July 5th, 2014
Heading home…..
….home being Chiang Mai that is 😉😉
I don’t know what it is about traveling with us that prompts folks (remember Erica from last year) to send us on our way and then just stay put. But here we are again, Jackie and Bruce have fallen for Mae Sariang and want to stay longer. So they bravely tell us to pack our stuff and go. Just kidding, we totally get it. They like the feel of the place and want to explore more. So they head off down the street in search of accommodations that don’t have a crew of barking dogs right under their window, and we pass them on the way out town with a wave. We have since heard from them that they are having a sleepover on Sunday night with a hill tribe village. So I can not wait to hear all about that when they return to Chiang Mai on Monday evening.
Our road trip today included a side trip to more waterfalls. There are a lot of waterfalls here 😀😀. 4 Km’s off the main road got us to this point.
So I guess we get out and walk now.
No idea what we are looking for or where to find it….but we are great adventurers after all, so we head off into the wild. There is this interesting bamboo ladder/bridge thing that we thought about crossing, but I was first and there were a couple things that alerted me to say “No”. One was the first step I took on it, it crushed (now they make their scaffolding out of bamboo here, it is incredibly strong–so this is a red flag), secondly, the rail is so low, I can not possibly use it effectively, thirdly, I would have to step on this pile of red fire ants to successfully cross this contraption and then step on it again after they are really mad, to get back. (this is actually what cemented the decision for me).
We skipped this and headed further on to see if we could find the waterfalls. We come around a corner and happen across this sign! Wow….I don’t know how to describe the irony of situations like this. You hack your way through jungle with no visible sign that you are even heading the right way, then voila there is this fancy sign with clearly was at one time a well developed park. Totally abandoned and deserted but for us. Who puts these things here??
The trail was very well done, nice wide steps made out of concrete and stone, but so much vegetation had fallen and never been cleared that they were quite mucky to get through.
There are 12 levels apparently, we made it to #5 😳😳 Hahahahahahahaha
There was a very refreshing breeze coming off the waterfalls, which is always a welcome thing at this point!
Well we didn’t have all day to dedicate to this hike (or the right tools to chop the jungle out of our way), so we turned around at level 5 and went back up to the top to carry on with our journey back to Chiang Mai.
We got back to Chiang Mai around 5pm and since had decided to try a new hotel (rather than what we now lovingly refer to as the Roach Motel), we now had to try to navigate ourselves to said hotel (the Baan Ratchiangsaen). Thanks to google maps on my phone, we made it here and were so pleasantly surprised by this hotel, I booked three nights. It is new, just opened in November 2013 and I was able to negotiate the price down to 1000baht. It has a pool and many nice amenities including coffe maker in the room! Yay!!! Plus it is so nice and new.
We got ourselves settled in
And then drove the car over to Ginny place to pick up Ian. The plan was to drive over to the part of town where Landon and Ritchie live and have supper at the Mexican place where Teou (Landon’s girlfriend) works. We also met Vanna….Ritchie’s fiancée. So all in all a nice welcome home for us 😃😃😃
