Chiang Dao

Dan and I arrived in Chiang Mai about a week before our friends were scheduled to meet us. That amount of time, combined with the three days we would overlap with them there, seemed like a little long to spend in a city we’d already been to. We did some research and decided that the nearby mountain getaway of Chiang Dao would be a good break from the city for a couple of days. We hopped on the public bus (which only cost $1.25 each for the hour and a half journey!) and wound our way north out of the city and into the forest.

Chiang Dao does not have a ton to do. The main attraction is the cave temple which we visited on our first day there.

On the approach to the cave we passed other temples and shrines, including this awesome one with a multi-headed snake.

We paid to enter the cave and then paid some more to have a guide show us around. The guide, a tiny, middle aged Thai woman carrying an enormous kerosene lantern, led us through many of the cave’s smaller caverns, including some we had to squeeze into practically on all fours. Once we were back in the main part of the cave we explored the many Buddhist shrines that are tucked into the rock formations.

The interior of the cave itself was awesome. Since we’ve been in quite a few caves in Southeast Asia it is fascinating to see the different rock formations inside each one.

The whole cave temple area felt a bit kitschy, with lots of strange sculptures incongruously placed around the entrance and inside. It was definitely a unique experience and worth a visit.

On our other full day in Chiang Dao we visited Wat Tham Pha Plong, a temple located part way up a mountain, surrounded by forest.

The 510 step climb made for a good workout and we were entertained by Buddhist proverbs posted along the route.

While it was nice to get out of the city for a few days, Ciang Dao was definitely not a highlight of this trip. The guesthouses, including Chiang Dao Hut where we stayed, are all located along one road that is a little ways away from the actual town itself. The surroundings were beautiful but there wasn’t much to do besides visit the temples. There were restaurants located along the same road but most of them were either closed or out of half their menu items. I couldn’t figure out if we were just there out of season or what but it was a little disappointing since we had read about some good sounding food in the area.

Pai

From Chiang Dao we headed back to Chiang Mai for a few days to meet up with our friends. Next, together with Jeff, Jenny & Kanittha, we set off for Pai. Pai is a cute little riverside town located about 3  hours from Chiang Mai via a very windy mountain road. We didn’t spend a ton of time in the town itself but we did visit the night market twice to shop for souvenirs and street food. It seemed like a great little spot – full of charming cafes and bars. It is also clearly a major backpacker scene and it was hard to get an impression of what Pai was really like beyond the hoards of tourists.

The highlight of our time in Pai was getting up early to watch the sunrise from a village noodle shop. Kanittha had researched where to watch the sunrise and somehow found out about this spot an hour’s drive outside Pai itself. We got up at 4AM and piled into the van. We wound our way through the mountains before finally reaching the outskirts of a small village.

There, someone had erected a platform and bench at just the right spot to watch the sun peak above the mountains. It was breathtaking and we were the only ones there.

Once the sun was up we moved from the bench to the noodle shop next door  just as it was opening its doors. There we continued to watch the colors change while sipping delicious coffee drinks and eating steaming bowls of noodle soup.

It was so serene and beautiful, a morning I hope never to forget and definitely one of the top experiences of this trip.

Chiang Rai

After our lovely two days in and around Pai it was time for Dan and I to say goodbye to our friends and start making our way east towards Laos via Chiang Rai. Unfortunately there is no direct bus between Pai and Chiang Rai so we had to take a bus back to Chiang Mai and switch to a different bus to get us to our final destination.

We didn’t have a particular reason for wanting to visit Chiang Rai but it was on the way to the Laos border and, since we knew we’d be taking a two day boat trip, we figured it would be nice to break up this part of the journey and get to see one more Thai city.

Chiang Rai didn’t have a ton to offer and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it unless it is on your route like it was for us. Our experience of the city may have been tainted by the fact that we stayed in the only hotel on this trip that was truly disapointing (think super moldy bathroom, stained sheets and trash in the hallways).

Chiang Rai did have a couple of things that redeemed it: the White Temple and some delicious Khao Soi. The White Temple or Wat Rong Khun, was built in 1997 by local architect Chalermchai Kositpipat. Between this trip and our previous visit to Thailand we have seen a lot of traditional Buddhist temples. While some of them are certainly beautiful they for the most part all look fairly similar. On the other hand, Wat Rong Khun is one of the strangest and most unique buildings I have ever seen.

First, instead of the typical gold, the entire building is a bright gleaming white, in some places sparkling with mirrored tiles. To enter the temple you must cross a bridge, on either side of which are hundreds of hands, feet and other fantastical quasi-body parts reaching up at you.

This was my favorite part- the ‘moat’ is filled with some of the strangest sculptures I have ever seen and was not something I ever expected to see at a religious building.

Inside (where you unfortunately can’t take photographs) the walls are painted with scenes from pop culture, including images of Neo from The Matrix, Michael Jackson, and various superheros. This strange iconography is somehow combined with more traditional Buddhist imagery and the resulting experience is certainly different than any other temple we’ve visited.

The other highlight in Chiang Rai was a restaurant called Khao Soi Phor Jai. Khao soi is a northern Thai curry noodle soup dish that we fell in love with when we visited Thailand four years ago. On this trip we got to try a lot more variations on khao soi, many of them delicious.

Dan’s favorite khao soi was an extra spicy bowl that we found back in Chiang Mai but my favorite was this one. Even though we were only in town for two nights we ate at Khao Soi Phor Jai twice.