Cave Lodge Caving

Our main purpose in traveling far up north to the Cave Lodge was to get some caving in. I had high hopes that we'd meet some fellow cavers there and have a lot of fun exploring the area. The Australian owner, who had spent decades in the region and sounded like a very interesting person was unfortunately out of the country on vacation. As he promised though, his staff took good care of us.

Nov 10 - Nov 15

Our main purpose in traveling far up north to the Cave Lodge was to get some caving in. I had high hopes that we'd meet some fellow cavers there and have a lot of fun exploring the area. The Australian owner, who had spent decades in the region and sounded like a very interesting person was unfortunately out of the country on vacation. As he promised though, his staff took good care of us.

However, there were some things which didn't turn out the way I expected. My main disappointment was that there weren't really any other cavers there. The place seemed to be more of a backpacker rest stop on the Chiang Mai / Pai / Mae Hong Son loop. Most people that stopped by only stayed a couple days, and the only caving they did was the kayak trip and the bird show (more about that later). This also caused a transportation problem, since we didn't have transport, and there weren't other cavers to pool with to rent a car or a car and driver.

My other disappointment was that it was hard to get to the caves. There were a relatively small number within walking distance, and even for those, the directions were somewhat vague. There were lots of maps, but in many cases the maps had conflicting paths to the caves, and it wasn't until several days in that we figured out which map was the most accurate for the local stuff. That one happened to be the one hidden in the kitchen, not the big one out in the main room, and not the photocopy given out on arrival. The staff tried to give us some help, but the language barrier made it difficult. They could at least tell us which were hard and which were easy to find.

Day 1

The first day we tried to find Green Corner Cave, Xmas Cave, and an unnamed cave, all accessible from one stretch of road. We didn't get an early start because I like sleeping late, so it was a hot hike out in the sun, with very little shade. We managed to find Green Corner fairly easily, but although the entrance was impressive, it was a pretty small (and mostly inactive) cave as far as we could tell. There were some big spiders, and one climb out of the cave looked a bit like Shelob's lair.

Green Corner Cave, from Thailand 2009 - Cave Lodge

We continued on the road, but couldn't determine which path led to Xmas Cave. There was one well defined path, one stile into a field, one path that went steeply down into the same field, and one poorly defined path that skirted a stream. According to the information on the map, it could have been any of these. We decided to try and get more information at the lodge, and skip that one in favor of the next which looked like it had better landmarks.

Further along the road got very steep, along with the temperature getting hotter. The two landmarks we had to work with were a fire tower on the right and a ridge on the left. We hiked a long way (the map says "not to scale") and the ridge in the distance always seemed to be over the next rise. Just after we gave up and turned around, we spotted the fire tower - we'd passed it somehow without seeing it. The elevation of the bank on the side of the road hid it from view when coming up the hill. We considered climbing the fire tower, but the rungs of the ladder were made from skinny pieces of brittle bamboo which didn't look like it would hold either of us.

Finally, we found a substantial path heading off along the ridge. Although the time was getting late, we decided to follow it so we could at least find the cave, even if we had no time left to explore it. Eventually this path came to a gate which had a lot of brush stacked in front of it. We climbed over the gate and followed the path a bit more and came upon some huts which looked like they were in use. There was a Lahu hill tribe village in the area, but that was supposed to be the next path up on the map. Frustrated, we turned around and went back to the lodge. Later one of the staff told us that we could have asked them where the cave was.

Day 2

Since we hadn't had much success on our own, we decided to take one of the guided trips on the second day. We were most interested in the longer one, advertised as "4 to 5 hours of serious caving", but we needed a minimum group of 5 in order to get the price down to a reasonable level. Also, the staff told us that no one had done that trip in a while, so she'd have to check and see if the guide would still do it (he would). There were 3 other people there that we'd been talking to, and they were interested in doing a cave, and were willing to be talked into the long trip. So, Kyle, Isabel, and Katya joined us for the second day of caving on the trip to Tham Boon Hoong (also called Tham Pung Hung). "Tham" is the Thai word for "cave".

It was quite a trek to get to the cave. First, all five of us rode in the back of the Cave Lodge pickup over winding and occasionally poorly paved roads to get to the parking spot. This was on the edge of a small village, and overlooking a very hilly cultivated region which was studded with limestone outcroppings and knobs. Then we walked down a steeply sloped ridge that ran along the edge of some of the crops, including a couple bean fields. Along the way, our guide demonstrated how to shoot long grasses out of our fingers like arrows. Then, we went down the side of the ridge into a valley, which was even steeper. This was very jungle like, with huge stands of bamboo and muddy ground, even though it hadn't rained since we'd arrived. We picked our way down, crawling over fallen bamboo as thick as my thigh and dreaded the return climb. Eventually we arrived at the large mouth of the cave where there was a bamboo platform. I think it might have been built by the cave survey expedition several years ago as a place to camp. This cave is currently the 9th longest in Thailand, at 4.5km long, so you can imagine that the surveying might have taken a while.

Tham Boon Hoong entrance, from Thailand 2009 - Cave Lodge

Boon Hoong is mostly walking stream passage punctuated with the occasional medium size room. There were about 6 crawling spots, several duckwalks or duck-unders, and 1 belly crawl toward the back. There were quite a few formations, and they were in very good condition. Unusually, there were very few large formations aside from flowstone, but many many groups of smaller ones. There was one section where a formation had built up on a mud bank, and then the mud bank had washed away leaving a shelf of stone which supported a pillar. Maybe the passage floods violently on rare occasions and this keeps most of the formations small? There were a lot of very white, delicate looking stalactites and a memorable piece of large brown flowstone that had a groove worn in it by a trick of water which had then deposited some small brown crystals. Unfortunately, it didn't photograph very well. In a nearby area, there was a large piece of beige flowstone which looked like it was covered with glitter (mica, I would guess). At one point we noticed on an odd formation high on a bank, and had to take a closer look. It turned out to be a miniature village that someone had sculpted by adding mud animals and details to a small formation.

Glittering flowstone, from Thailand 2009 - Cave Lodge

The cave had quite a bit of wildlife. Of course there were bats, but we also saw cave crickets (with really long feelers), cave crayfish that were translucent, crabs, some pale rolley-poleys, and an unusual fungus. Everywhere that we saw pieces of rotting bamboo in the cave, a thin white fungus was sprouting from it and spreading a delicate, root-like network as large as a couple feet in diameter. We saw one that seemed to be growing a stalk which Danny thought might be the fruiting body of a slime mold. Net research also shows a similarity to some wood decay fungi structures (mycelium). Does anyone know?

Bamboo fungus, from Thailand 2009 - Cave Lodge

We turned around when we got to the point where the stream fell into a wide and deep pit - we'd joined the pit from the side, and couldn't see the bottom, even with our brightest lights. In all, we were in the cave for about 5 hours, including a break for lunch (fried rice and a chocolate muffin) and a shorter break at the same spot on the way out.

It was fun, and good to be caving again after a long dry spell, but I itched to explore the cave at a slower pace, rather than being guided through it. I found a map afterward, and there's only one significant side passage, but there were a lot of interesting looking areas that we passed by when we were in it. One other things to mention - we were all a bit surprised at how our guide was outfitted. He did the entire trip, caving and hill climbing, in dress pants and black slip-on loafers.

Day 3

While we were at Tham Boon Hoong, Kyle's mother had tried out the kayaking trip that Cave Lodge offers. Cave Lodge sits on the bank of of the Lang River (Nam Lang), and you can get kayaks to run down the river, and through the huge passageway of Tham Lod, which is the major tourist attraction for the area. She thought this was a really fun trip, and suggested that we do it too. All five of us were up for it, so on our 3rd day of caving, that's what we did.

The kayaks were inflatables (mine had considerable patching with duct tape), and worked well except for some really shallow spots. Kyle and Katya each went with one of the guides (giving Kyle the ability to run a waterproof movie camera he had), Danny went with Isabel, and I was excited to go solo. The river itself was entertaining without getting difficult. Frequent, but small patches of Class I or easy Class II. Danny and Isabel ended up in a tree once, and I dumped shortly after entering the cave because I didn't turn quick enough. There were two surprise rapids on the trip - big concrete dams that we just went over, and down the steep ramp.

Ryan kayaking, from Thailand 2009 - Cave Lodge

The portion through the cave was very short, we didn't even have time for our eyes to adjust before we were on the other side. The cave is listed as 1 km long, but there are two substantial side passages, so the river portion might only be 500m or less. Overall, this was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it even more than the caving the day before.

