Exploring Paradise: Chiang Dao

A picture from our daily commute.

Sometimes when you live in a place, and the daily grind keeps you busy day in and day out, waking up early, getting the kids off to school, commuting to and from work, grocery shopping, meetings, and more, it is easy to forget you live in paradise. Sometimes, in fact, paradise can seem dirty and hot and crowded and hectic.  That's when it's time for an adventure--it just takes a day of exploring outside of the city for all of the dust and monotony to fall away.

Driving to Chiang Dao, I had to keep interrupting my read-aloud of Harry Potter, book 7 (much to our kids' dismay--I always seemed to manage to get distracted at crucial points) to gawk and exclaim about the incredible jungle or rice fields or mountains or temples or water buffalo or bird-sized butterfly flitting past the window.

The hillside in northern Thailand is just so beautiful these days, freshly out of the rainy season as we are.

When we arrived to our first destination, the Chiang Dao caves, My Man and the kids were convinced we'd somehow ended up at one of our earlier destinations--it looked so much like the strange temple we visited in the country near Chiang Rai earlier this year. But it was not.

There was a beautiful spring-fed koi pond with gigantic fish and crystal clear water.

There were women weaving grass baskets. There were dogs, including a rowdy group of new puppies (oh so tempting . . . ). 

There was a beautiful old stupa, where we were amazed to see a sign claiming an origin of 191AD (turns out it was a mistranslation, My Man, our resident Thai-reading expert, found out it was actually build in 1910--still old, but much more believable!).

Finally we made our way to the cave where we paid a small admission fee to go in. We opted for the lit path way (once inside the cave you can pay for a guide with a lantern to take you deeper into the cave. We have heard it takes 1-2 hours for that trip and gets dirty with some crawling and tight spaces).

The cave was wonderful and cool, though it is not as well preserved as we'd have liked, there were still some active stalactite formations.

After the cave, we went on a jungle hike. It was awesome until we started being attacked mercilessly by giant mosquitoes. Somehow I'd forgot our repellent in the car, so we hurried back, slapping ourselves silly along the way.

The temple structures were also interesting. We especially liked the three-headed snake.

Finally, hot and dusty, we returned to the sanctuary of our car and cool, sweet air conditioning. We snacked on cucumbers and granola bars as we wound our way further up the mountain and through the national forest. It was beautiful and as we climbed the views just got more and more breath taking.  The best part about trips like this though?  Check out My Man and Young Man in the pics below (I can't even remember the joke, but this is what it is all about, making memories and laughing together):

We didn't have a specific destination in mind--we were just driving and drinking it all in (and reading whenever I could tear my eyes from the verdant vistas and wasn't too carsick from all the switchbacks). 

After a few hours of driving, we consulted our dear friend Google to see if we could loop our way home or would have to turn around. It looked iffy, but we decided to go for it. Unfortunately, our one-way trail eventually dead-ended in a construction site and we had to turn around. It had started to rain so there were some interesting sections of mud and creeks running over the "road" that we had to ford. We definitely put the 4-wheel drive to the test and got out of there covered in glorious war paint mud splatters, proof of our incredible adventure outside the city.

To top it all off, as we headed home, starving after that adrenaline-filled episode, we spied a roadside vendor grilling what looked like ribs. I hopped out and bought a couple for our meat-loving boys. Turns out they weren't ribs. Or rather they were, but not beef or pork. Each skewer comprised three or four sets of little ribs. We decided they must be some version of rodent, squirrel maybe? Or ROUS (rodents of unusual size)?  Either way, the boys all agreed, they were delicious. Turns out they were field rats. Yum. 

Young Man wouldn't let us eat this little guy though.

And that, my friends, is what a northern Thai adventure looks like, local-style.

Slices of Life in Paradise: May

May in Thailand is hot. Seriously, sweat-drenching, energy-sapping hot. It's hot when you wake up, it's hot when you go to bed, it's hot at midnight, and it's excruciating in the sun. Thank goodness for air conditioning!  Still, we managed to do a few things. Here are the highlights.

The first Saturday in May, My Man and I went to the Chiang Mai Saturday Walking Street Market. On the way there, we walked past a great little park where there were several games going on that we'd never seen before. This one was pretty cool, with a circle of guys playing something kind of like hacky sac but they kept shooting the ball through the high hoop. They were really good.

The market was great (though even at 7:30pm, it was so hot--I think it was still 99 degrees and very humid, and that was after the sun went down!) and we can't wait to take the kids back. There were lots of street foods, crafts, arts, and other local goods.

Many of the venders were busy creating their wares right there at the booth!  By 8:30 it was so crowded we could barely walk down the street, so we left to get massages.

Monday night My Man proposed a trip to the nearby soccer field at Payap University to take advantage of the rare breeze for some kiting, which he hadn't had a chance to do yet since we moved here. Conditions weren't ideal, but it was great to get a chance to check out his wing and practice some ground handling. 

