Abujah!

Our last few days in Thailand we spent going on a three day trek through northern Thailand. We were joined by Erika's ex-coworker Tessa, who came to Thaialnd on vacation for 10 days. Our trek was a very unique experience for us and we have lots of new memories to share.

The first day of our trek went something like this... A one hour drive north from Chiang Mai we stopped at a local market in order to buy candy for the kids in the villages (more on that later), and for our guide, Todo, to get our food rations for the first few meals. After more than 2 hours of more driving we stopped for lunch then began our hiking. Our first leg took about one hour, and we passed a few wild fires burning along the way and traversed the first of many rickety bamboo bridges...."one at a time". We stopped for a break at a sweet little waterfall where our entire group of nine plus two guides went swimming.

One of the many sketchy bridges along our hike.

After the waterfall we hiked another 2 hours to a Lahu hilltribe village to which one of our guides belonged. At the village we played with the local children who were very happy to see us. Unlike many of the treks offered out of Chiang Mai, the trek we went on is the only group who travels through this village and the Lisu village we stayed at on the second night. Everyone in the village speaks a local dialect, and a few speak Thai, no one spoke more than a few words of english. We were taught one word-Abujah- meant to communicate simple gestures like hello, thank you, goodbye, ect (so we were told). After dinner the village children all gathered together and sang us songs in Lahu, after which we gave out candy, balloons and colored pencils.

Our second day started off with breakfast at 7am, followed by 4 hours of hiking, then lunch, and two hours of bamboo rafting down a river.

We ate lunch the second day with bowls and chopsticks carved from bamboo by our guides.

Rafting down the river, using bamboo poles to avoid rocks and shallow areas.

After rafting we walked 15 minutes to a Lisu hilltribe village, where we stayed at the house of our guide's uncle. That night we enjoyed a delicious home cooked dinner and sat around a bonfire for several hours singing songs while our second guide played the guitar.



Sitting around the campfire is a good time anywhere in the world.

Our third day started out with a short hike to a large cave, through which we hiked for about 2km. After the cave we hiked for 2 hours until we got to a park ranger station where we were supposed to meet elephants to ride on to the final village. Instead no elephants showed up, so after a quick swim in a river, we hiked to the Karen hilltribe village for lunch. After lunch we again waited for elephants, but after an hour of waiting we all decided to just head back to Chiang Mai.


Erika climbing down into the darkness near the cave entrance.
Some of the stalagmite formations made the path a little tricky.

After returning to Chiang Mai at 7pm, Erika and I showered, packed our bags and hopped on a bus to Bangkok at 9pm, then caught another bus at 6am to Cambodia. We had to leave Thailand because our visas ran out, so we will be spending a few weeks in Cambodia, then possibly heading towards Vietnam. More updates to come (we are going to see Angkor Wat tomorrow!).

