Burning away some of the forest in the mountains near my house at night.
A really cool picture of the moon from my front yard.
The moon looking out from my backyard.
The watermelon field.
The first watermelon I saw in the field.
Three little melons in a row.A winters trip up north seemed the perfect thing to do in the days leading up to Christmas. Several of my good friends from Bangkok had time off for the New Years so they decided to road trip up north. It also turned out that I had a three day weekend due to the parliamentary elections, so Boy, Sign and Ploy showed up in Lampang on Saturday evening to pick me up on their way north. The following morning we took off for Chiang Rai at about 8am. On the way, we stopped at Pha Thai Cave, which is about 60km outside of town. It’s actually a place I’ve wanted to go for a long time, but haven’t made the drive out there. We wandered down into the cave with a guide. It was spectacular. It was a huge cave, much bigger that Phra Sabai cave (which is closer to Lampang). We say some amazing stalactites and stalagmites as well as some neat rock formations and several snakes. It was very cool. We continued on traveling through Phayo only stopping to check out the lake for a few minutes (it’s supposed to be the biggest lake in Thailand). We then headed towards Chiang Rai town were we ate lunch and went to Wat Rong Fa. It’s the new white temple in town. I’ve been there twice – I stopped there with Katie and her host family when they took us to Chiang Rai when I was studying here. We stopped there for a bit and walked around. From there we started to drive to Phu Chee Fa. It’s a mountain on the Thailand-Lao border which is topped with a nice point and a cliff which allows you to look out over the surrounding area with stunning 360° views. A somewhat indirect translation of Phu Chee Fa is the mountain where you can touch/reach heaven. We wound our way up through the mountains along these small roads through strings of villages. Many of the villages had painted rocks and the fences along the road yellow and so we were driving through a yellow lined road for multiple kilometers. It actually looked really cool. They had done all of this for the King's birthday which was earlier in the month. We caught our first glimpse of the mountain and leaned out the car to take a picture of it and continued to take pictures the whole way up. We got to the parking lot and began the short walk to the top of the mountain. The views from the top were stunning. We looked down on to these valleys which stretched for kilometers. It was incredibly clear and the sky was a perfect blue. There were a few clouds but that only highlighted the blueness of the sky and the colors on the ground. There were so many colors on the ground – reds, yellows, browns and greens. It’s been a lot like fall here as it’s gotten colder and some of the tree have changed and lost their leaves. It’s quite stunning. I noticed it first in Pai, but it was present to a much greater extent in Chiang Rai. After goofing around on the mountain for a while, we headed out to get to the resort before it got too dark. We hoped back into the car and continued to listen to music, take photos and talk. We rounded one bend and we saw the moon rising over the hills in front of us and had to stop. The moon was full and was huge! It was just coming out from behind the mountains and was right on the horizon and was lit up nicely by the sun setting. We checked into the hotel and went to eat dinner. We stayed at a strawberry farm run by people from Yunnan so our dinner was Yunnanese food, which wasn’t bad.
After our dinner we headed back inside and played cards and drank plum wine. It had just so happened that this was also the night of the first election since the coup and the country was electing their parliament. We sat on the bed and played cards and occasionally watched the results come in. It was a real unique way to spend election night and I enjoyed myself. I was also able to chat with them about the election and pick their brains a little about the election. We both feel the same way towards Samak and all basked in the brilliance of Abhisit’s English abilities (it was flawless – he graduated from Oxford). I remember watching the ticker tape along the bottom looking for Lampang results and being frustrated when it showed that all three constituencies in Lampang voted for PPP and Samak. Bummer. But I guess that’s what I expected to happen. We hung out for a while playing cards and ended up hitting the sack later than we wanted since we were going to get up early the following day to watch the sun rise. We did get up early and drove up to another mountain, one close to the guesthouse and climbed up to see the sun rise. We forgot our flashlights in the room, but the moon was nearly full so we climbed by moonlight. We camped out near this rock outcropping along side this cliff and waited for the sun to come up. We watched as the sky lit up and the colors appeared on the horizon. As the sun came up, we could make out the clouds lying in the valleys in what seemed to be a sea of fog in the valleys. It was incredible. We spent a lot of time there, but then at the convincing of a local guide we headed up to the top of another small hill where we watch the sun come up. We were there for a little while before we actually saw the sun come above the horizon and as it did it lit up the sky with incredible oranges and reds which then blended with the blue of the sky at the boundary of the sky, sun and the blackness of night. It was stunning. We took lots of photos and spent lots of time up top before heading back down to the car to grab breakfast and showers before heading out.
We had a good drive ahead of us through some more mountains and then along the Mekong through Chiang Khong and Chiang Saen on our way to Mae Sai. It was a route that I’d wanted to take for a long time and really enjoyed. The scenery was stunning along the whole route. We got to Mae Sai at about lunch time and had lunch along the small river which separated Thailand from Burma. It was very strange as we were sitting eating lunch we heard Christmas music coming from the Burmese side of the river. Not only was it coming from Burma, but it was coming from the temple just across the river. Strange. I guess I should also mention that this was Christmas Eve day. We then went to find out about crossing over into Burma. This is something that many people will do. Thai’s can cross the border with just a photocopy of their ID card and cross to go shopping. It’s a lot cheaper in Burma so many people do it. Last time I was there with Boy, Sign, Yui and Peck, they crossed over but I stayed behind with Yui since I didn’t think that I could cross. This time we asked more questions and it turned out that I could cross. I got a couple copies of my passport and left them with immigration on the Thai side. They gave me a little scrap piece of paper with a stamp on it an my information. I walked through immigration. I met the gang in the middle of now where i.e. no mans land between Burma and Thailand on this little bridge over the river. We took several pictures of me straddling the middle point of the bridge – half of me in Thailand and half of me in Burma. I crossed over and hit Burmese immigration. I went into a small little room where I gave them the little piece of paper and paid $10. They then gave me another piece of paper and told me to make sure I was back across by 5pm. We were then free to wander around Burma. We didn’t get far from the border and stuck to the markets along the river, but we did some good shopping. I got a lot of DVD’s and some wine for Christmas dinner and the others got DVD’s and shirts and liqueur and the like. We spent about 3 hours in Burma before we had to head back to cross over before 5pm. We headed back. I spoke to the Burmese officials and they took the paper back. Then I spoke to the Thai authorities and they took the piece of paper and gave me my passport back. All told, I ended up leaving a foreign country and entering another without my passport as I had left it in Thailand while I was in Burma. So that’s that.
We then drove back to Lampang and had dinner at the new restaurant, Glimpse, before calling it a night. We caught up again the next day (Christmas Day) and had lunch and coffee before they headed back to BKK and I headed over to Mike’s for Christmas dinner. All in all, it was an amazing trip and I’m so glad I was able to spend that time with them and do the things that we did.
Here are the pictures from the trip. Enjoy