Northern Thailand

So after spending a couple of days in Chaing Mai we moved on to the so called Western loop, which goes into the NW mountains up to the border with Burma (Myanmar). After a six-hour bus ride on winding but almost perfectly asphalted roads we arrived in Mae Hong Son, a small sleepy town in which, in the words of an old British guy living there, the only excitement is the changing of the traffic lights :). Well, we don't really agree with this, there was a beautiful lake with a shining Wat reflecting its golden tips in its waters, even more beautiful monastries with laced rooftops, Burmese style, a quite interesting night market, where you could buy beautiful hand woven tapestry from Burma, all kinds of hand made designs from local tribes, opium pipes and ivory (well the old woman was convinced its real ivory and you have no problems buying it...) and for Peter's joy there was an excellent pizzeria which will go down in history as the only place which served actual olive oil in the whole of Thailand (there were rumors about this also on one of the islands but they remain unconfirmed). Mae Hong Son was also an excellent starting point for a beautiful trip around the area, going up to the Burmese border (and actually going into Myanmar;) see photo below) visiting a village established by the Kuomintang (the remnants of Chiang Kai Shek's army - the Republican army which fought against Mao's communist army and later fled Chain). This village was also situated around a beautiful lake and we had a special tea-tasting treat of the varieties produced in the hills around. The winding road took us among green rice and cabbage valleys, quiet peasant life and into one of the villages where hill tribe people lived. The little black dogs that surprisingly did not bark at us when we entered the village turned out to be piggies (hence no barking ;). The little girl who came to talk to us in very sweet English explained that there were five different tribes living in that village of about 100 families, she drove on here motorbike to school in Mae Hong Son every day (45km!), wanted to travel like we did and see our countries and then come back and work in her father's grocery store. What impressed me most was that although the village was pretty bare, the streets off the main road were unpaved, the houses looked like they could do with some enhancements, the people seemed content and happy with their life and were determined to make the best of it where they were.
We also visited a very nice park which had beautiful wild orchids growing from the trees (they do grow on the trees!) with a magic cave in which the fish went in but not all of them came out-oooooh... some spirits plying games again :)

OK, I know its getting long again but I have to tell you this part as well, after we decide to leave Mae Hong Son and since we did not want to sit again for six hours back we decided to stop half way in Pai. We disregarded Pai in the first place as it is one of those hippie outposts in Thailand where farangs (thats how they call the foreigners here) come and seem to stay forever charmed by the local beauty and mostly by the local grass. There is very little of Thailand in Pai, except the scenery but the best thing we did was go on an elephant ride! We drove into the mountain where the Elephants live, boarded them (through the truck) and rode off towards the river. Well its rather slow, uncomfy and the skin is very hard but its so much fun and when we got to the river they went in and started spraying water on us and then managed to get you off the saddle and into the water. There is even a movie with this so if you are nice and make a lot of comments on the blog we can show it when we are back:). It was sooo much fun :)) we are thinking of opening an Elephant park somewhere in Europe one day ;) and the best thing is they totally enjoy dong this, they love to play in the water and do it most of the time when they are free as well.

Well after all this we ended up in Chiang Khong at the border with Laos. The Great Mekong is the only thing which divides us for now, tomorrow we will be in Laos!