Cave kayaking, from Thailand 2009 - Cave Lodge

After we got back, we took a short break and then walked back to the river exit side of the cave. At sundown, there's a "bird show", in which a gigantic group of swallows, on the order of hundreds of thousands, fly into the cave while the bats fly out. It's an amazing sight - the birds start collecting outside as the light changes, and then there's a constant rush of them into the cave for about a half an hour or so. If you can get your eyes to adjust to the darkness of the cave rather than the fading light outside then you can see a huge wheeling mass of the birds flying in a circle in the big entrance chamber as they prepare to nest for the night. The bats are much smaller than the birds, so it's very hard to see them, and I'm not sure if I did or not. At one point, I could see a bunch of shadows on the rock moving in the opposite direction from the swifts, and smaller, but it could have been swifts flying back out. Maybe the bats use the upstream entrance to leave for the night.

Day 4

On the 4th day, we decided to try again for Xmas cave. We went back to the path that like the best match to the map, as well as the most trodden, and began following it. It started off going through a field of great smelling giant mint, past a motorbike that someone had left there, and off into the woods. We walked in the woods a long way, well after we left we should be looping back to the cave, until we found the path going up the hillside. This was possibly right, so we continued, past a creepy looking stone marker. Where the path crested a saddle, we began to hear sounds - chopping bamboo and singing. After listening a bit, we followed the path down to where a small group of people were building two bamboo shelters, similar to the remnants of ones we'd seen in earlier places along the path. They couldn't tell us where the cave was, only that it wasn't further along the path, presumably where they'd come from (maybe that Lahu hill tribe village?). So we backtracked to the road and examined the other possibilities, ruling everything out except the fenced path. We followed that through some old fields, one of which had been corn but now looked like it was growing wild with pumpkin. After some false leads, we almost gave up and turned around, but Danny persisted, and wanted to investigate the uppermost field, and quickly found the cave off to the side.

Danny in the field of mint, from Thailand 2009 - Cave Lodge

We geared up and spent about an hour and a half in the cave. This one was very different, as it was more vertical than horizontal. It went down and down, and we could see that this was an old cave with what had once been beautiful formations that had either fallen from the distant ceiling or been crushed by falling rock when rock dividing an upper and lower section had collapsed. At the bottom of the initial rockfall, we came to a tricky downclimb which led to a small stream passage. This led to an arched entrance into a room, but the entrance was 75% blocked by rubble, and the open upper part was guarded by the largest bats I've seen outside of a zoo - big, black ones, which I'd never encountered in the wild before. We skirted the guardians and followed the passage to a tight squeeze. Beyond that, the remainder of the stream that hadn't gone elsewhere emptied into a small pool. Danny crossed the pool and saw a crawling passage that went further, but due to the lateness of the day, we decided to turn around there. I later found out that this goes for a short bit to a dropoff, which then leads to the bad air cave nearby. So we couldn't have gone much further anyway.

Tight squeeze, from Thailand 2009 - Cave Lodge

On the way back out we took a few minutes to do some light painting style photographs, where you take a very long exposure and use your headlamp to paint the rocks with light, or to uplight a specific formation. This will allow you to take a picture of a much larger space than the flash can illuminate. They turned out pretty well, especially for a pocket camera.

Light painting experiment, from Thailand 2009 - Cave Lodge

Day 6

The fifth day at Cave Lodge was not for caving, but for visiting a hill tribe. (Danny will cover that in another post.) The sixth day was mostly spent driving around to see the hill tribe villages. However, we did stop and see Coffin Cave, which is one of the show caves in the area. Somewhere around 1200 to 2000 years ago, the people that lived in what is now northern Thailand buried some of their dead in hollowed out teak logs that they put in caves. There are about 60 caves that they've discovered with these coffins. This particular cave was long dry, and the coffins were very well preserved. The cave itself was mostly a collection of rooms in the hillside.

Coffin at Coffin Cave, from Thailand 2009 - Cave Lodge

We'd had fun with the cave exploration, and the most fun when we were on our own. Since this was one of the premier caving regions in the world, and the caves were relatively open to access (compared to in the USA), we decided that we'd try to do some more caving later, and made adjustments to our trip to spend several extra days in the town of Phitsanulok, which had previously just been a stopover point for a Sukhothai visit.

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Cave Lodge

In the last post, I covered the food at Cave Lodge and the adventure of getting there, since it seemed necessary to explain why ordering oat porridge was just what I needed. (Yes, the whole diversion into those minibus rides was only to justify my ordering oatmeal for breakfast at a restaurant? Absurd! It was a fun yarn regardless.)
November 9 - 15, 2009

In the last post, I covered the food at Cave Lodge and the adventure of getting there, since it seemed necessary to explain why ordering oat porridge was just what I needed. (Yes, the whole diversion into those minibus rides was only to justify my ordering oatmeal for breakfast at a restaurant? Absurd! It was a fun yarn regardless.)

Now, here are the fun people we met and the things we did with them. Little did I know at the time how small a world it was - well after the fact did we learn that Katya, who will go on a cave adventure with us and then a kayaking trip as well shared that minibus ride from Chiang Mai to Pai and had been equally intimidated by the brashness of the Australians, and as unrewarded by the comeuppance of Elvis in the first hour. And the much nicer Australians we chatted with on our first night at Cave Lodge would later discover a photograph of us in Chiang Mai and write us a note, not knowing whether we'd ever find it and leaving no way for us to send them a reply. But now I'm getting out of order, and here are things in a more organized fashion.

Paul and Germaine, Australians

After we arrived and got settled in, we went up to the common area to order some supper. While we were sitting at dinner, we began eavesdropping (as do all good travellers) on the table adjacent to ours, where a trio of travellers were engaged in some ribald conversation. By and by we managed to introduce ourselves, and they offered us some of their vodka and orange juice, and we chatted late into the night before calling it quits for an 11pm bedtime. It's funny how early a late night becomes when it's dark by 6:30 every night. (Since this is a tropical location, there's no Daylight Saving Time and sunset falls between 5:30 and 6:30 every night, depending on the season.) These travellers were Paul and Germaine, and I think they said they were married, or maybe they just told us they like to tell people while traveling that they're on their honeymoon. Anyhow, Germaine is a loud, fun woman who's constantly saying outrageous things, especially to and about their Thai guide, Daeng, who is showing them around in the north. She's got an interesting background, having been born to Indian immigrants in Burma before moving with her family to Australia. Her grandparents (I think) in India were Roman Catholic, and despite being ethnic Indian, spoke English as a first language. Anyhow, when Ryan and I hired the artist in Chiang Mai to do a sketch for us, we left them a photograph (several), and apparently Paul and Germaine stopped by the same booth and saw the photo pinned to the wall. Somehow they convinced the artist to let them leave us a message, which I didn't even discover until weeks later while organizing things to leave Bangkok (and now you get an idea of how late I'm writing this blog post - in fact, we've left Bangkok by now and we're already in the deep south in Phuket. Take that, prompt blogging!)

Unfortunately, Paul and Germaine were heading on the next day, so we didn't get to join them or have them join us on any of our adventures. Undaunted, we attempted our first solo trek the next day, our first full day there. Ryan should have written about the disaster that was this trip - we tried to find several caves that were marked on the map, but managed not to do much more than hiking up some very steep hills in full sunlight and then getting back around dark. But I hope I kept Ryan's spirits up, because despite our failure to find the caves we were looking for, I had a good time and wasn't terribly disappointed. Anyhow, as we trudged (skipped?) back into town, some local guys waved us over and we decided to stop and chat. Our language barrier was terrible, but we could manage just enough Thai and they could speak English a bit better than that, and our conversation was superficial enough that it didn't really matter. We drank shots of the (most likely homemade) Thai whiskey that had already gotten them all drunk, and talked about where we're from (at which one fellow had to give various US President's names as explanation: "Bill Clinton," he began with, "Bush," he added. Feeling like they could use an update, I continued with "Obama," and this got a roar of approval), and whether we were friends with them (we were, over and over. The third drunk could say little more than "You my friend" and extend his hand for a handshake). Regardless of the absurdity of our conversation, we had a really good time, and Bum, the most English-proficient of the three, offered us a bunch of bananas to take with us, which we accepted. I tried to see if I had any of our stickers on me, but I didn't, and the more I looked for them, the more upset he got, thinking I was trying to pay him for the bananas. When I stopped patting my pockets, he became visibly relieved, and we waved and parted on good terms.

