July 1st, 2010
hmmm–local food : )
Good afternoon…just got “home” from a day with Riam and Jaron. I know his English name is Pat–but I like Jaron better and I can remember it so why not??
We went up to Chiang Dao Caves today…it was the coolest thing we have done on this trip so far I would say. It will be fun to see what pictures Troy got on his camera—it is difficult to capture these types of things with a camera. I also did have my video, but the light was very low (to say the least) pitch dark! So unless the lantern was right on something–no way to see it. When we got there, we first fed the big BIG fish–mostly catfish but some huge goldfish. There is a lucky fish in there with three tail fins, but we could not find it…so while we were in the caves, Riam looked for it. It is a very good luck omen to find this fish–so we appreciate her doing that–we can use all the luck we can get in this life eh?
So we paid 40 baht and then went inside and right away walking up the steps we can smell the musty moist cave smell. I am thinking “OK–keep an open mind Laurie!” We go in and then see a few ladies waiting for US it seems. They explain that it is 100 baht for a lantern and then maybe a 100 baht “tip” for the guide to take you around–as they are “volunteers”. This seems like a reasonable investment given what we have heard about the adventure we are about to embark on. So off we go—climbing up first and then into the first cave. UH…can you say BATS? I made the mistake at this early juncture, of using the hand rail to help myself up the flight of rock carved steps. I knew right away this was a BAD idea. Clearly bats have nothing but time on their hands to poop. There seemed like a lot of bats and even more poop–but as we got further into the caves (the series of caves went on for quite a while), the bats were even more plentiful–like millions i am sure–and with all those bats–there is poop. So anyway–you get the idea. Aside from the bat poop part–it was WAY COOL! I would highly recommend these caves to anyone who can go see them. Last year we went to see a big cave(s) on Railay Beach…at the time–we thought it was great–and there was lots of bats there too–but this made that cave seem like a baby cave–small fish (small bats?)
So as we meandered along–carefully as it was very dark and slippery–the moist hot air was dripping from everything (we choose to believe it was condensation!) we had to crawl through some very small openings between caves. There were various places where worship occurs along the way as a monk or buddha or someone like that used to live in these caves hundreds of years ago. Anyways–as we got further in, the air got thinner and thinner and hotter–we were really not working that hard–but sweating like pigs and panting like dogs trying to get our air- Pretty pathetic I suppose, but the guide was very nice and went slow for us. Here is a picture of us with our guide at the end…
What a great breathe of fresh air we had when we came out though!!
After that we fish watched a bit, while we got our sweat on, then headed back to the car (oh yeah after some water and ice cream!)
We stopped at a fruit and vegetable stand and I got an avocado (YUM) and Riam got a fruit that looks like a watermelon on the outside but is more like a grapefruit on the inside but NOT sour. Anyway–VERY good–we cleaned that up fast. Then we stopped at another stand and Riam got steamed corn. This was also very good. It tasted different than our corn…she called it Chiang Mai corn…hahaha. It was almost meaty tasting–it did not taste like “meat”, but it was chewy sort of. Hard to explain–we polished that off too. Then we stopped at another local market (where Riam goes to shop for supper food every night) and we got ice cream (Hmmm–I see a pattern here), but it was the homemade 10 baht ice cream. Wowzer! Riam also got us this other treat that looked like tacos, but was some sort of sweet dessert thing made out of meringue with coconut and cheese or something inside. Sounds weird I know–but very VERY tasty–so we polished off that too!
We also asked her to take us to a Rice Paddy, so we could see how that goes. Yup–now I know for sure that that seems like a tough way to make a living!!
So we are back now and doing our regular late afternoon relax thing. Not sure what tomorrow holds–still postulating a trip to the hot springs for jewelry. Teehee…
Prolly going to go to the night market tonight…
