole population wanting to see all the filmed sights :( Sigh.... We ended up in a single room next to the shared toilets. But it was a place to sleep - Mar felt a fever coming up (shortly alarmed about the possibility of Dengue!!) but it went away over night.

Two mornings in a row we got up at 7 to watch the flower parade (celebrating the fertile months). Two mornings in a row we sat there waiting for nothing. In the end it passed by, around 13:00 and it was a mere coincidence that we'd seen it. The girls (and ladyboys) dressed up in traditional clothes, taking off their shoes and stroking their sore feet as soon as the parade stopped for a few seconds. It was a nice sight, but the whole festival had not really much to do with flowers (if you compare it to Dutch flower festivals or a regular german flower market:)!)

We're slowly wearing out our stuff... Mar's shoes (from Russia) had no soles left...the flipflops are dying and our T-shirts look the same after the washing as before. Not to mention Jan's pants that have holes in all sides and pockets. 1 night shopping at the nightbazaar proved really effective and we managed to replace all! The only thing that didn't work out were the new boxershorts....We found out later that a size L in Thai means XS :) 

We're half way of our years trip and it's been a long time since we smelled, felt or tasted home. The last emergency-liquorice stick is eaten half, our food compartments in our backpacks (yes of course we have a special -and big- place for that!) almost empty. You can imagine how happy we were when we picked up our X-mas package at Judith's Riverside bar & restaurant! (by the way a lovely place with the ambience of a Dutch cafe and some beautiful space to sit outside at the waterfront. A big thanks to our parents and to Judith for all your help and the map!!! A little bit from home!! It made us feel good!! 

MAE HONG SON LOOP - WINDING ROADS, STICKY RICE AND SCABBY KNEES

With our "loot" safely stuffed into the 1 backpack we repacked with stuff of the both of us, we set off, cruising down the highway. Around 600 km laying ahead of us, but I think it became much more in the end. From the junction to Pai, a really beautiful, but windy road starts swinging its ways into the forestry mountains. Too bad that the weather didn't work with us. It's supposed to be the dry season, but it rained a lot. Inexplicable according to the locals. Bad for those with restaurants outside, bad for those driving. We stopped a few times to wait until the worst was over. One time, we even had hail, with hailstones bigger than a cm!! Not ideal if you are driving a scooter with 2 heavy (compared to the Thai!!) people and a heavy backpack. Mix this with sand, stones ans leaves on the road; a treacherous combination. So even though we drove really slow and really careful, we slipped....The front of the bike just drove straight on in a curve. 1863 curves were managed without damage, 1 was enough to make us cry. I won't dramatise it now, but it wasn't pretty. We're lucky that we got away with a few bruises and some bad scrapes, nothing more. -now, almost a month later, the wounds have still not healed completely. - Miraculously enough, the bike had nothing. Such irony: 6 months your new rainjacket lies unused in your backpack. On the first day of usage it gets ripped :(

On the way we saw so many other accidents, and the police driving up and down picking scooters and people up. We drove ourselves, and we happy to reach Pai. We cuddled up deep beneath our blankets in our little bungalow filled with animals that a diva-like ladyboy rented out. We felt so small. 

The next morning, we drove to the hot springs, a few km back in the direction of Chiang Mai. A steep 200 THB entry fee, for a smelly (but pretty) hot creek. It burnt on our wounds, but healed our spirits. That day, we only made it to Mae La Na, a side turn from the loop. It's an almost deserted area, with just a little village. The Mae La Na Garden Home offered us a cute A-shaped hut, the whole place empty except for 1 German. The owner's daughter spoke only Shan, not even Thai. The food prepared with fresh herbs from the garden, it was lovely to calm down. If only we had a few days more!!

The next morning we drove up the hill, back to the main road. It was the first time, our bike didn't make it. The heavy luggage lady had to walk up after the engine only produced a lot of sound but no acceleration :( We came to a lovely hill-tribe market where we bargained a few handmade pieces. If only we had an empty suitcase and would be flying back home from Bangkok. The road winds on to the highest point around Soppong (1300m) and then swirls it's way back down to Mae Hong Son. We only spent a few hours there, and climbed the loooong stairs to Wat Phra That on top of the hill....no serious, lazy enough we drove up. It was hot enough without walking! It's a beautiful white and golden temple, the style pretty much being influenced from Myanmar, the border is just a few kilometres away... We rounded the temple clockwise, every corner having a weekday-shrine where you can praise your birthday.

We continued our way to Khun Yuam. It was only by chance that we found the little hilltop bungalows off the main road. A beautiful place that we found at sunset. The owners a wonderful friendly family, that loved seeing our pictures from back home. Northern Thai people have been so kind to us, so helpful and friendly! It didn't feel much of a difference from Laos (except from the diva at Pai)  and also the Mae Hong Son loop doesn't seem to be too much overflown with tourists. Then again, we did stay in places far away from the normal tourist bus drop off points, so it is hard to judge. 