The Fellowship of Five: Kyle, Katya and Isabel (+ us)

Back at Cave Lodge, we met several newcomers: Kyle, a 23 year old international business major (I think he'd just graduated) and his mother Jane, an architect; Katya, a German woman, who had been on the same minibus ride with us to Pai (but had stayed there overnight). Her story was that of having spent 10 years wanting to visit Thailand and then finally just doing it. She has a fiancé living in Turkey. And Isabel (Isa), from Spain, currently using her unemployment benefit to visit Thailand. Ryan and I had been eyeing a particular guided cave expedition - to compensate for our failure of that day we figured a guide might be necessary, especially since the owner of Cave Lodge, an Australian caver who would be able to give us better directions was absent during our stay - but were dismayed that it required a minimum of 5 people, or fewer people could go but would have to buy out the remaining slots. Therefore, we were thrilled to be able to convince Kyle, Katya and Isa to join us the next day. I had no idea yet how few days most guests, including these three, would spend at Cave Lodge, and it was even Kyle's second or third day in Thailand out of a short two-week vacation, so I'm especially happy that they joined us. Anyhow, the next morning all five of us turned out for the cave trip, which Ryan's got covered again.

The Fellowship of Five

The next day at Cave Lodge (day 3, now) we talked the same group of three: Kyle, Katya and Isa, to go on the short kayaking trip through Tham Lod and then on down the Lang River for a total of 7 km. Maybe Ryan will describe the cave, but I'll say some things about this trip, since we were in separate kayaks anyhow.

Kayaking beyond Tham Lod

Our being five people meant that we needed two guides, so there were an odd number of people in assigned to 4 kayaks. Kyle had a movie camera, so he partnered with one of the guides who would do most of the paddling for him. Ryan wanted to take the solo kayak, and I volunteered to team up with Isa while Katya joined the other guide. These weren't normal kayaks that I know, but really they're more like inflatable rafts with seats. It took Isa and me a while before we figured out a good seating arrangement, but we eventually settled with me in the front and her in back. This gave me a good vantage point for seeing what's up ahead and steering through it. But before we arranged ourselves thus, Isa was in the front when we smacked into a low tangle of branches that almost knocked us out of the boat. Instead, the branches left a mess of leaves and twigs that took us a long time to clear out as we paddled along. The cave was smelly while we went through it, and other than being impressively large and barely getting pitch dark in the middle of it, it was short and uneventful, so that's the last I'll say about it.

"Smacked into a low tangle of branches"

We hit rapids numerous times, and sometimes we did okay and other times we did quite well. Occasionally we ran aground in the shallows and sometimes we got stuck on a jutting rock, but we never spilled out of the boat, and we generally enjoyed ourselves and felt like we'd done a pretty competent job. Of course, the others might not have agreed, since we weren't very fast and we were usually the last boat. The most exciting event was probably the first dam we went over, because I was up on my knees, and when the boat buckled on the water at the bottom of the dam, it tossed me backwards and threw my feet in the air above me, and all that would have been just silly fun except that Kyle was filming at the time so I know there's now a goofy movie of me immortalized on Youtube somewhere, no doubt. (Actually, we should have a copy of that because we traded photos and video after the adventures, so it's just a matter of time before I can get that clip posted.)

At the end of the trip, we went over a second dam (I was better prepared this time and there was no spectacle), and then as we approached the docking area, some small local boys playing in the river raced to pounce into the back of our boat and ride it in. After we were pulled ashore, they raced back out to wait for the next boat.

We loaded the boats on top of the sorng taao (a truck, really, with two benches in the back facing each other), and rode back to Cave Lodge.

Before kayaking...	…and after

We didn't include any of the other guests in any of our other Cave Lodge adventures, but we did meet several other travellers when we hiked back out to the exit of Tham Lod that night to view the swifts come in to roost.

Swifts and Bats, and meeting Graham and Ima

The evening "bird show," as it's advertised, is the return of hundreds of thousands of swifts flying into the cave at dusk to nest for the night. These particular swifts make nests similar to the swallows' nests in the south out of which birds' nest drink is made, but for whatever reason, the nests of the swifts are not harvested. We hiked about a kilometer or so from Cave Lodge to the exit of Tham Lod (taking the newly - that day - repaired bridge that connects to the path around the mountain, rather than having to take the more difficult path over the mountain to get to the other side of the cave) and stayed for about an hour while the birds flew in and the bats fly (invisibly, for what I could tell) out.

Kyle and his mother had returned to Chiang Mai that afternoon, so joining us were Katya and Isa, and some new lodgers, too: Graham (a Scot) and Ima (his Spanish girlfriend), a trio of Canadian boys (though one was Ukranian originally), a couple of other Scots (making them remark that not only were Scots in dominance at dinner that night, since one of the Canadians wasn't originally so, this was the highest concentration of Scots outside Glasgow that they knew of), and Kat, a girl who'd been living in Chiang Mai for the last couple years as a teacher.

At first we followed Isa's directions to the hiking trail, but when they failed us, we all picked out our own way of getting back up to the road from which we found the proper path. From there, it was an easy stroll to the cave exit, and we stayed and watched the birds for a long time.

The path to the bird show

There was never the total blackening of the sky that I'd hoped to see, but over the hour of dusk, the volume of birds flying into the cave was very impressive. At first, the birds began to circle, a few, then more joining them, and so on. Then, as they circled, several would decide to fly into the cave, and that's how the evening went, with a big whirlwind of birds flying around the cave exit with a few entering the cave with each pass. It's the cave exit, rather than entrance, only by merit of the direction of the river as it passes through the tunnel. Supposedly, bats are exiting the cave in as remarkable numbers while the birds are flying in, but I couldn't see them. The bats are much smaller, and I thought I could see shadows of many fast-flying things leaving the cave, but it also might have been just the other side of the whirlwind of birds.

The cave mouth smelled terrible - bat and bird droppings from so many creatures left an unpleasant odor that kept growing as the show went on. Isa had gotten some Tiger Balm from a trip into Sappong that morning, and she shared it around with us. A dab of Tiger Balm under each nostril did help disguise the smell of the droppings, but not quite enough, and not only was one aware that the nasty smell was still there, even if masked, but the dripping of rain-that-wasn't-rain from the ceiling of the cave could not be ignored, making expeditions into the cave to get a better look at the birds not only risky, but eventually foolhardy as well. Even well outside the cave, the evening wind blowing through the tunnel and the wind generated by the tornado of birds carried the intensely foul smell right to our noses.

It eventually became dark, and the Canadian (including the former Ukranian) guys lingered to explore a cave possibility with us, but when it turned out to be nothing we all wandered back to Cave Lodge by the light of our few headlamps. We lost the path several times, and the Canadians got distracted by a call to prayer or something* in the forestry headquarters on our way back, but we eventually made it back in time for supper.
*As we passed through the forestry lodge, which I think has a large tent city adjacent to it, there was a well-lit building in which many people were seated in the kneeling position, while a loudspeaker blared some musical chanting. I don't know if this is a mass prayer, or a dhamma lesson, or just the evening town news. I had the feeling it was something spiritual, though.

Ahmsin, Choco and Nampung

During our stay at Cave Lodge, we became familiar with the children of the staff as they played after school each evening. Ahmsin and Choco were cousins, a girl of 5 years and a boy of 3 or 4 years. Ahmsin was much more vocal and outgoing, and once she warmed up to me, she began to demand piggy back rides, airplane spins, and so on. Choco did whatever game Ahmsin suggested, although he didn't want to be picked up or carried like she did. We became acquainted when Ryan and I brought out our hoop and poi on the second night there.

We'd asked if we could turn on some music, and I found something that sounded interesting in their playlist (and it turned out to be very agreeable for spinning), and we spun hoop and poi for a while, then others of the staff and guests played around with them, too. Ahmsin didn't want to try the hoop, but she was apparently delighted that I was doing so, and the next day she brought out her own smaller hoop (just a plastic toy, but fun enough to play with). Even with my demonstration and encouragement (I could spin her tiny hoop around my neck, but it was too light to keep it up when spinning it on my body), she didn't try to hula hoop with it until near the end of the week. Her favorite game was to roll the hoop back and forth with me, often pretending to look away and then either catch the hoop at the last minute, or usually letting it roll right past her and then giggling as she ran to get it.

When Ahmsin wanted to start getting piggy back rides, she'd become comfortable talking Thai to me (she didn't really speak that much English - just what she picked up from travellers), she tugged my shirt one day and demanded nam long, nam long which from our elephant work we knew to mean "get down, get down." So I stooped down and she climbed up onto my back. Communication achieved.

Nam Lang

On our last full day at Cave Lodge (Saturday, 14 November), we decided to try to visit some of the local hill tribe villages. Now, this is an activity which is somewhat unclear in purpose to me, and I'm still not especially certain what I want from it, were I to go back and do it again. I'll take a brief moment to give the best analogy I can think of, which is camping and its role in appeasing our survivalist desires.

