Two weeks of fun

It's been great having Stu here. It was nice to finally be able to show him why I love the park so much. We spent his first week there, then decided to take a small trip around Northern Thailand, so that he could see a little more than just elephants.

Set off Tuesday morning for the village of Chiang Dao. The village is well known for its caves, so we thought an afternoon of spelunking was in order. Unfortunately, we hopped off the bus & discovered that the village is well known for its caves that you have to drive to. Neither of us were prepared to hike 10km to reach them, and the village didn't have any public transportation to them, so we abandoned that idea & hopped on a bus to our next destination, Tha Ton.

Tha Ton is set on the Kok River, virtually on Burma's (or Myanmar, as it's referred to every but Thailand) border. It's a sleepy little town whose main attraction is the river & the boats that travel along it. There's a public long-tail boat system that travels 95 km down-river to the city of Chiang Rai (pop. 40,000) which is where we were headed. Unfortunately, because it's the end of the dry season, and tourist season is more or less over, the public boats weren't running as scheduled. Spent the better part of an evening humming & hawing, but in the end, we ended up chartering a boat with two other guys (one Scotish - and very Scotish at that, and one German).

Set off Wednesday morning on what was probably the best part of the trip. The ride took just under 4 hours, but the scenery was beautiful - travelling through the jungle and past small hilltribe villages. I can only imagine how breathtaking it would have been at the end of the rainy season when everything would be more lush.

Spent the last day & a half in Chiang Rai, getting thai massages, meandering, renting bikes (a warning to anyone planning on renting bikes in Thailand - test ride it first!) and eating. Came back to Chiang Mai yesterday. Today we've signed ourselves up for a thai cooking course (so that Stu can put away the Kraft Dinner until I get home), and we're spending our last night in a swanky downtown hotel that has a BATHTUB! Ok, I suppose you need to have spent your last 7 weeks in the middle of a jungle with only cold water showers to be really excited about that.... ;)