From Khun Yuam we had two choices, directly to Mae Cham or southward via Mae Sariang, to take another go at some hot springs on the way which I can't remember the name of. We chose the latter. A good choice. Whereas the Fish Cave was really a tourist trap ("do not sit here if you don't buy food from me") and we left without even considering to pay the 200 bhat, the hot springs were really nice. A "mineral bath pee" as the sign announces, means a huge bath tub to yourself. It's not a nice, natural creek with hot water, it's more of a health resort. It was completely empty, and the price is negotiable, so we gave it a try. One of the signs says it's really good for healing wounds and skin diseases, the other translates into "forbidden for skin diseases and open wounds". Turns out to be indifferent :)

At Mae La Noi there is a crossing, from where we could go through the mountains and see some hill tribes. A local guy discouraged us to do the mountain trip, our scooter is most likely not suitable for the dirt track. A shame, as it means we are driving about 100 km more to Mae Cham than necessary. But the road is much better, much straighter. Now and then our bread bounces out of our basket (in front of the bike) and it zooms past our helmets :), and the occasional drunken truck driver that overtakes in a curve with oncoming traffic costs us another of our 9 lives. But it's a nice route, we just wish we had more time. It's nice to be able to eat streetfood that is not translated into English, nor has pictures. Pick and guess; it makes us feel more local.

The last section for the day is loooong.....When we stop to buy strawberries, one of the local takes fun in letting us try some things. A bottle with clear fluid looks familiar; raksi or rice wine. Mar has to drink it, as Jan drives.... pfew, it's strong. We're surprised they have not all gone blind. But the best thing is the little white things he puts in our hands. At first we think they look like beans, but they disgustingly "pop" in your mouth. It's horrible. A closer look tells us we have been eating maggots.....I'm proud and disgusted at the same time.

It gets darker much faster than we remember, and the hilly dirttrack off the main road has holes (craters!! :)) that are difficult to spot in the evening dusk. But it is now that you can see the bushfire protection at work; all around us, lines or rings of fire are burning on the mountains, creating a fire barrier to stop the fire from spreading. It puzzles us a bit, as it has been raining so much.

Our next "home" was Mae Cham. A quiet little traditional town, with many hill tribes. We were really lucky to find a cafe that was still open: Lungdang. It's owned by Aom Jung, a lovely person that helps us out with her homestay. We have a whole house to ourselves, next to the fields. She even cooks for us although her cafe is long closed, and we sit and chat until late. Again a shame that we cannot stay longer than 1 day here. Who would have thought that when you have 1 year to spend, you still feel like being in a rush all the time. But we pre-booked our bus to Koh Tao (as all the buses from and to Chiang Mai were full many days in advance...), so nothing to do about it.

One of Jan's favourites of the trip is the sticky rice in bamboo. Aom shows us the trick in how to do this, and we cook it in a campfire. It's delicious, and we are grateful for Aom's kindness to invite us, and her openness about the Thai culture that foresaw some more hurdles in the south of Thailand. We also discovered one of Mar's favourites: Tamarind! We picked it ourselves from the trees; a little fruit that on the outside looks like a bean, with the consistency of a date and a little sour aftertaste. Amazing. As Aom says, you can bring any seed to northern Thailand and it will grow, as the climate is optimal. I hope to remember this when we come back!!!

With pain in our hearts we left Mae Cham, feeling so welcome here. Doi Inthanon, Thailand's highest mountain with 2565m was next on our program. Of course, they charge you to go up; we skip the viewpoint. Instead, we take a sidetrip to Baan Ma Pho, which is described as "a village where you can still see the weaving of the hill tribes in action". A 12 km bumpy dirttrack in the end leads us to a remote village where people farm. No weaving ongoing, we're a little disappointed as the sign at the village indeed says "here you can see the farming of the hill tribes in action". Hmpf... maybe a bad translation. Coming from Northern Germany/Netherlands, I think we have seen how farming works. But we make the best out of it, try some local "bean ice", which is literally frozen beans on a stick. Not to be put on the list of favourites! We take a wonderful swim in the ice-cold river along the road back and head on to Chiang Mai; a long way back via the highway. Its tiring to drive straight. We stop by a local eatery and point out on something. We ask for "kow pat", fried rice. The man and lady discuss a long time between each other and ask us again if we really want to eat this.....we try to make them understand we have no clue what it means!! In the end they cook us something, the man drives off to buy some rice for us (oops, that is not what we meant!!) and we get a plate filled with something that looks between stomach and star fish....we still don't know what we ate...!!!

And then we were back in Chiang Mai!!! We couchsurfed our last night with Leoni and her roommate Lea, who's Thai name is so long we cannot pronounce it. We had a lovely time, thank you so much!!!!! We dropped of our scooter (no problems :D), repacked our bags and prepared for the long journey to the islands..... More about that in a next story!