When we go camping, there are several schools of though I can imagine. 1) We want to experience living like pre-civilized people. This is either an attempt to connect with our history or to prove that even amidst modern conveniences, we are as much men (human) as were our forebears. In this manner, survivalists should eschew as many modern appliances as they can. A knife, perhaps some rope, a canteen, and my wits; that is all I need to survive. I could build a life for myself if everything around me were taken away. That's how I imagine the thinking goes with such folk. 2) We want to experience "roughing it" to show that we're not soft, but we don't reject modern implements of man. Tents, sleeping bags, water purification tablets, et cetera, are all fine, but propane stoves, pre-packaged meals, air mattresses and excessive use of electricity are shunned. 3) We want to test our bodies to their limits, and have no problem using technology to aid in that endeavor. These campers use lightweight titanium or carbonite implements. Their gear tends to be very expensive and is selected to allow the camper to travel the most distance into the most inaccessible places possible. 4) Scenery and nature are best experienced without the corruption of mankind. These campers just want to get away from civilization, but don't have any need to leave the benefits of civilization behind when they go. 5, 6, 7) I'm sure there are others. I'm getting distracted from my main point, though, which is that even something as basic as camping can be confused by the number of different philosophies that dictate the purpose of camping. Add people and culture to the mix, and you'll see how unsure I am about what to expect out of a visit to a hill tribe village.

Perhaps in the beginning of western tourism, up until about 15 years ago, a visit to a hill tribe village would have been very exciting. They would be surprised and excited to welcome a traveller. That traveller would be thrilled to find stumble upon an exotic culture, especially if the trek to get there was difficult. The exchange would be mutually pleasing and beneficial. Today, however, (some of) the hill tribes have been excessively commercialized. One can purchase a package tour from Chiang Mai or Pai to hike to a hill tribe village, share a meal with them, observe them at work making crafts and other saleable souvenirs (weaving is usually the prime example here), take some photos, see a primitive village, etc, and then depart that afternoon or sometimes the next day, if an overnight stay is arranged. Isa described her two experiences to us: In the first visit, she attended a tour to a Karen village. The Karen people are the ones who wear gold collars that stretch their collar bones down into their chests, giving the appearance of a very long neck. Not all the Karen villages do this, I think, but some do, and I think that all the remaining tribes who practice this have been commercialized now. I'd guess that those collars used to be pure gold, or pure gold alloy, but now I'd bet they're only gold painted or gold plated. Regardless, here's how she described her experience.

"We paid a fee to enter the village and then we could look around, and go watch them weaving or they would pose for a photo with us. I couldn't take any pictures because it felt very uncomfortable."

I can imagine what she felt: I would wonder whether the villagers were being exploited - that is, whether they had any say in their fate or not. In the context of a modern world, which has now encountered them, the neck collars doesn't really make sense, so I wonder if they are essentially being paid to deform their bodies, because that keeps them commercially viable. I don't have any problem with people mutilating their bodies, with tattoos, piercings, stretching their earlobes, and so on, but I've never heard of anyone not from a tribe like this choosing to compress their collar bones to stretch their necks longer. Maybe that's because it has to be initiated when one is very young, like Japanese foot-binding. If so, then the exploitation is even worse, because it's not just adult Karen people choosing a costume that makes them attractive to tourist dollars, but children for whom we can suppose that there is no clear understanding of the effects of this choice, either being too young to know better or, worse, having no choice at all in their participation. Either way, I don't know what I'd do during such a visit.

On the other hand, I am curious about different cultures, and a visit to a small village that gets few visitors can be a lot of fun on both sides. To put it in Ayn Rand's terms, it's a mutually agreeable exchange. (I also would not object to visiting a recreation Karen village, like a visit to colonial Williamsburg. In that example, the people working there are doing so of their own determination, can quit at any time, and are interested in the preservation of history for history's sake.)

So, not being entirely sure whether I wanted to visit a hill tribe village or not, and not even being sure what I'd do during such a visit (because any entertainment would be entirely the responsibility of the host, and I feel a little awkward showing up some where, declaring, "we are here now, entertain us"), we decided to hike to one of the more remote villages on our map. The hike should take about 3 hours, we were told, and we'd have to take a path that followed the Lang River (Nam Lang, where nam means water) and in fact crossed the river about 45 times. Of course, the village we were heading to is also accessible by road, but the road is windy and long, and only approachable from one direction (the other way is marked "4x4 only", and when they say that, they're not kidding). On the way out, Pat (one of the staff at Cave Lodge), offered to sell us a bamboo segment with sticky rice inside—something I'd seen being made in Chiang Mai at the 3 Kings Plaza night market and wanted to try. It turned out to be not only very delicious, but the best sticky rice in bamboo we've had this whole trip so far. Every other place we try it disappoints us in comparison to that first one. Doesn't that just happen?

It didn't help that we got a very late (11:30am) start, we didn't know exactly where to go at first, and the paths here are terrible to follow. We didn't get lost, but we lost the path, over and over again. Though things started out well, we lost the path somewhere around the 5th or 6th crossing, and began following a mother and calf water buffalo as they waded upstream. When we couldn't find a good place to navigate the brush along the river, the buffalo usually had a good idea to present. Of course, they weren't always concerned with low branches, and brambles didn't bother them much either. On occasion we followed too close and spooked them, causing them to race ahead until we caught up again, and eventually they took a steep path uphill that we weren't able to follow.

Buffalo crossing

After about 20 or so river crossings, we ran out of time and had to turn back, about a half hour past lunch. Our plan had been to take a machete with us and cut several pieces of fat bamboo to use as flotation devices, and ride the current back home. This was a terrible plan. First of all, we had no machete. We asked about one at Cave Lodge, and they had a blunt, rusty machete they could lend us, but it had no sheath and we'd have to sharpen it before we left. With no sheath, we couldn't guarantee its or our safety on the swim downstream to get home.

Our second idea was to take dry bags and inflate them, instead of using cut bamboo. Cave Lodge only had one dry bag for use, and it was small. Plus, we ended up with a bunch of stuff we wanted to keep dry (including our clothes, because our wash was taking about two days to dry properly, and we were scheduled to leave the next day as it was), so the dry bag was filled mostly with stuff, not air. The last problem was that the river wasn't nearly deep enough. To float, which was mostly possible with the single dry sack, for one person, our legs still dragged across the river bed, or worse was going into a section of rapids where there was a great risk of smacking knees, toes, or other submerged body parts into the plentiful rocks with no kind agenda.

In the end, we hiked, and sometimes floated, and sometimes swam home. We'd hiked upriver for 3 hours; the return took us two hours. We knew where to go better, we used the current to our advantage some, and returning usually takes less time than going out. When Ryan used the dry bag for floatation, I tried using some logs I found. When I used the dry bag, Ryan hiked along the bank with his superior walking stick. Finally we got home, had supper and packed to leave.

Hill tribe villages at last

We devised a plan for ourselves to rise early and hike to the nearby Karen village. I'd resisted hiking to that village before because I figured that it would already see its fair share of western travellers and I thought I wanted to visit a more remote location. However, having failed to get ourselves to a remote location, we were now limited in our options, and I still wanted to visit a hill tribe village (probably).

Once we made this plan, the circumstances changed. Now Pat, the staff member at Cave Lodge, offered us another option to accompany her on a tour of hill tribe villages she was leading the next day. We thought it over, and decided the plan was good, and she went to get permission to include us, since it was supposed to be a private tour. Alas, the couple that had commissioned the tour didn't want additional people, so we were back to our earlier plan of hiking to the Karen village on our own. This temporary deviation from our plan is important because of how things played out in the morning.

Upon waking early, we went to get our water and lunch for the hike and ran into Pat. Originally we were going to drive her to town and then join her on the tour, but now she had to get a ride with someone else. Therefore, her car was available during the morning and she asked us if we'd like to rent it from her. Again our plans changed to accommodate this new opportunity, and—perhaps against our good planning—we abandoned the steep hike and took the car. Rather than drive to the Karen village, we headed out to some other fairly remote villages.

We visited 3 or 4 "remote" villages. Sure, they were remote if you were walking, and with the bad condition of the road and lacking any real reason to go there, they probably don't see many visitors. However, they are on the road and they have their own perfectly fine vehicles, so it's not like we're visiting a small village days from anything. Of course, we didn't put that much effort into getting there, so I guess we can't really expect much in return. Overall, I was disappointed. For the most part, the villages looked like small villages anywhere; the people like rural folk anywhere. They weren't particularly pleased to see us, maybe because it was early in the morning and they do work during the day. We didn't have a guide or a translator to tell them how far we'd travelled to see them or what exploits we had on the way. They didn't have a tourism industry in place to handle visitors who just drop by unannounced at any time of day. We walked around and noted the sow and her sucklings, the dogs, the children out at play and the adults at work. They stared at us as we walked by and perhaps wondered what we wanted or why we were there. After about 20 minutes, we ate our breakfast by the car and drove on.

