Advertisement
Published: March 18th 2011
Edit Blog Post
I spent a couple of nights in Bangkok once I got back from Myanmar. I didn’t really do a great deal just caught up with Rin and also caught up with all the great Thai food I have missed in the last month.
I caught the 12 hour overnight bus to Chiang Mai which was a breeze after the ones in Myanmar and quickly found some good accommodation for $15 a night including breakfast. I ended up staying a couple of nights there and just took it easy. I didn’t think there was a great deal to see around town but it has a relaxed atmosphere and seems like a popular place to do courses in cooking, thai boxing, massage, etc. On Saturday night I went to see some Thai boxing which had an interesting mix of fights. They had 2 all female fights, a male-female fight, a fight between 10 year old boys, a foreigner-thai fight, and a light hearted fight where they had about 5 guys in the ring all blindfolded. There was an interesting and quite large night market on Sunday but the crowds were just too much for me so I only stuck around for half
an hour.
Monday morning I caught a minibus to a tourist town called Pai pronounced Buy. I found very cheap accommodation straight away and then had a look around the town. I cannot believe how many places there are to stay in and around this town. It is the off season now because it is quite hot in the middle of the day but I can imagine how beautiful and green the countryside must look during and just after the wet season. I hired a motorbike in the evening and rode out to Pai Canyon. It is quite small but a nice spot to spend a little time. Some of the paths are very narrow (about 50cm) with sheer drops on either side and I felt a little embarrassed when I was almost on my hands and knees on one section. Next day I rode out to a little waterfall about 10km out of town. There wasn’t a lot of water and the pools were quite small so I didn’t go in. After that I just rode to the other sites around town and had a pleasant time being on a motorbike again. On my last full day in
Pai I did a 4-hour yoga course(2 hours in morning, 2 hours in the afternoon). I was by far the oldest there and struggled to do a lot of the moves but I enjoyed it very much and will try to keep it up while travelling.
On Saturday I caught the local bus and headed off to a small town called Soppong which was an hour and a half away. I found accommodation quickly and then caught a motorcycle taxi out to a large cave about 8km from town. There I had to hire I guide with a lantern and a raft to take me down the small river which flows through the cave. The cave itself was quite interesting and they also had a few empty wooden coffins around. In the river itself there are a large number of decent size fish and I saw quite a few locals turn up with homemade spear guns as I was leaving. The next morning I went to hire a motorbike to have a look around the interesting countryside but unfortunately nobody in town rented any, so I decided to catch the bus to Mae Hong Son.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.142s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 19; qc: 92; dbt: 0.0912s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
William
non-member comment
This is a fantastic picture mate. Definite keeper!