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Published: December 6th 2008
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After having a week in Chiang Mai so we could meet up with Pao (the owner of the apartment we were staying in) and drive up to Chiang Dao together, we got some bad news. Pao was planning on getting to us by catching a flight from Bangkok, which for obvious reasons, he could no longer do. This meant that we had to ring us the place we were staying in Chiang Dao and organise transport to the accommodation through them. Though all in all it wasn’t a problem, it was a shame to not meet up with Pao as it would have been useful to ask him some questions about our next destinations and to thank him for the use of the apartment. Also the transport to the apartment turned out to cost more than a night there…
Still, we organised for them to pick us up at 8:30am, figuring that we could look round the local area and have lunch before we checked in. All went well and after an hour and a half hour drive, we arrived, put our luggage somewhere safe and decided to go on the nature trail walk as marked on a map we’d
been given. Chaing Dao was a world away from Bangkok and Chiang Mai, which are both busy, bustling cities (though Chiang Mai isn’t half as bad as Bangkok). Set in the hills 80km North of Chiang Mai, it’s a little town with the primary purpose of providing tourists with access to the Thai countryside. It was a personal recommendation from Pao and it was very picturesque (see pictures).
Anyway, it turned out the hand made map we’d been given wasn’t really any good and was frankly quite confusing. After much searching we found a path that we figured must be the nature trail (though there seemed to be very little sign of this). Having walked up a mountain for 30 minutes with no sign of the path going back down, we decided to re-trace our steps and go back to the place we were staying, fearing that we could be doing the start of a 25 mile hike or similar… On our return to the bottom we saw a giant sign saying “nature trail”. Turns out we had been on the nature trail the whole time and had done nearly to half of it, only to walk back again.
By the time we got back to our accommodation, our ‘nest’ was ready. Essentially we had a cosy, but quite comfortable and well equipped little cabin, with a little area you could sit outside on and an en-suite bathroom (again - see pictures). These cabins (or ‘nests’ as they were called) were then set in lovely surroundings, with trees, plants and lots of little creatures around, there were also plenty of places to sit in the sun and even a little enclosed area where you could use the Internet.
After having a nice lunch we took a short walk to the nearest temple. It had 500 steps leading up to it (not an easy task having been on a walk only a couple of hours ago) but it was one of the best temples we’d been to. There were excellent views from the top and it was one of the most calm and relaxing places we’d been to on our whole trip.
The following evening we took it easy and enjoyed our best dinner so far in Thailand - an Australian steak with dauphinoise potatoes and chocolate cake for dessert. Yes, I know, our best Thai meal
should be an authentic Thai curry or some proper Thai noodles but trust me, this was much better!
The next morning we relaxed, got up later than we probably should have and had breakfast. Having been beaten by the nature trail the previous day we (stupidly) tried to attempt it again. This time we made sure we were starting it from the right place (we had been doing it backwards the day before) and put on appropriate clothes (Helen had been wearing sandals the previous day). We not only wanted to do the trail again as it’d beaten us yesterday, but also as our map seemed to say that the ‘famous’ Chiang Dao cave was en-route, as were some sacred fish. I don’t know quite what makes some fish sacred but not others, but I figured it must be something cool and wanted to find out!
We’d made two obviously stupid decisions. Firstly to trust a map we already knew was incredibly confusing and secondly to attempt a nature trail that had been quite difficult the previous day. About 70% of the way into the walk, which was turning out to be less of a simple nature trail
and more of a hike through jungle, the path split in two. Unbeknownst to us, one path was clearly the ‘Keep going on this route for a simple way to the bottom’ path and the other was the ‘Do you like danger? Enjoy going down incredibly steep slopes? Hate the thought of being able to arrive home in one piece? Then go here!’ path. Of course, being as we are, we managed to choose the 2nd path. The following 25 minutes or so was taken up with us mostly sitting on our arses trying to slide down slopes that were so steep you physically couldn’t stand up on them. To begin with Helen wasn’t too keen - at one point I went a little way ahead (to get my camera which had fallen out of my pocket and down a slope) and she just stopped at the top saying “I can’t do it!”, “I don’t know what to do!” and looking scared. However, after much persuading, she did slowly come down. In fact, once she had mastered a technique named the “baby bouncer” - in which she sat on her bum put her arms and legs out and bounced down
- we made good progress and finally got to the finish. The ironic thing about it all was that having twice gone on the nature walk, the best bit of nature we’d seen was a lizard, which had run across a road before we’d even got to the trail... All we’d seen was a lot of very large spider’s webs and a few birds from a distance. Also, there was no sign of the cave on the walk (it turned out it was somewhere completely different and wasn’t anything to do with the nature trail) and, similarly, to this day I have no idea where on earth you could find the ‘sacred fish’.
When we finally got back to our nest we again decided to take it easy and go to the cave the next day. This tuned out to be a bad decision as the following night we got very little sleep. Not only was it freezing cold (the temperate during the night dropped right down and the bedding we had wasn’t very warm) but Helen was sick 11 times and I also didn’t feel great. Instead of going to the cave we spent our final day both
feeling sorry for ourselves, laying in the sun and not looking forward to the trip back to Chiang Mai (where we were staying before getting a flight to Laos the next day). It turned out that the trip back, though a little rough in places, wasn’t too bad and the biggest casualty was ‘travel duck’, a little toy duck Helen that sits on the outside of her bag. He managed to get pretty grubby due to the dirt from the roads and in the truck and is now in need of a good bath!
So that was Chiang Dao, a lovely place but we didn’t quite finish it as we’d hoped. You’ll be updated on our final day in Chaing Mai (don’t get excited, nothing happens) and Luang Prabang in a few days..
David and Helen.
P.S. Helen’s asked me to add in here that there were some nice rabbits at the nest. They were playful and friendly - see pictures.
P.P.S Congratulations to Louisa on passing her driving test, though I fear there must have simply been some mistake. No Hodge passes first time!
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