Hill Tribe Village

Each village we went to was less remote than the last, and the towns more developed. As things became more commercial, we were better received because we had money to pay for goods. That's an exchange both sides are more familiar with and our smattering of Thai language helped here. But by the end of the morning, I think I'd gotten my curiosity satisfied, if in a way I hadn't really hoped for. For now, at least, I no longer have an uncertain urge to stroll into a wild village, bringing toothy smiles and civilized trinkets to share, while being welcomed like a lost king treated to feasts and presents. That sounds fun, but I think it's just a fairy tale, so I'll just have to be satisfied with the reality I've got.

Rural Wat

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Getting to Cave Lodge

Cave Lodge is a remote guest house comprised of various bungalows and an open deck that serves as restaurant and common area. The name of the local cave is Tham Lod (Lod Cave), and the nearby town is Ban Tham Lod (where ban means house or houses). We stayed at Cave Lodge for a full week, and although there weren't as many fellow cavers as we'd hoped, we were able to meet some interesting people and convince some of them to join us in (a few of) our adventures.
November 9, 2009

Cave Lodge is a remote guest house comprised of various bungalows and an open deck that serves as restaurant and common area. The name of the local cave is Tham Lod (Lod Cave), and the nearby town is Ban Tham Lod (where ban means house or houses). We stayed at Cave Lodge for a full week, and although there weren't as many fellow cavers as we'd hoped, we were able to meet some interesting people and convince some of them to join us in (a few of) our adventures.

This is a companion piece to Ryan's description of the caving we did in the area. I'll mostly describe the location itself, but also some of our non-cave activities, the people we met and the overall experience. Although the food was really excellent here, I won't go much into details of each dish, nor a blow-by-blow account of what we ate. It suffices to say the cooks at Cave Lodge are really excellent and the only dish I didn't like to the maximum was my sweet & sour order, but I don't really like sweet & sour anyhow and only got it to see if I would like it more when prepared by such an excellent cook. I did like it more than usual, but it just wasn't my favorite dish there. It's not fair to leave the food with a bad review at the end, so here are some of the tasty dishes we encountered at Cave Lodge.

Breakfast dishes, all excellent:

• Pancake - one big, fluffy pancake with crisp edges, smothered in yogurt, honey and fresh banana, watermelon and pineapple.
  
• Muesli - although muesli isn't quite as sweet as American granola, it's sweet enough when smothered with honey, yogurt and the same fresh fruit as the pancake treatment.
  
• Oat porridge (oatmeal) - hearty, filling, and great on an upset stomach, like the one I had after the atrocious bus ride to get here. I'll get to that in a moment. The porridge came smothered with honey and banana.
  
• Boiled rice soup - A Thai-style breakfast of a soupy broth with rice and chopped vegetables. Maybe it's weird to westerners, but no more weird than eating horse food (oatmeal), stir-fried meat (scrapple or sausage and eggs) or any other breakfast food that's only acceptable because it's become normalized through repetitive exposure. Anyhow, it was tasty and good for extra hydration with all the liquid in it.
  
• Fruit plates and fruit smoothies - local, garden-fresh fruits of delectable deliciousness. The bananas here deserve a special mention because they are short, thick beasts with large black seeds. They are a little chewier than the long western banana, but sweeter as well. In comparison to the short bananas found in Hawai`i (apple bananas), those are a little tangier than the Thai variety. These are the same bananas that get grilled in or out of the skin and doused with sweet, thickened coconut milk and sold for a handful of baht by the street vendors in Chiang Mai.

Dinner dishes (curries, stir-fries and so on):

• Green curry with pork
  
• Chicken cashew - these cashews were perfectly crisp and sweet.
  
• Red curry with fish
  
• Pumpkin curry - not on the menu, but after encountering a big pumpkin patch one day we figured it should be available, and found out all you have to do is request it.
  
• Holy basil, fried basil, pepper and basil, etc. - A smorgasbord of basil stir-fries with any kind of meat. Definitely aloi: quite hot and very delicious.
  
• "Shan special" - one of the local tribes in northern Thailand and spanning the nearby Burmese (Myanmar) border are the Shan people. The staff at Cave Lodge are mostly Shan, and this is listed as "what the staff eat." It's vegetarian, very spicy and served with rice. You get two dishes of some local vegetables and fermented soybean (like a very soft tofu).
  There are more dishes, but I can't remember everything we ordered. Ryan might have kept a better account, but they were all good and we didn't really get pictures of them because we usually left our camera in the room when we came up to eat.

Beverages:

• Hot or cold lime & honey - it's tasty either way. Hot in the morning, iced in the evening. It's a mixture of lime juice and honey, like a limeade.
  
• Café Boran - I have no idea what the name means, but it's like a hot Thai Iced Coffee. I mean, it's a mug of Thai filtered coffee (called Ancient Coffee in Chiang Mai, we think because it's not the modern "instant" variety = Nescafe and others), then sweetened with sweetened condensed milk. The sludge at the bottom means it's good, right?
  
• Smoothies - Passion fruit, papaya, watermelon, coconut, banana, lime. Mix any of these and add milk, yogurt, honey or not. The prices seemed high (70฿ or 80฿?), but the quality was good.
  
• Golden Triangle - our only alcoholic beverage while staying here. Partly due to the Thai custom of drinking sparingly (enforced by the steep prices for alcoholic drinks), we haven't had that many hard drinks in Thailand. Consequently, a little is going a long way, and we only ordered these on one festive night. Nonetheless, they were very good. The Golden Triangle refers to a historic opium-growing area in the north. As a drink, it consists of Thai whiskey*, lime, passion fruit and sprite.
  *Thai whiskey is really a rum made from rice. I'm not sure how that works. There are several national brands, but many people in the north make their own.

Okay, that does it for the food. I feel I need to cover the bus rides and other transportation that brought us from Chiang Mai to Ban Tham Lod, especially since the first minibus ride was unpleasant enough that it drove me to eating oat porridge the next morning for breakfast. I hate ordering oatmeal at a restaurant, because it seems silly to me to pay restaurant prices for something so simple and cheaply made at home. But in this case, I have no home, and the quality was very good, so I have no regret. But the minibus ride, that is another matter.

Cave Lodge lounge and restaurant

We have no pictures of any of the food at cave lodge, and hardly any of the people because we were out most of the time and kept leaving the camera in our bungalow when we came up to eat. This is the dining area.

Minibus #1, Chiang Mai to Pai (Monday, 9 November 2009)

The morning in Chiang Mai started out inauspiciously. We were still in the mode of taking our anti-malarial medicine first thing in the morning with lots and lots of water, which always left us feeling quite unpleasant as that much water in the morning is anathema to good health, I have come to believe. (I'll post all about our Doxycycline experience later on, but before we figured things out we were drinking anywhere from .5L to 1L of water every morning with our pill, then waiting an hour before introducing any food. Each time we felt unwell, we upped the amount of water, working on our interpretation of advice to consume plenty of liquids with the pill. I'll give away the punchline now and say that over time we worked out a winning strategy of eating breakfast first and taking the pill a couple hours after that, and drinking sweetened tea instead of water. This method had the least amount of stomach rebellion, but alas, such cleverness was not yet in our thinking, and this morning we were still mired in the losing strategy of drinking too much water on an empty stomach, and adding injury to insult with the medicine.)

After packing my things up, I ran down to the post office to mail a package while Ryan finished getting ready to go. I got delayed at the post office, so Ryan went out to grab some Shaking Milk for us from our favorite shop and we met up on his way back. He'd gotten a flavor we saw someone else make —Milo (a malted chocolate flavor popular here) layered up with milk, sweetened condensed milk and maybe some chocolate syrup or something. Unfortunately, we weren't sure whether that one was blended with ice or just poured over the ice, so Ryan got one of each (one for each of us). The blended method turned out not only to be the method we'd seen and wanted, but also the superior construction as well. Feeling noble, Ryan drank the ice cube variety himself and preserved the blended one for me, but by the time we met up, the hot sun had melted the ice in my ice-blended shaking, so it was about as liquid as Ryan's non-blended drink. I'd say that was inauspicious sign #1, generously overlooking our bad pill practice of the morning and the delay at the post office. As it was, we were now rushed to get back to the hotel to meet our ride to the minibus station.

