Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend! We had a very nice holiday with our friends, Steph and Pete, in Seattle. Seattle is just a cool city all around, and when you add some of your best friends to the mix, what more could you want?!
We got to Seattle on Thursday (Sept 3rd) and headed out to dinner. Then the rest of the weekend consisted of meeting up with more friends (Abby and Lindsey!), delicious meals, cooking, watching the ND game, playing Rockband, hiking, etc. It was awesome. We were sad to leave on Tuesday! (Sept 8th)
This week came and went. The weekend is here, and we were supposed to have a BBQ yesterday for the ND game. Well, I botched that up as I managed to severely injure myself on a run. Long story short, we were in the emergency room most of the day on Saturday, and I hobbled away with a left ankle fracture! I'm fine now but will be seeing an orthopedic doctor Monday morning to figure out specifically what damage has been done to my ankle. Keep your fingers crossed it's nothing major. (Denise, I now have kankles too!)Now back to Thailand....
So, we left Bangkok for the northern part of Thailand around mid-day. The North is known as more of the jungle area of the country and borders Myanmar (Burma) and Laos. This part of Thailand sits a few hundred miles south China. We were flying to Chiang Rai and then going to Chiang Mai, but weren't sure how we were going to get from one to the other (we hadn't yet made any definite plans).
The flight from Bangkok to Chiang Rai was just over an hour. The best part was that the plane was huge and that eased our minds as I had envisioned us on a small propeller plane.
Upon arrival, we had a driver from the hotel pick us up. We drove for about 40-45 minutes through a few towns and then on side/back roads. Eventually we reached our hotel.
It was 100% luxury, and honestly in the middle of nowhere! It was just us and maybe one or two other guests staying at the hotel, which made an even more secluded feeling. After checking in, we set up a few excursions for the next few days, went and got 90 minute massages, had dinner and chilled.
On Wednesday we woke up, had breakfast and then set out on our excursion. The best part of being in such a remote area and the fact that it was the "off-season" for tourists is that we got good deals on stuff and great one-on-one attention!For instance, we had the driver at our hotel basically hired to take us around all day long. He spoke great English and took us to places we never would have gone had we been with a group.
Our first stop was to the Padaung hill tribe village. These are the women with the super long necks. It was pretty crazy seeing the girls and ladies with the rings around their necks, arms and legs. The tradition is that the girls start to wear the rings at the age of 5, and get one ring added each year on their birthdays.
After this village visit, Tik (pronounced "Teek"), our driver, took us to a tea shop where he knows the owners. We sat for about 20-30 mins talking with them and trying several different teas. It was really cool. We then went to an actual tea plantation which was cool to see too.
We made a stop for lunch at a local place Tik knew of. For the 3 of us, the total bill was about $3. The portions were huge and the food was ssssoooooo good!
Tik also took us to see the Golden Triangle: the river point where Thailand, Burma and Laos come together. This is apparently a huge opium and marijuana trafficking area.
Afterwards he drove us close to the Burma boarder and we also checked out a few other towns and villages. What was crazy was that, throughout the side roads in the jungle, there were random check points with military personnel, doing drug trafficking checks. Kind of nuts....
We then headed to the city of Chiang Rai and on the way, stopped at the Mae Kong Expo that was going on. The expo was definitely for locals only, and it was crazy! It had tons of booths displaying food, crafts, clothing, etc, etc. Tik escorted us around, explaining different things to us, etc...we kind of felt like we were celebrities! Honestly, little kids were staring and pointing at us....we don't think they had ever seen a white person in real life! It was kind of nuts.
Once we got to Chiang Rai, Tik took us around and gave us a mini-tour of the city. Again, we went to dinner at a local joint which was totally delicious. We checked out the night markets and then hit it. We were tired!
On Thursday, after a hearty breakfast, we went to take a steam bath and get massages (again). Then, we headed out for our 4 hour drive to Chiang Mai. Tik was our driver again, as we were asking the day before about the best way to get to Chiang Mai and he offered to drive us. We actually picked up his wife just as we left the hotel. She came along with us to keep him company on the trip back.
So, the drive was easy enough, and we stopped for lunch at a really cool outdoor restaurant on the way. Again, awesome, super cheap food! Once we arrived in Chiang Mai, we found our hotel. Now I have to say, the hotel was a bit sketchy...at least so we thought!
The hotel was called the Secret Garden, and it was located about 10 mins outside Chiang Mai. Tik insisted that he take us inside to be sure all was okay - he was even a bit worried by the looks of the place from the outside. Um, it ended up being AWESOME! It was a "campus" of these unbelievable looking homes surrounding a central area with a standalone kitchen building, a pond, and an "entertainment" area with bar, pool table, and dining patio.
The owners were Pai, a Thai lady, and Peter, a German dude. They had a daughter, Isabelle. Peter came over to greet us, offered us a beer and sat and chatted with us for a good 20-30 minutes. Basically, he bought the land about 20 years back when it was a rice farm. They did away with that and built up huts and mini-homes and opened their "Garden" for the public. (They had only been open for 1 year.)
We had a whole house to stay in called the Mandalay House. Huge porch, beautiful dark wood everything, very "open air" feeling. It was actually the house that Peter and Pai lived in until they built a new one as part of the construction of the Secret Garden. That afternoon/evening, it rained so we enjoyed the downpour while sitting on the porch. We also helped Pai make dinner in their huge open air kitchen. It was so neat.
The dinner was a buffet style and every morning you just told Peter and Pai whether you would like to have dinner with them. Everyone who said "yes" came to the patio area around 7pm and dinner was then served. The food was so fresh, authentic and delicious. Peter and Pai literally treat you like guests in their home - they sit and eat with you and everything. You just walk into their kitchen, grab what you want to drink, and mark it down on a piece of paper so they can keep track for the final bill. So cool. Oh, and the final bill for all this stuff? Around $120 total for two nights, two dinners, two breakfasts, and our fill of beer, coffee, water, Diet Coke, etc. Unbelievable.
Anyway, the next day we woke up, had an amazing breakfast, then headed out for our adventure: The Flight of the Gibbon. Basically we were going to zipline through the rain forest! A van picked us and a few others up and then drove for about 1 hour outside the city. We were then instructed on how the experience would be, got our harnesses on and were off!
For the next 2.5 hours we were "flying" through the jungle on cable ropes. It was really fun and a complete rush. Afterward, we had a great Thai lunch then went hiking to some waterfalls.
That afternoon we then went into the city of Chiang Mai. We checked out a few markets, buddhas and temples. Getting back to the "Garden" turned out to be more of a process then we thought. Looking back now, we could have made the "bus" no problem. However, we didn't know the schedule and ended up having to take a taxi there.
Okay, let me just say this, there are not taxi's the jungle. Taxi=old run down truck driven by some dude who just got off of work and gives people who need a ride a ride, as long as it's on his way home. I shiat you not. This is us riding to our hotel:
Seriously, hold on Ag!
We had another wonderful meal, enjoyed a few drinks, watched a movie and went to bed. The next morning, the Peter drove us to the airport. We were flying from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, then from Bangkok to Koh Samui, a southern resort island.
All we have to say is that experience at this hotel place and the one in Chiang Rai were adventures we are never going to forget. We could have stayed in each place at least one more, maybe two more nights. The hospitality and people we met in those few days was amazing and the whole experience is really undescribable...I'm trying to explain it and it's hard to get the point across!