The next evening had a bit of a breeze again, so we headed out to the local paragliding launch to see if it would work out. There wasn't much of a breeze, but the views were great and My Man got two short flights in. They were his first in about a year, so it was good that everything went well.  There was a Thai couple up at the launch, enjoying the afternoon, so they were very excited to see his flights.

Afterward, we went out to dinner at one of the nicest places in town, the Dhara Dhevi Resort. While we were there, a fantastic storm swept through, with dramatic lightning and thunder, wind, and torrential down pours. The restaurant lost electricity so it turned into a romantic candle-lit dinner.

We moved in from the patio to the covered area just before the rain but it was still an open air seating area, swirling with wind and energy. We loved it. And the food was incredible. I got the pineapple fried rice and it was delicious, served in an actual grilled pineapple. Amazing. Unfortunately, the electricity in our neighborhood wasn't so quick about turning back on and most of the night it was off. Our house quickly heated to almost a hundred degrees. Try sleeping in that!  Made us very grateful for the AC we normally enjoy!

 

Even with the heat, we still do try to get out and enjoy this beautiful place we live. There is a fish pond in the middle of our neighborhood with gigantic fish and we love to go feed them. 



One day we took a family drive to a lake not far away and were completely blown away by how beautiful it was.

 The view from the dam was stunning, with the lake on one side and forest on the other.

Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of time to spend there (we had company coming over for dinner that evening), but just getting out and drinking in the view was enough. We all agreed we would definitely need to plan a return trip soon!

On our way home we stopped to check out the lake, 4-wheeling a bit to get down to the water. We have heard of boats that take people from here further up the lake to some houseboats where you can rent a floating bamboo house for a day or even stay over night. We can't wait to plan it.

During May I also got to attend two of Young Man's end-of-year performances.  One was a dance show where he and his classmates danced to "Oh Cecelia" with a routine they choreographed themselves.

It was great. I absolutely loved it and was so glad to be able to see it and watch everyone perform with varrying degrees of enthusiasm.

For the next show, "Act Naturally," put on by his drama class, Young Man performed a monologue (that he wrote himself) and a skit where he was a News Broadcaster. They were both great, but I don't think I've ever seen Young Man happier than when that show was over!

During May, My Man had two work trips up to Chiang Rai and Mai Sai. Although we got to accompany him on the first trip, he went back up without us the next week and hit a few attractions we hadn't had time for, including the White Temple (an art exhibit that is an interesting mix of art forms and modern sculpture and not really a temple).

He made friends with some interesting characters there.

But it wasn't all fun and sight seeing. My Man went as the U.S. Consulate representative from Chiang Mai to participate in a joint U.S.-Thai fraud training at the Mai Sai border, which included instruction and meetings with the border guards.

It sounded interesting.

When it was too hot to enjoy going out, we tried to find other family activities. We finished another Harry Potter book (Goblet of Fire) and watched the movie.

We went out and saw Tomorrowland and loved it. The first showing we turned up for turned out to be Thai only, but a quick Internet search saved the day as we found another showing at another theater across town.

Another time we went out to icecream and bowling with friends. 

We did a few more pool parties. Young Man had his end-of-year scouting advancement ceremony where he received a ton of badges he'd earned this year. 

Funny Guy decided he needed a beanbag toss game, so he made the target and then proceeded to make five colorful beanbags (with a little help from mom). 

My Man and I celebrated our anniversary with a wonderful weekend in Railay. And I received my formal offer to start work at the U.S. Consulate in mid-June! And we adopted a dog for the summer (The kids are overjoyed about petsitting Mochi all summer).

The last night of May, we decided to check out the big celebration for Buddha's birthday, Visakah Bucha. Traditionally, people gather at a temple on the edge of Chiang Mai and then walk up the mountain to another temple where they await the dawn and walk around the temple holding candles.

I knew we wouldn't be able to do the full pilgrimage since My Man had to work the next morning (although the kids got the day off school) and since 22 kilometers is way too many for Funny Guy. Still, we thought we could join in for a few kilometers at least.

Traffic was amazing and we ended up having to park several kilometers from the gathering point. We weren't the only ones, so we joined the throngs of people and walked up, not really knowing what to expect.

As we neared the gathering spot, the crowds swelled and fireworks started exploding all around us.

It was hot and past Funny Guy's bedtime and we decided this might be a good destination, so we found a good vantage point and stopped to watch.

We listened to some of the ceremony, saw more fireworks, and then headed back down.

Even though we only made it to the starting point, it was fun and I'm glad we went. Maybe next year, we will get a babysitter and join in the actual pilgrimage instead of just going up to the starting point!  As it was, Funny Guy barely made it back to the car before collapsing.

Looking back on it, we crammed in quite a lot of fun into the month of May and can't wait for all we will do this summer.