We raced back (I raced and Ryan caught up shortly) and began taking our things downstairs, just as the minibus ride arrived and it was time to go. We wolfed down our breakfast of bean-filled chive or sesame donuts (quite aloi, despite my blunt description) and hopped aboard.

Our ride dropped us off at the minibus stand where we were soon joined with other passengers, including a rowdy bunch of Australians who immediately dominated the place with their vociferousness. When the minibus arrived, the Australians dashed aboard and grabbed up all the best seats, forcing me to the very back of the bus and leaving Ryan with only the passenger seat up front available. Even then, the bus was oversold and a late arriving passenger had to squeeze up front between Ryan and the driver. Despite having to split from Ryan* and sit in the very back, I thought the bad morning would soon be better, because I could at least rest my head sideways on the pile of luggage and get some sleep, which I did, for the first hour of the trip.
*There was a guy saving the seat next to him for "my girlfriend" who hadn't arrived yet, and I wanted to tell him that 1) she's not even here yet, and 2) his girlfriend shouldn't take precedence over my husband, and I might have done so, but there was only the single seat left open so Ryan and I would still have to split up and nothing would be gained. So I kept quiet and sat in the back.

Just over an hour into the trip, I woke up about 3 second before the loudest of the Australians – a big guy with a hairy chest and his shirt unbuttoned to the navel like some kind of cheap Elvis impersonate (he even had the quasi-mutton sideburns)– just before he threw up into a plastic bag. He handed the bag to the girl sitting next to him (another of the Australians, so at least she's not a total stranger in the story) and proceeded to do whatever else while the girl held this plastic sack by the handles, not really knowing what to do next. Naturally, it was a cheap sack with tiny leaks, and soon enough she began hollering for the bus to stop, for somebody to help her, that this bag was leaking sick all over her, and so on. As she hollered, no body really paid her any attention that I could see, but the bus did finally pull over about 5 minutes later because we had arrived at our first snack stop (I think). Anyhow, everyone fell out of the minibus, and the girl got some napkins (the cheap, flimsy kind that satisfy nothing but are the best you can find here in Thailand) and soon enough we were back on the bus.

With a nearly two hours to go, I hoped I could go back to sleep, but all the excitement was still keeping me awake, and worse, we hit the mountains very soon after that and the back of the bus began throwing me up and around as rounded every tight bend. A German woman raised an alarm a little later, and the girl who'd held the plastic sack of puke immediately hollered for the bus to stop and pull over, but the woman assured her that she only needed to use the bathroom, not sick, and we stopped again pretty soon for her. Meanwhile, Elvis kept popping Dramamine or something and chewing gum, and the entire experience, plus my morning liter of water and the anti-malarial pill I'd taken, and the curves we kept taking at top speed, and the constant conversation about people being ill kept me awake and on nervous edge. I coped by plugging one earphone into a single ear and listening to quiet music. I had to pay enough attention to the road that I wouldn't be taken by surprise on the turns, but distract myself just enough that the Australians' throw-up conversations didn't get to me. Boy was I glad when we got to Pai, though I think that's the last time for me to have such a feeling.

Pai

Once you have been to Pai, I think it is not possible to be glad to arrive there. The city is a gigantic outdoor mall dedicated to ensnaring naïve backpacking tourists. The streets are narrow and either one way or not, but in either case the traffic crawls along as motorbikes, street carts, pedestrians, busses and all manner of vehicle vies for immediate supremacy. We looked in the Lonely Planet for a restaurant recommendation because it was time for lunch and selected something that sounded like it might be good, but in the end the food was passable at best (actually, I'm being poetically harsh to Pai, which satisfies many people with its opportunities for adventure in the surrounding area and probably has at least some decent food. Our lunch wasn't really any worse than Thai food in Los Angeles, which used to be just fine for us). While we were at lunch, I heard a clatter and a crash and turned to see a minor motorbike accident involving a novice tourist (the driver) and two traffic signs that she'd knocked over on either side of the street before falling down herself. Ryan got some ice cream from the 7-11 while we waited for our next minibus to take us to Sappong. My stomach wasn't feeling up to any unnecessary food after that morning.

Sappong

The minibus to Sappong was heaven compared to the purgatory of the first ride. It was modern, the seats were comfortable. The other passengers were quiet and kept to themselves - mostly Thai people commuting from somewhere else to Sappong and only stopping in Pai because it was in the middle. Ryan and I sat together and had a lovely trip, and then we were in Sappong, just 7 km from Cave Lodge.

Lonely Planet describes a couple ways to get to Cave Lodge from Sappong. Most are very expensive (several hundred baht), but motorbike taxis were listed as the cheap option at about 70 baht per person. Having no idea what that meant (Ryan was rooting for something like a motorized pedicab, I began to suspect something closer to the truth), we soon found ourselves sitting on the back of two motorbikes, carrying our luggage while trying to hold tight to the very small men driving the bikes. Fortunately we were riding in the afternoon - guests arriving to Cave Lodge later in the evening who'd come by the same means said it was like a bug buffet as the setting sun brought cool air and the plague of insects that come out at such hours.

And now we're finally at Cave Lodge, in Ban Tham Lod, and after picking out our room (small, with some floor space in front of the frameless mattress and a private bathroom; 540 ฿ per night), we went up to get supper and meet some fellow guests.

Cave Lodge bungalows
Hungry dog at Cave Lodge (but so loving!)	Our room at Cave Lodge

Due to the length of this post, I'm going to break it into two and resume describing the Lodge and the travellers we met in the next post. Hold your breath if you like, the post will follow immediately tomorrow. Read more!

Restaurants of Chiang Mai

While the street food in Chiang Mai is excellent, we also ate at a few restaurants worth mentioning. The first is a new restaurant hoping to become a chain that focuses on a northern specialty called khao soi. The second was an expensive (but not after the currency conversion) high-class restaurant that offers Italian molecular gastronomy. Finally, we went to one of the high-end Thai restaurants just off the beaten path enough to cater primarily to Thai locals out for a special location. All three of these restaurants were top quality and made it into our "Best of Thailand" list.
Nov 1-5, 2009

While the street food in Chiang Mai is excellent, we also ate at a few restaurants worth mentioning. The first is a new restaurant hoping to become a chain that focuses on a northern specialty called khao soi. The second was an expensive (but not after the currency conversion) high-class restaurant that offers Italian molecular gastronomy. Finally, we went to one of the high-end Thai restaurants just off the beaten path enough to cater primarily to Thai locals out for a special location. All three of these restaurants were top quality and made it into our "Best of Thailand" list.

(Just) Khao Soi

Khao soi or kao soy is a northern Thai curry soup with egg noodles and a variety of mix-ins to choose from. We were excited to try it but hadn't come across any street vendors selling it yet, so we were forced to accept the recommendation of Lonely Planet, which in this case turned out to be just fine. The restaurant we went to specializes in khao soi, and in fact is called, "Just Khao Soy."

Just Khao Soy is a bright, clean restaurant, which I think usually means it's new and/or caters to tourists. In this case, both were probably true, but we did see a Thai family eating here, so at least it might serve as a nice place for Thais on vacation or out for a celebration.

The main thing on the menu here is pretty obvious. There were a number of interesting-sounding appetizers, but we wanted to focus on the main event and so we got right down to business with two orders of khao soi: Mine with vegetables, tofu and Chinese mushroom; Ryan's with chicken on the bone (the "Thai favorite"). We both selected "Chiang Mai style" - with coconut milk in the curry broth, vs. "Lanna style" which more resembles a hot & sour soup. We also had a choice between flat noodles or the round, yellow ones. Ryan went for the flat noodles and I chose round. Each of us was also given a tray of tiny platters of optional ingredients to stir into our soup. The menu explained the purpose of each item - pickled cabbage to add sourness and reduce sweetness, sugar, fish sauce for salt, chili paste, shallots, lime (for more sour), coconut milk, and banana. The banana was offered "to soothe the sting" of the chili, or else it could be stirred in with everything else. These last two ingredients - especially the banana - seem to be something that Just Khao Soy does give a better experience. Crunchy, slightly salty fried noodles are served atop the soup.

The khao soi itself is quite delicious - salty, sour, spicy, sweet, and nutty. All five tastes are covered, and with the mix-ins, you can adjust the balance to suit yourself. It's really quite a remarkable dish, especially for one so cheap. Since we were at a restaurant, I think our khao soi cost 100฿ each, but when we eventually found it in less lofty establishments, the cost was closer to 20 or 30฿ for a bowl. In those places, the mix-ins were still available, except for the banana and the coconut milk, though one could always ask for a little more coconut milk.