Northern Thailand

We arrived in Chiang Mai after a 14 hour overnight train ride from Bangkok. The overnight train has become our preferred method of travel, not only to save on lodging for the night but you also get to see the countryside. Unfortunately Thailand is having one of the worst droughts the country has experienced in years so rather than seeing lush jungle, green mountains and farmland there was a lot of brown, dead vegetation and the farms all looked thirsty. We spent 3 days in Chiang Mai which is a large city by Thailand standards but its downtown community, surrounded by a moat, has a small feel to it. There is a huge night bazaar where we enjoyed doing some cheap shopping and bartering with the local vendors for homemade jewelry, all natural candles and roasted cockroaches with a few crickets on the side...mmmmmm! Other than shopping at the market and eating copious amounts of delicious Thai food there is not much else to do in Chiang Mai so we headed further north to the town of Pai, which came highly recommended by other backpackers. The road to Pai is comparable to a roller coaster ride with all its winding turns and steep inclines, there is a t-shirt vendor in town who sells a shirt with the number 720 printed on it - the number of turns on the road from Chiang Mai to Pai! We stayed in a bungalow similar to the one in Koh Tao only it cost half the price and our view from the porch was not of a lagoon but instead colorful 4 ft tall wildflowers, a fair trade. Pai is a small country town in a valley surrounded by mountains, waterfalls, farmland and hot springs. We rented a motorbike to explore the areas outside of town, it took some practice and almost cost Josh half a leg but I got the hang of it and was cruising through town just like the locals and the transplanted western hippies. We spent a day at the hot springs soaking in mineral rich waters that get piped down to a stream that was dammed in several areas to create pools and a constant flow. The water was not nearly as scorching as the onsen (Japanese hot spring) this came as a relief since the air temperature was much warmer. There are several waterfalls on the outskirts of town, we chose to swim at Mohr Paeng because it was one of the only falls that were flowing, the others reduced to a trickle because of the drought. There were multiple pools to swim in at Mohr Paeng, some deep enough to jump off the surrounding rocks into and the local kids were having a blast sliding down or bombing off of different rocks into the falls. (For those of you who are familiar it was just like Falls Village in CT) The one downfall of our visit was the poor air quality in Pai due to to slash and burn techniques used by the farmers. During the daytime we could constantly smell smoke and ash fell from the sky sometimes in quarter-sized chunks. At night we could see bright orange fires burning through mountains that were only a couple miles away. The visibility was poor and Josh had sinus and throat issues from breathing smoke-filled air that would have surely warranted a health advisory warning in California. We definitely want to return to Pai sometime after monsoon season so we can appreciate all it has to offer. After 5 days in Pai we traveled back south to Chiang Mai and are waiting for a friend to arrive. We plan on doing a 3 day trek to hill tribe villages in the far north and then we will have to cross the border to Cambodia before our visa expires.

Riding the night train to Chiang Mai

A view out our window the next morning

Old Town Chiang Mai, surrounded by a moat.

One of the many Wats in Chiang Mai

Our bamboo bungalow in Pai, at $10 a night.

The field of wildflowers in front of our Pai bungalow.
Erika lounging in one of the hot spring pools

Butterflies were plentiful around the waterfalls.

Mohr Paeng Waterfall

This is a good view of one of the locals.

Erika riding a motorbike, everyone get off the road!

The Ko Tao Experience

Tomorrow we are leaving our small island paradise which we have called home for the last two weeks. Our time here was the perfect first stop in Thailand. The slow relaxing days spent snorkeling, scuba diving, kayaking, sun-bathing, and sampling cuisines has gently introduced us to the people, hot weather, and backpacker life.

One day last week we hiked up to the view point overlooking our bay and the bay to the east. The views were pretty sweet, which made the hot climb up the hill worth it.

There is a path up that hill, I promise.

Some of the views require some climbing.

This is looking back towards the island from the tip of the peninsula.

Aerial view of Chalok Baan Kao Bay, our resort in the foreground.

The majority of our second week here was spent scuba diving, earning our Open Water Diver certificates. The class was 4 days, with the last two days having two open water dives each. The diving in Ko Tao is amazing and we were able to see tons of fish and coral. On our dives we saw a moray eel, butterfly fish, angelfish, a huge masked puffer, two blue-spotted stingrays, trigger fish, banner fish, super bright christmas-tree worms, a big grouper, and tons of soft and hard corals.

This is one of the dive sites we went to, called Four Rocks (creative, huh?).

Yesterday we rented a motorbike and took a tour of the other towns on the island. Everyone rides around on scooters here, but until yesterday we thought it unnecessary and walked everywhere. The tour was noisy, dusty, thrilling, and sometimes sketchy. We swam off the northern point of the island, Nangyuan Viewpoint, which overlooks a nearby island, had drinks overlooking gorgeous Tanote Bay, and stopped on Sairee Beach for dinner and the sunset. A full and awesome day it was.

Entrance to Nangyuan Viewpoint.

View of Nangyuan Island (rocky islands connected by sandbars)

Enjoying the view of Tanote Bay

The viewpoint is set amongst a flower garden

Dinnertime at Sairee Beach

Taxi and fishing boats at low tide

Sairee is a long beach with lots of restaraunts and shops, and lots more people than we have seen the last two weeks

A wonderful way to end the day

Next up for us is Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, after 26 hours of traveling...wish us luck!