Chiang mai (and Pai), Thailand - Doi Inthanon National Park, Wachirathan waterfall, Karen hill tribe, King and Queen Pagodas, Royal Gardens

On our second full day in Chiang Mai, we took a full-day tour (8 am to 5 pm) to Doi Inthanon, Thailand's highest mountain. Let us start by saying that the most incredible views were from the ride up and not the mountain itself, even though it was great as well.

If on the tour on the day before we met a girl from Tokyo who gave us tons of advice about where to go and eat in Tokyo, this tour we made friends with a girl from Switzerland who gave us advice about Pai, much of which was very valuable.

Also, she had more leg strength than me (Talia), so when I did all the climbing I could do, she went on with Rony and I rested a bit.

We started out by going to the Wachirathan waterfall that is absolutely stunning. Our tour guide, Tik (Tac Toe, as an Austrian couple called him), showed us a picture of the waterfall a few weeks ago just after the heavy rains and it was even more gorgeous, but we aren't complaining.

There are two parts to the waterfall: The bottom, which we wouldn't even consider a climb since it's only about 30 steps or so, and the top. Like true adventurers, we decided to go all the way up and the view was beautiful (on the way).

Wachirathan waterfall. Look at the rainbow :-)

We then drove (and then climbed) to the top of the highest part of the mountain, otherwise known as the highest point in Thailand. Apparently, there was a king (the 7th I think) who loved that mountain so much that he asked that when he die, his ashes be scattered at that spot, a request that was obliged. That spot is now a shrine. My favorite part of the mountain was that some spots were so hot, and others were freezing, like tropical rain forests.

Funny signs all around Thailand

Tik told us how they used to grow tons of opium there, and asked us if anyone wants some. No one answered after he insisted, so he said that's a shame, because with Thai opium, after an hour you see Buddha. After two hours you see G-d. After three hours you sing along with both (or something along those lines - the way he told it was so funny that we couldn't stop laughing long enough to hear the end). But that was just a joke of course. There is no opium in this area anymore. Instead, the king decided to stop the traffic and find other occupations for the local tribes. It is called the Royal Project and it consists of giving alternative culture like growing coffee, flowers and other vegetables as well as trading hand made products.

As an example, Tik drove us to see the people of the Karen hill tribe.They make their living off of great Arabica coffee and some really pretty quilting-type activity, and Tik told us about their clothing, the most interesting being that unmarried women all wear a white dress. Which, of course, eliminates the need for men to look for a ring,  but at the same time must cause Jewish Mother Syndrome to the 10th degree.

But I digress.

Karen Hill Tribe

We then had lunch, which was nice enough (but not all that), and went on to another waterfall. We can't remember what its name was, but it was by the Royal Gardens.

The Royal Gardens are gorgeous. The waterfall is nice, but the gardens themselves are so beautiful, and we had some time to climb and walk around and talk more to the people in our group. The Austrian couple was, without a doubt, the funniest people ever, especially when you take into consideration that Claus (we don't actually know his name) speaks about 10 words of English. When you see a random self-portrait, that's him.

At last we saw the royal pagodas (one for the king, one for the queen) with their gardens. Beautiful. And on top of each pagoda, diamonds and rubies. As our guide said, if you want to be a millionaire, you "just" have to climb and grab them. Right. 

The waterfall at the Royal Gardens

We got back around 5:30, showered, and decided to do the most logical thing:

Order pizza.

So we did. Turns out, Chiang Mai has a delivery service that you can reach at www.mealsonwheels4U.com (we aren't making this up). And then we went to sleep real early since we knew we wanted to catch an early minibus to Pai.

Speaking of Pai, remember those motorbikes we rented? Well, they are rented for 24 hours, so since we only got them at 11 am, we made the conscious decision to take our time each place and go to Pai Canyon this morning.

We were advised that the best time to go to the Canyon was either early in the morning or later in the afternoon since it gets really hot, so we went around 9 am. Not that I wasn't excited to go to the Canyon, but we were just so happy to ride those motorbikes again!

Pai Canyon is gorgeous, especially when you go first thing in the morning and the mountains are still misty. The regular part of the canyon isn't a really hard climb and is maybe 5 minutes long, but when you get to the top, there is a tiny path that you can take, part of which is through rocks, and being the adventurous people we are, we decided to walk across to the next hill.

Part of the path to the other side

I have no idea what got into us, but for us that was our extreme sport, our bungee jumping (that's what Talia thinks. For my (Rony) part it was too easy. Really.). To me, it was a conquer. OK, fine, not a conquer, but we were a bit scared to do it at first. Anyway, from that point, you can see this video below. You may notice that there is very little land around us, that's cause we climbed through very thin trails to get there.

We were very sad to leave Pai, and even more sad to leave the motorbikes behind, but we had to catch our minibus back to Chiang Mai, where we currently are. Tomorrow morning we have an early flight to Bangkok and we will go to the temples that we didn't go to before, and then it's bye bye Thailand.

Pics:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=569635&id=906005363&l=7225387d6b