I woke up today definitely not feeling well. We knew we had a transfer from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai so we decided to tell the tour guide that we wanted to not make any stops and we would rest in the van … it was not to be! As with most of our tours on this trip, if we tried to make a slight adjustment we always had a problem with communication. I’m not sure why, but it was difficult to adjust stuff.
Just a note about our hotel in Chiang Rai … it was beautiful. So many of the places were short stops … this was one of them. We knew this would be a whirlwind trip, but we could definitely have stayed here a few more days to explore the facilities and the area.
Without the energy to convince the guide we didn’t want to tour anything we went for a tour anyway! Haha. We drove for about an hour and made the obligatory pit stop … I am 55 you know. We stopped at some “Hot Springs.” This reminded me of some of the roadside stops in the states … people make something out of concrete and call it a tourist attraction. We did have a great cup of coffee as we stared at the tourists dipping their feet in the “healing waters.” You could also get a “fish massage” here … you take off your shoes, put your feet in the water, and the little fish eat the dead skin off your feet. Ummm. No thanks. Haha.
We continued the journey and were soon driving up a winding mountain road that we didn’t think was wide enough for one car let alone two. Up and up we went to the village of Mae Kam Pong.
Here we stopped for lunch at a local house … truly, someone’s home. We sat on the porch and had lunch. Then we took a hike … I think we hiked for a couple of hours …
We picked up a local guide (and the dog came with us too). She was very pleasant and knew all the good trails.
There were some huge trees along the way …
We saw some great birds too … This is a Velvet-fronted Nuthatch.
There were some big bugs too! This is the largest pill bug I’ve ever seen.
Really was a pleasant hike.
It was beautiful countryside and their were plenty of coffee shops … we bought a bag of coffee beans here. We hiked up to the waterfall and then back down to the vehicle.
We only caught some of the animals, so we are ok!
The weather was lovely … it is quite the tourist destination. We made it back to the van and continued on into Chiang Mai. We arrived at our hotel, the Tamarind Village, pretty tired and ready for some down time!
We are almost finished with the organized portion of our Southern Swing.
Stumblingpiper
Leave a Reply