High-end khao soi at Just Khao Soy

After having khao soi at Just Khao Soy, we knew we needed to try it at an authentic streetside restaurant. We consulted the Lonely Planet (reluctantly again, since by now we'd gotten some very inaccurate reviews and advice from the guide book, a problem that only became worse as we traveled on through Thailand) and headed to something the book called the "khao soi ghetto" where there were a number of small shops offering the dish. We took a tuk-tuk out to the ghetto because it was a bit of a distance. The driver asked the name of the restaurant we wanted to go to, so we told him the one name given as example in the book, Khao Soi Lam Duan. I don't know how it is the drivers can not know how to get to a certain bridge but they know exactly which tiny restaurant you mean. I have two guesses: 1) since the restaurant name is in the Lonely Planet, everyone asks for that one (this leads to serious quality issues in Thailand, as some restaurant seem to stop trying once they get a LP mention, not to mention the number of obvious copycats, such as a similar sounding name, or just a blatant, "We're the one Lonely Planet recommends," when the book-given description casts serious doubt on the claim); or 2) we didn't go to Lam Duan at all, and instead got dropped off at a restaurant of the driver's choosing, since all the signs were in Thai which we clearly couldn't read (I hope to fix that by my next visit to Thailand. That'll show them!)

At any rate, we were at a small streetside restaurant that served khao soi, and khao soi is what we were getting.

The difference between the khao soi here and at Just Khao Soy was both near and far. At Lam Duan, there was no vegetable option. I had so much liked the inclusion of vegetables and mushrooms at Just Khao Soy that I asked if they had one here. I told (I tried to tell) our server that I wanted vegetables in mine, but that I wasn't concerned about its being vegetarian, per se, just that it had vegetables. What I got was the chicken khao soi with the chicken scooped out of it and no vegetables or meat then at all. What a disappointment. Ryan's turned out much better, because he's not complicated like that. (He had his with beef.) The other big difference was the absence of banana and extra coconut milk. The coconut milk didn't matter since the curry broth had plenty in it already, but I missed the banana. On the other hand, the khao soi here tasted wonderful, and it was only about 25฿.

"Street" khao soi at Lam Duan

As the week went on, we did get more khao soi in all sorts of places, including once at a take-away place in the mall, where we received separate plastic bags of broth, noodles and toppings. We did eat at Just Khao Soy one more time, and while it was still good, it wasn't as amazing as our first experience. The bananas were nice, but the overall 100฿ price and the clean atmosphere felt wrong to me. (Don't worry, I'll get used to 100-200฿ dishes by the time that's all that's available in the south. Of course, I found that with a little effort cheaper dishes can be had, but for some reason the fish dishes in the south just don't get cheap.) In the end, I hope that Just Khao Soy succeeds in bringing the taste of this delicious northern specialty to other regions through franchising. I think one would go over quite well in San Francisco or LA, and they could certainly use some khao soi in Bangkok and the southern islands.

Molecular Gastronomy @ Favola

There's a fancy restaurant in Chiang Mai at Le Meridian hotel called Favola that specializes in molecular gastronomy. I'd seen a show about molecular gastronomy before and thought this would be a good introduction to it. From what I'd seen, molecular gastronomy uses a scientific approach to cooking and accomplishes some pretty spectacular feats through an advanced understanding of the cooking process and some pretty nifty technologies, too. I was looking forward to gin infused cucumbers, cranberry cakes with duck jelly, spinach foam on tamarind latkes, and other such marvels. I guess Favola doesn't go as far as that, which is a disappointment, but at least they did make various flavor-infused foams (though they went a little overboard with the foams on every dish we got).

My notes are brief and I'm missing the names of most of our dishes, but here's my best recollection, aided by the photos we took.

I think we ordered 4 dishes total (not counting dessert) and had asked them to bring them one at a time, so we could enjoy each one by itself and give it all our attention. Unfortunately, they managed to bring them out in the wrong order at first, and then - whump! - all at once. Oh, well.

We had (and again, I don't know what the name of the dish is. Words used to describe the food are of my own choosing, except when influenced by what names I think I can remember. My notes do not discriminate between these.):

• Duck confit ravioli, with foam - I don't know what flavor foam. In my opinion, the foams rarely had enough flavor for me to tell. (I hate to say it that way, because the food was in fact very delicious. Only the foam was lacking a bit, but that didn't matter at all, except to minimize the "molecular gastronomy" aspect of the meal. Without it, it's just a 4-star meal.)
  
• Carpaccio rolled around foie gras
  
• Risotto with fig and parma ham
  
• Pumpkin tortellini

All these items were delicious (and all had foam). The foie gras was creamy; the tortellini had a savory pumpkin flavor rather than the usual sweet pumpkin; the risotto was also savory, even with the fig in it. We went around and around the dishes, tasting and savoring, comparing and contemplating, until it was all gone and we were full. However, one cannot go to a restaurant like this and skip dessert. For the sweet finish, we had:

• Cherries stewed in red wine, served with cinnamon ice cream. The ice cream was topped with a crisp cinnamon cookie, and a bright red stick of cinnamon sugar. This was our favorite.
  
• Pear and chocolate torte with pistachio vanilla ice cream and balsamic reduction. The torte was good, but the pear needed to be emphasized or incorporated just a little more. The balsamic reduction looked like chocolate sauce, and that's what I was thinking it was until I remembered the description from the menu. At once, the unfamiliar flavor in the sauce sprang to life and I could taste the sweet vinegar of it, which complimented the vanilla ice cream quite nicely. The sauce was a definite winner, and only the weakness of the pear flavor held this dessert back from its full potential.

Carpaccio with foie gras and duck confit ravioli	Fig and Parma ham risotto
Stewed cherries with cinnamon ice cream	Pear and chocolate torte

This restaurant was definitely a splurge, and if we'd been in the US or Europe we wouldn't have wanted to afford it. But with the favorable exchange rate, the total bill was less than $100, including 2 cocktails.

Dalaabaa

The very next night we took the tuk-tuk from the Night Safari to a fancy Thai restaurant on the outskirts of town, Dalaabaa. We'd had refined Western cuisine last night, so now we wanted to try one of the top Thai restaurants in the city. Dalaabaa is described as offering a mix of Thai fusion and uncommon northern specialties. When we arrived, the night was just becoming cool, but we chose to sit outside near the pond and garden. While we waited for our food, we were entertained by about a half dozen white rabbits chasing each other around the garden.

We started with some unusual fruit juices: gooseberry and bale fruit (also called bael fruit). For appetizers, we ordered the following:

• Crab spring rolls - long and skinny, deep fried and with a sweet chili sauce. The presentation was intriguing, too.
  
• Deep fried lime leaf with beef - Both were good, but Ryan and I have become especial fans of fried lime leaf.

For the second course, we shared:

• Spicy lemongrass salad with raw salmon sliced on top - The salad was quite delicious. The lemongrass contributed a strong flavor and really carried the dish.
  
• Tom kha gai (Tom kha soup with chicken) - The broth was smooth and buttery, and this is Ryan's favorite soup (I like it, too).

Finally, for the main course, we had:

• Fried pea and crispy fish - The peas are really more like a bean, and they were very good. The fish in this dish was the only thing that needed improvement. I don't know what kind it was, because the name wasn't given.
  
• Deep fried red tilapia in dry curry - Ryan chose this dish, and picked the variety of fish for it, too. Perhaps that made all the difference, because the tilapia was very good. Ryan had initially tried to order the serpent-headed fish, but was advised against it by the waiter, who feared that we wouldn't like the taste. Undaunted, we managed to order serpent headed fish several times later in the trip, and the taste is quite fine, I can assure you. The smell, however, takes a little getting used to.

We were too full for dessert, and in fact, we decided to walk home because we were that stuffed. Oh, for as delicious a meal as the night before? Our bill came to about $30.

Crab spring roll and beef with fried lime leaf

Pea with crispy fish and tilapia with fried red curry

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Getting out of town

Doi Suthep, Forest Wat, and the Night Safari

After the festivities of Loy Krathong were over, we had more time for sights outside of Chiang Mai. Our first stop was to Wat Phrathat, an elaborate temple complex atop Doi Suthep (Suthep Mountain). This is a very important Wat in Chiang Mai because of the holy relic it houses. Of course, there's a legend that goes with it, and it includes a white elephant.
Doi Suthep, Forest Wat, and the Night Safari (November 5 - 7)

After the festivities of Loy Krathong were over, we had more time for sights outside of Chiang Mai. Our first stop was to Wat Phrathat, an elaborate temple complex atop Doi Suthep (Suthep Mountain). This is a very important Wat in Chiang Mai because of the holy relic it houses. Of course, there's a legend that goes with it, and it includes a white elephant.

