July 4th, 2014
Happy July 4th
So it is the 4th of July here. How shall I celebrate? Maybe we should all pile back in the car and head to Mae Sariang!
Slept great last night despite the impending threat of a full on mosquitoes invasion. Troy rigged up a mosquitoes coil holder out of a ceramic incense burner that was in Jackie and Bruce’s room and was able to burn a mozzy coil outside our door. That, and he unscrewed the light bulb so as to minimize the attraction factor. Worked well, didn’t notice a single invader in our room.
Before we left town we stopped at Wat Phra That Doi Kong Mu up on the top of a mountain. It was a gorgeous view!
We made a donation and wrote on the wrap/decoration that will go around the chedi when completed.
And here is my documentation on the 1864 curves 😳😳
Ringing the bell 😃 Chok Di!!
The view of Mae Hong Son from the top.
Then we hit the road. Stopped at some waterfalls. At the moment I do not recall which ones. But they were very nice….I refreshed my feet in them 😊
Our next unplanned stop was at a roadside coffee shop/viewpoint. It was very pleasant with a lovely view of the valley below. The best part was the quaint little sitting area with a campfire type fire going where they boil the water for tea (which they seemed to think we needed) so they made us some unprompted. So we sat and had tea and peanuts.
You just never know what adventures await around the next corner
We planned to go to a viewpoint about 8.5 Km’s off the main road to the top of a mountain where they have microwave towers. So presumably a decent road? The road itself wasn’t in too bad of condition (we have seen so so much worse) but it was a remarkably windy steep road. On almost every curve (which were in fact blind corners on a road not wide enough for two cars to pass) there was this sign…
Indicating (as I am sure you can imagine) honk your horn to alert oncoming traffic you are there, and it is another steep incline on a blind corner. And of course the understanding that if you were to HEAR a horn, you should act accordingly.
We wound our way through a hill tribe village that clearly gets virtually no traffic like us. The little children were adorable and ran away as soon as we opened the car door. Troy gave them some popcorn on the way back out and they liked that, so he was able to get them to stand for a photo. Absolutely gorgeous children.
We got to the top but our view was somewhat obstructed by clouds that were rolling in, but the wildlife up there caught my eye.
All hill tribe farming, many pick up trucks of tomatoes being taken out, piled high! Ridiculously high!!
So we were 1400 meters (4,600 feet) above sea level up there, a climb of 3,300 feet from the main highway. Quite the drive!!
We ended up at one of the niftier hotels that we have seen here. It was called Black Ant Coffee Resort and it was built like a giant tree house! It was 600baht <$20USD. Loads of places for mosquitoes to enter the room once again, but can't say I noticed a problem in the night. Very well trained mosquitoes I must say. Guessing they don't like air con😀
There was a fellow doing a bit of burning right there in the center of the facility in the morning on our way out. I guess it is what it is, they burn a lot of stuff here….
Wonky tree right in the middle of the walkway.
So in the reviews for this place, I saw something about the rooms on the second floor having doors that go nowhere so to be cautious if you were a sleepwalker or something. As it turns out we had room on the second floor, so we had one of those special doors. So bizarre they wouldn’t block these doors shut or something….but they don’t and sure enough they open up to a 15 or 20 foot drop.
In all fairness, there is a piece of paper taped on there saying “danger”–good enough!!
