trust

We have spent the last 5 days in northern thailand, in small river towns near the Burma border. A little east of the golden triangle. It has been a nice simple, quiet lifestyle with no access to the internet, so no checking email, blogging, checking football scores or UFC results. Here is a pic of the simple huts that we have been living out of. Costs have ranged from about 350 baht a night (9 bucks) with a bathroom for these simple huts next to the river.

The last two nights have been spent in a town called Tam Lak which was about 7km north of Soppong. We took a bus from Mae Hon Song (150 baht/ 1.5 hours) to Soppong and then took a moped taxi from Soppong to Tam Lak (60 baht/15 mins). The ride moped ride was interesting, with my 40+ pound bag in front and me on the back, but you have to trust these guys as having up to 4 or 5 on a moped is nothing new to them.

The Cave Lodge in Tam Lak was simple and very nice. It was ran by an aussie and his wife who was a local to the village in Tam Lak. The lodge was very close to the Tam Lod Cave, which we hired a guide to take us thru. The caves were amazing and we took bambook rafts down the river to enter each of the 3 caves. Lots of thai tourists, very few westerners and of that very few americans. Mostly Europeans and Aussies that we ran into. The bamboo and cave tour reminded me of a Disneyland ride since you had to take a bamboo raft to one section, get out and tour the cave and then take it to the next. Although this is thru a natural cave and river. After the cave tour we food a line of street food and gorged out on chicken curren noodles, egg omlet over rice, basil chicken and papaya salad. Man we felt like true americans after that meal, that was the first time we truley gorged out on the cheap food. I think the whole meal with two sodas cost 140 baht (about 4 bucks).


In the evening we took a hike to the cave exit with a Muriel a french lady that we met at the lodge to witness the nightly spectacle of hundreds of thousands of swift birds entering the cave to take rest on within the cave and the bats leaving to go feed on prey. It was pretty amazing and believe it or not that part of the cave really stunk like bird crap. Luckily we did not get crapped on. Then the thress of us plus two others that we met at the exit hiked back in th dark with two small flashlights.

So after the last 5 days of living in huts with mossie nets, we decided to slurge and live it up for a new nights. We took a 1.5 hour local bus ride from Soppong to a city called Pai. I was alittle reluctant to stop in Pai, since many of the reviews on Thorn Tree (Lonely Planet forum) were not positive. It's a hippie town with lots of tourists. Kind of reminds me of towns in Goa, India or maybe even Koh Phagnan. The bus ride was not your typical greyhound, local buses here are pretty small and I had the pleasure of sharing a seat with a local that was falling asleep taking up about 2/3 of the seat. The ride from Soppong to Pai is a hilly, curvy ride as well. Much worse then the drive over the sierras, maybe it compares to the ride to Hana in Maui. Luckily the bus does not go fast at all or people would be getting sick. So when we arrived into Pai, we founf signs to a boutique hotel and walked to it. Ended up being very nice and just what we were looking for. So the plan is to crash here for at least two more nights and then see about heading back to Chiang Mai.