We left on Monday morning for Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is a very popular destination itself, and the second largest city in Thailand (although it is still dwarfed by Bangkok). Mark from the school (teaches P4-5-6 non-bilingual classes) wanted to go to Chiang Mai also to visit the American Consulate about a passport issue, so I offered to take him and his friend along with us.I'd never driven to Chiang Mai myself before, but it was quite easy to get there and just a 2.5-3 hour drive from Uttaradit. The city itself was somewhat harder to get around in, but not too bad. Chiang Mai is laid out around an old city square, with the original wall still standing in some parts and a moat all the way around it. The road outside the moat is one-way clockwise around the square, and inside the moat goes counter-clockwise. I was slightly less utterly hopeless with directions than usual, but Teay and Mark provided a lot of good help getting around and figuring out a hotel with parking for my car!
After getting checked in and dropping off Mark and his friend, we got back in the car and drove out to Chiang Mai Zoo. We had a good time checking out the animals from the monorail that circles around above the grounds and on foot. Teay had two specific items on the agenda: first to see the new baby panda (named Linping) at the zoo, and second to visit the snow dome indoor area with snow generators. Unfortunately, we were too late in the day to get to see a panda showing, but we did get to check out the snow dome. It had better quality snow than the similar place in Dream World at Bangkok, and it was colder also, but had good coats and boots that let us stay in longer. The down side was that they didn't let us take photos - apparently the "air temperature is too cold and might damage them" (but the camera of the official photographer works just fine, and he'll sell you prints for low-low prices! --no thanks).
After the zoo, we went out to eat at Miguel's Mexican Restaurant, which was excellent even though I'm not quite as desperate for Mexican food after finding the place for it in Bangkok and making tacos at home with Teay! After supper, we walked back to our hotel (not very far) to get some sleep before driving to Pai the next day.We left for Pai on Tuesday, and managed to get on the correct highway out of Chiang Mai fairly easily. It was going to be about a 180 kilometer trip that we were told would take about 3 hours. The first 100 km passed in about an hour, and then we started to get into the hillclimb stretch of road leading up to Pai. I hadn't done any mountain driving for quite a while, so I had a great time weaving up switchbacks and enjoying the scenery for the roughly 2 hours to go the remaining 80 km. And Teay didn't barf in the passenger seat, so I must have been doing OK! :)
When we got close to Pai, we decided to stop at a resort with cottage houses for rent called Paina Paita that Teay had visited (but not stayed at) the last time she was in the area. It is right on the side of Pai Canyon / Valley, and the cottage rooms looked great, so we went ahead and checked in there. We got a small cottage all to ourselves with a bedroom with mosquito nets, nice fairly open / natural style bathroom, and attached porch with fantastic view of the valley.
We did some relaxing there and then took our first trip in to Pai town to check out the evening walking street with vendors, live music, bars, etc. The town does have a very hippie feel, similar to some of the mountain towns in Colorado. We enjoyed walking around and checking things out.
I was a bit concerned about mosquitoes getting in through the open-air spaces in our cottage at night, but with the mosquito net around the bed, it was very comfortable sleeping and a very nice cool temperature. I'd guess that it was in the low 60's Fahrenheit for overnight lows, which isn't all that cool by Kansas standards, but positively frigid in Thailand. I think that in the coldest parts of the year (maybe December in Pai compared to roughly early November in Uttaradit) it can get down to the low 40's F at the elevation in Pai.
Wednesday morning was enjoyable to wake up and check out the clouds and fog that settled into the valley from our cottage porch. We enjoyed a good breakfast prepared by the resort owner, and then set off on some road trips to area attractions.
First was a small local market outside of the town. Lots of local-grown fruits and vegetables, and some handcrafts etc. We bought some fruit including pomegranates. I ate pomegranate in the USA maybe once a year around Thanksgiving or Christmas, but they are cheap and plentiful here so we get them quite frequently.
Next we went to an overlook / hiking area to see Pai Canyon. Great view and nice rock outcrops, with nice easy hiking and footpaths. Teay was a bit chicken about walking across one semi-narrow ridge out to get a different vantage point, so she crawled / crab walked it, and I followed with the camera.From there we stopped at a bridge constructed during World War 2 over the Pai river. Teay bought some Thai-style sausage, which made the local dogs follow her everywhere.
Our next stop was some natural hot springs with mineral bath pools. Signs in the park said that the water at the outlet of the spring is about 80 degrees Celsius, and there were several tiers of pools of varying temperatures with stone dividers set up. We lazed in the water for about an hour or so. I would guess that the water in our pool was about 105 degrees Fahrenheit, quite comfortable with an ambient air temperature of roughly 65. It also had very nice scenery and nature to look at while lounging in the pools!
After drying off and cooling down a bit, we got back in the car and drove on a circle road that went around most of the valley to come into Pai town from the other side. We had lunch at a Big Bowl Noodle shop, where you get a large serving of noodle soup in an extremely large bowl.
For the afternoon, Teay wanted to drive to check out Pang Oung, a mountain lake advertised as being like a "mini Switzerland". We asked for directions and distance, and were told it was about 100km away, and a 3 hour drive. The drive was fun with good scenery, and we only got slightly lost once or twice -- the 3 hour estimate held to be nearly spot on. The lake was nice, and completely surrounded by evergreen trees (pretty rare in Thailand). We couldn't spend much time there since we wanted to get back to our resort near Pai before it got too dark. I think it would have been a good place to camp for a day or two, but it was a little "meh" as the object of a 6 hour trip of mountain driving.
On Thursday morning, the cloud coverage view from our cottage was even better than the day before, and we had a repeat excellent breakfast made by the owner. We did some packing and lazing around and enjoying the view before checkout time and then hit the road back towards Chiang Mai, but stopped at Coffee in Love shop for some hot drinks (coffee for Teay and tea for me) and photos on the way out of town.Once back in Chiang Mai, we went to the Central Airport Plaza for some shopping (I got the new Dan Brown book) and ate at Shabushi, a fun Japanese buffet restaurant where you sit at a counter and a little conveyor belt carries sushi, meats, veggies, etc. in front of you for you to grab and eat or cook in a hot-pot at your seat. After supper we did some more walking around in Chiang Mai, and visited the Night Bazaar. Lots of neat stuff there, including some fantastic 3D scenes hand carved into teak wood (way outside my price range). I looked for a wood carved Guan Yu figure to add to my collection (mine are all resin figures), but didn't have any luck. Finally, we stayed in the same hotel that we started out the trip in on Monday night.
Friday was our return to Uttaradit day, but we also stopped in Lampang to watch an elephant show. I'd seen a similar show North of Chiang Mai before. This show also had paintings done by the elephants, which is very cool to watch. They come up with pretty well done pictures, and as far as I can tell they have absolutely no physical direction from their trainers when they do the painting with a brush held in their trunks.My picture gallery of the trip can be found HERE. I've also edited together a few video clips from my camera that you can watch below. Sections are: driving to Pai, looking around Pai Canyon, and watching the Elephant show in Lampang. Guess that is all for now!
