Northern Thailand with Rhianna's Mom

I can't believe its been two months since we've last blogged. So much has happened and I feel bad that I have neglected this post but I'm happy in a way because we have had the time to reflect on this trip and have really fond memories. In fact, we keep telling people how awesome the Mae Hong Son Loop (a northern loop that goes through a lot of cool mountain towns) is and how beautiful the areas are and how there was so much to do! Now we do have a few not so great memories...like getting REALLY lost and frustrated with the horrible curves and not so great driving conditions...but all that really remains in our memories are the good times right?!

Living in northern Thailand is so beautiful and has many small cities that offer fun weekend excursions. We decided to take the last 5 days of our winter break in December to drive the Mae Hong Son Loop. The loop can be driven on a motor bike - and seems to be popular but I'm not sure I could stomach it with the 1865 curves! In Thailand there are a lot of crazy driving norms and you learn to drive with the traffic. Our car is smaller and an older model so you feel almost every bump or sharp turn. It was a stressful drive to say the least but the views and places we explored were beautiful.

photo credit to Spice Roads

Our first stop was in Chiang Dao - which we have done a blog post about before. We went to Wat Tham Pha Plong and the Monastary. We stayed at the Nest again and had a great dinner! (NZ steak, salmon, and roast pork) We went to a Hot Springs near by. It was by a river and on the other side of the river was a local village with lots of animals roaming around with the village people.

Next stop was Pai. This is a popular tourist stop for those that make the time to travel to northern Thailand. It was a curvy, yet a beautiful drive. There were lots of stops along the way to take pictures at view points and get coffee. The WWII bridge welcomes you as you enter town and offers some cool history about Pai. We had a walk around the town which has a backpacker/hippy vibe and got lunch at this stall on the street that was questionable but had great ratings so we were brave. We went to a Canyon which made us feel like we were back in the US out west for sunset. I'm not sure if the pictures give a good representation but we were walking along these very steep ridges and some people were running on them. It was not the safest thing we've done..but hey..it was "Thai safe". That night we went to a beautiful venue for dinner and almost wished we stayed at that hotel it was so good!

The next day we made our way to Mae Hong Song. Our first stop along that route was Tham Lot (Lod) cave. IT was HUGE. We hiked through the cave with our local guide and then we reached a point where we needed to get on a bamboo raft to get to the other areas of the cave. It was a little scary at first because these massive fish kept hitting the bottom of the boat and jumping right next to us out of the water in hopes we had food. After our adventure in the cave, we went to Wat Hua Wiang which was a teak temple. It was beautiful on the outside, but decaying on the inside. It housed a brass Buddha behind glass and a locked gate.

Next we climbed Wat Doi Kong Mu. This was my favorite for the view! There were two pagodas and you could see a beautiful view of the town at one, and the view of the sunset on the mountains at the other.

We went to check in at our hotel just in time for a sunset and happy hour at our hotel. Our hotel was called "Fern Resort" and while it had many different ferns, it had rice terraces as well. Fun fact - Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt stay at that hotel every time they come to Thailand! There was a picture of the owner and her at the resort... I'm just telling you what the owners told us ;)

For dinner we walked to the city center. The city is situated around Chom Kham Lake and at night was beautiful! There were so many markets, lights, and lanterns. Wat Chong Kham and Wat Chong Klang were the two main Wats but in mom's words "were more Las Vegas-y". After our Thai dinner, we went back to the hotel for an OK nights sleep. Why you might ask...the rooms were nice, but around the resort there were these water contraptions that hit bamboo loudly every time it filled up with water. Ben and I noticed it and had a difficult time sleeping.. mom never noticed!

On our last day, we had 5 hours to go to get back to Chiang Mai. The only thing on the itinerary was Kaeo Komon Cave. When we put it into GPS, it led us on a horrible back road adventure. We were on this tiny dirt road up and down very steep mountains. The few motor bikes we did see were struggling and I'm sure laughing at us as they passed us. After what we thought was a sign our car was about to break down on this steep incline, we decided we had to turn around (which was more of a reverse until we could find a place wide enough to make a 10-point turn). I had already made peace with the idea of spending the night in a village while our car had to get fixed. By lot of good thoughts we made it back to the main road, only to see the signs for the cave a few meters down the road. We finally made it to the cave!! It was made of Calcite and only 20 people were allowed in the cave at a time because of oxygen availability and the temperature. No pictures were allowed in the cave so we got pictures in our songthaew.

After an exhausting curvy road expedition back to Chiang Mai, we made it back safely. Rhianna was excited to get back because she was going to set up her new classroom! Over the break, the 5th grade teacher decided to return home. Rhianna asked to be moved to 5th grade and was told yes! It has been a dream come true for her and she has enjoyed every minute of it since January.

The following weekend we went north east to Chiang Rai. There we visited the White Temple, shopped at the night market, and visited the Black Temple.