Doi Suthep

In the 14th century (of the western calendar), a monk was travelling with a sacred relic, though to be a splinter of Buddha's bone. He was accompanied by a white elephant, who carried the relic for him as he journeyed. When the monk stopped in Chiang Mai, the sacred relic performed a miracle and duplicated itself (it was apparently famous for its ability to duplicate itself, turn invisible, and move itself around). The monk took his original relic with him and wandered off towards the local high mountain, Doi Suthep. When he got to the top of the mountain, the white elephant died, and so the monk knew that this was a sacred place and built a temple there. Meanwhile, the monks in Chiang Mai build a sister temple to house the duplicate relic, which would create a spiritual connection between the two temples.

Because the temple was so far out of town, we had to hire transportation. We managed to find a sorng taao that would take us. We had to pay more because we were the only passengers (a full truck brings lower fares), but I don't think a tuk-tuk would have been any cheaper. When we arrived, the place was swarming with tourists and tour buses (the elaborate double-decker luxury kind), minivans, sorng taao, tuk-tuks, and taxis. There were also many food and souvenir vendors, all clamoring for attention. We bypassed this chaos and headed for the famous naga staircase leading up to the temple complex.

Naga Stairs at Doi Suthep

Golden Chedi being rebuilt

After hiking up all those steps, we toured around the plethora of crowded wats and the fancy golden chedi that houses the sacred relic from the legend. There were many pilgrims and visitors participating in a variety of rituals, almost always involving lotus buds and incense (helpfully sold by the monk sitting at the front gate). There were also a lot of bells and gongs scattered about the temple complex. A very large gong had a sign explaining that if the gong is struck quietly, it is more auspicious. So despite all the striking of bells going on, there was no deafening clamor—just the soothing murmurs of the bells.

Giant gong to ring auspiciously

Temple at Doi Suthep

Many of the wats had fancy shrines in them, and while we were viewing one of the shrines, several people came in and received a blessing from the resident monk. He chanted and dipped a bamboo flail in a jar of water, then flicked the water over their heads. Then he tied a string around the wrists of the male visitors, while another monk did the same for the women. String is used a lot to create a spiritual connection between two things that share the string. In some paintings we saw, Buddhist monks will sit in a line with a single string tied around their wrists. Also in some temples, a string will connect a very large Buddha to a smaller Buddha if the large one is inaccessible for some reason. The string used in this ritual was looped around a small Buddha statue and then tied to the large Buddha in the middle of the shrine. After the monk tied the string to the visitor's wrist, he cut the length off so there would be a spiritual connection if no longer a physical one. We watched a number of Thai people receive this blessing, and then the monk motioned for us to come closer and we ended up getting sprinkled and chanted at and wrist tied, too. The monk was very exuberant when sprinkling his flail at me and I got rather doused. [The water they use is lustral water, a special water created by having the four elements interact with it. After looking the ceremony online, I learned that a number of religions have lustral water, which is usually a special, more potent version of their holy water. --Ryan ]

Night Safari

The Night Safari in Chiang Mai is a new zoo they just built with open areas of freely mixing animals. During the day, you can walk around and see caged animals like in a normal zoo, but the highlight of the park is the night experience. There are two safari-style buses that take you around to see either the grassland animals in their open enclosures or the "Predator Prowl" with various large carnivores like big cats and crocodiles as well as other large beasts.

We grabbed a tuk-tuk to get there and arranged for the driver to return at a certain time, giving ourselves sufficient time for the two safaris and about 30 minutes extra for the "fountain show" which had been recommended by rave reviews on Trip Advisor (a vacation activity ratings website). The two safaris were a lot of fun, and on one of them our tour guide (an English-speaking Thai person) was a real comedian. The only shortcoming was that we never stopped long enough for the camera to get a long-exposure picture, so our footage came out a bit blurry. At least Ryan's camera was much better than some other tourists' we met on the safari. As we drove through the various areas, the guide pointed out animals and shone a spotlight on them so we could see (since it was night time and very dark otherwise). I think my favorite animal there is the giraffe, since they are simultaneously so majestic and ridiculous.

After the safaris, we had about 20 minutes to kill before the fountain show started, so we sat on a bench and started to doze off. Eventually a fountain started up in the center of the lake there, and scenes of the Night Safari were projected onto the screen of water while pompous music blared out from overloaded speakers.

I fell completely asleep during this absurdity, and then we noticed that it wasn't even time for the show to start yet. We sat through this foolishness for about 10 minutes, and then the real show started. We sat through about 5 minutes of the highly recommended snoozefest while anemic lasers played across the spraying water in time to some sort of music. We decided to get up and check out a sign to something called "Jaguar Trail," which turned out to be one of the best parts of the zoo. (In fact, this is the area that you can visit during the day, but at night it's far superior because there's no hot sunlight, no crowd of tourists, and you can catch the night feedings of the animals.)


White tiger at the Night Safari

Unfortunately, we only got about a third to halfway through when our arranged time to meet the tuk-tuk arrived. We hurried through the rest of the Jaguar Trail, trying to slow down enough to enjoy our private tour of the animals, but also rushing to catch our tuk-tuk without being too late. By arrangement, we hadn't paid for the ride over yet (we'd pay everything when we got back to Chiang Mai), so we didn't have to worry that he would leave without us, but neither did we want to be rude and delinquent. I really wish we'd given ourselves another two hours to take in all the animals at our own pace, but I guess there are just times when you don't know yet what will be most worth your while.

We hurried back and met the tuk-tuk driver, and after apologizing for our tardiness we convinced him to take us to a restaurant we wanted to try, rather than returning us to the downtown area where we'd hired him. (I'll review that restaurant, Dalaabaa, in the next post.) After being such a good sport about everything, and getting us to the restaurant magna cursu, we gave him a generous tip, and got his phone number so we could call him when we were done, or another day if we needed him again. Though this isn't really what I meant to talk about in this blog post, I would like to comment on the uselessness of getting a tuk-tuk driver's phone number.

First of all, we didn't have a phone with us, and (perhaps stupidly) rather than having the restaurant call him when we were done, we decided to walk back to the hotel after supper. We were very full and I wanted a chance to stretch my legs some and work off the fine meal, but it took us a long time to get home, and after that we were very tired. We did decide to call for that tuk-tuk several days later when we wanted to check out another out-of-the-way restaurant, and after contacting the driver by phone, we wound up waiting about 15 minutes for him to arrive, only to learn that the restaurant had moved and was now so far out of town it would cost a fortune to get there by tuk-tuk anymore. (Not really, and in fact such high transportation prices will become common when we're in the south, later on, but up in Chiang Mai his price carried a hefty sticker shock.) Now, having called for this guy and waiting for so long, we felt obliged to have him drive us somewhere, even though we ended up going to a restaurant of his recommendation that was completely within walking distance. When we arrived, we were somewhat amused to see that the restaurant he'd picked out was one that we had been to already, and had been considering as a backup for this evening anyway. (That restaurant, Just Khao Soy, also gets reviewed in the next blog post.) So I think our lesson is that when you need transportation, it's just more convenient and probably cheaper to hire somebody on the spot and not plan ahead so much. (Ouch! I wish I had remembered this lesson in the south when we were buying boat tickets to take us between the islands! We ended up overpaying waay too much and getting locked into non-refundable tickets that we had to work hard to change when our travel plans changed. Arrgh.)

Forest Wat

A couple days after going to Doi Suthep and the Night Safari, we decided to head out of the city once again, this time to visit the tranquil Forest Wat (Wat Umong).

The Wat itself is in a small woods adjacent to the university and is a peaceful place for meditation or just getting a change of pace without having to travel too far. The highlights of the Wat are the tunnels dug out at the directives of a clairvoyant monk in the late 14th century and the image of the fasting Buddha (a gruesome, skeletal statue).

Chedi at Wat Umong	Fasting Buddha
Tunnels at Wat Umong	Altar in the tunnels

The tunnels were not very labyrinthine, but the inclusion of several shrines made them interesting, and it was fun that they passed beneath the ancient chedi and exited on the other side of the chedi mound. There were a number of wild chickens hanging out near the chedi mound, pecking for seeds and bugs, so the contemplative nature sounds were occasionally punctuated with cocks' crows.

One of the buildings in the monastery housed hundreds of paintings of various Buddhist lessons, some of which were clearly Christian-influenced. The paintings ranged from very simple to elaborate works of art, and we spent about an hour just wandering around, gazing at them all.

Eventually we'd seen everything we needed to see and hiked out to the entrance to the forest and hired a tuk-tuk to take us back home.


Mural at Wat Umong

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