Chiang Dao

Trip Start May 29, 2008
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Trip End Dec 19, 2008


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Thursday, September 4, 2008

Next stop, Chiang Dao in the north. We decided to rent a car rather than be cramped in buses and taxis trying to keep our sanity. The ride was comfortable, although the road was a little rough, as there were tons of unfinished roads and we had to dodge dogs left and right at night. Still beat sitting behind a sweaty, fat guy snoring on the bus. When we arrived at our hotel, which was called The Nest, we were escorted to our bungalow. The trek to the bungalow was beautiful as you could fully see the night sky on the way up. The next morning, we were even more astounded as we woke up to the sunrise jetting over a picturesque mountain right in our window. We fell in love with "The Nest" and could have easily stayed there a week just doing nothing and relaxing. They had the most magnificent food too, which was rare because whenever we've stayed in remote areas the   accommodations have had standard fare, but not The Nest - they really wowed us. That morning we headed out to the Chiang Dao cave. On the way, we saw this really cool temple and had to take pictures next to it Contrasting landscape
Contrasting landscape
 . Then we proceeded to the cave. It was a bat-cave this time as there were tons of bats hanging from the ceiling and it seemed like every step we were in guano. Our soles made a good guano paste by the end of the trek. Another cool feature of this cave was that we had to be led by torch only which made it creepy, especially when you were walking outside of the torch's flame and held onto some slimy thing trying to keep your balance. It was much different from South Africa's caves. Also, the locals named different stalactites and stalagmites throughout as elephants, tigers, people, etc. I never could make out any of the objects they made these rock formations out to be - maybe I needed a bigger torch. A funny aspect about the cave was that entrance was an obligatory donation - isn't that kind of an oxymoron. Anyways, it didn't stop there as they had donation stations throughout the cave.
The landscape was really beautiful in this area as we were able to get more of it on our drive to the sky high monastery. It was a monk monastery in the mountains that we had to climb up to. Made for some good exercise and even better pictures.
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