Lampang. January, 22-25, 2014.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

The short 90 minute drive from Chiangmai was easy and fast with dual carriage way over the mountains. We arrived in Lampang as the sun was setting. We headed to the Lonely Planet "Top Choice Hotel" as they often suggest good places to stay. As we rounded the corner we saw Kuipwagen, which is the overland vehicle of Coen and Marijke, our future travel companions. A nice surprise indeed! It did not take long before we tracked them down and caught up over a drink. Caroline and I both agree that we have similar ideas and that these will be good people to travel with.
The place we are staying at is wonderful, and I suspect we might get trapped here for 3 days.

Our Future Travel Companions. Coen and Marijke with Kuipwagen.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Relaxing. Did not do much today. Which is a very good thing. Found a very nice place for lunch and a very very nice place for dinner and drinks. The rest of the time was spent reading and catching up with friends over email.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Relaxing again. But we did make it to the local temples.

Our view over the river. Very relaxing

Hotel Room. Very Relaxing.

Also relaxing.

Owner had a supped-up Land Rover Defender (Toyota engine).

Manneke Pis still travelling.
This time in Lampang.

Chiangmai. January 21-22, 2014

Tuesday, January 21

We headed back to Chiangmai to pickup our Myanmar visas and get our teeth cleaned. The road was again quite pretty and we had a short day's drive arriving just after lunch. Finding accommodation proved to be more difficult than we thought as we arrived in the middle of university graduation, and proud parents had snapped up all of the good rooms. Of course we found a place, just had to pay a little more. 

I headed off to get the car battery tested. Why? Well, earlier in the morning, Sterlin had failed to start when turning the key in the ignition. Sterlin completely died so I suspected something amiss with the electrical system. No dashboard lights was also a clue. So I popped the hood to check things out and found nothing obviously wrong, like a disconnected battery lead. On the second attempt, Sterlin started just fine. This was all a bit concerning, and I suspect there was something wrong with the engine battery. Back to the ex Land Rover dealer I went to get the battery tested. Unfortunately the battery tested just fine. If it is not the battery, then what. A battery is easy to fix and we do have two of them. Probably the only redundant item in Sterlin. Something new to worry about.

Wednesday, January 22

Getting our teeth cleaned in a foreign country is probably the bravest thing we will do on this trip. But we had a solid recommendation from Ed and well, we needed our teeth cleaned. The experience was not too bad. Of course, not as good as in San Francisco and our favorite dentist. And yes, we successfully got our Myanmar visas. 

Spent lunch time and the afternoon wandering around the old city, taking photos, visiting temples and trying to decide if we stay another night or push on. We decided it was time to leave Chiangmai and after battling the 5pm traffic rush finally made it to the highway heading South.

We really liked Chiangmai and suspect we will be back one day.

Funky

Markets

Temples

City Moat

Pha Yao. January 20, 2014.

Pha Yao is set along Kwan Phayao, a wetland (with artificially controlled water level, to prevent it from drying out in the 'dry' season), which makes for a very pleasant lake and 'embarcadero'.
We arrived here quite early, around 1pm, and found a lovely little hotel 'The Cozy Nest' a stone's throw from the water.
After checking in we didn't waste any time and went for a walk along the waterfront and into town. On the way we found a delightful little place for late lunch, happened upon a few Wats, had some passport photos made (we feel some visas coming up), and circled back to the hotel. Stephen futzed some more in the car re-arranging some cables.

Local Wat.

Not too much later we strolled along the lake shore again to admire the sunset and shortly after were able to join a long boat full of locals to visit a sunken temple in the lake, or at least the bit that is still above water. On the short boat trip to the temple Stephen pointed his iPhone camera above his head and back to take a picture of the man paddling the boat... little did he know that the locals behind us knew they were going to feature in the picture and they worked it. Lots of laughs were had after seeing the photo :)
During dinner Stephen mistook a green chilli for a green bean and a large Chang beer couldn't cool that down. Caroline enjoyed a grilled fish, freshly caught from the lake.

Fire Breathing Dragon over Kwan Phayao.

Fun on the boat trip to the sunken temple.

Changrai. January 19, 2014.

January 19

The scenery here in the north continues to amaze us. Like yesterday, we drove at a leisurely pace arriving in Chiangrai in the early afternoon. This gave us plenty of time to walk around the city visiting three temple complexes and a clock tower.

Rice fields of Northern Thailand

Wat Ming Muang

Wat Ming Muang

Tha Ton. January 18, 2014.

January 18

The road north from Chiangmai to Tha Ton is quite beautiful. We made a leisurely drive up and down the winding roads taking in the dense green forest lands. Our objective for the day's drive was Chiang Rai, but along the way we found delightful Tha Ton (1) and decided to stop early. After a late lunch we hiked up the hillside to visit several buddhas and a stupa.

Largest Teak buddha in the world?
On the road to Fang.

Tha Ton is near Fang, where vampires live.

All of the rubbish bins look like
witches' cauldrons. And are
made out of old tires.

View over Tha Ton.

Our lovely riverside room for the night.

January 19

After a late breakfast we drove up to the main tourist attraction of Tha Ton, which is large stupa overlooking the town. It was actually a very nice visit with the stupa housing many buddhas from all around Asia.

Chiangmai. January 14-18, 2014.

We'd heard a lot of positive things about this city (Thailand's second) and it lived up to its expectations.

The old city is surrounded by a moat full of fountains. Ayutthay and Sukhothai are also surrounded by moats but both of those are dry, and, within you find only temple ruins. ChiangMai's old city is full of temples very much in use, some temple ruins, and most importantly full of activity. Once off the busy road it is fun to walk around and get semi-lost in the little streets and alleys of the inner old city. Eventually you hit the surrounding road again.

We decided to stay west of the city, close to a couple of big hospitals and the university, a newer part of town. We could walk (30mins) or drive to the old city, but mostly we stayed in our area. For us Chiangmai was the place to take a break again from moving all the time.

I like Chiangmai. Definitely a place I could spend some time.

Pai. January 13, 2014

Pai is nestled in the beautiful mountains of Northern Thailand. Truly magical scenery. The drive from Mae Sariang was a delight and one of those iconic drives you hear about and really should do, especially if you ride 2 wheels.

Lovely mountains on the road to Pai

Hmmm, not too sure about the safety of that bridge

Stephen enjoying life