A tale of two tours

21 Dec 2014 Winter Solstice – a few hours earlier than yours

For people who don’t do very much we’ve certainly had a hectic couple of weeks, with two trips away from home. First we did a day trip up into the mountains with our hosts, Malee and Kurt, then we had a little “city break” with two nights in Chiang Mai.

Malee and Kurt’s 12-year-old son Peter is away at school during the week so they like to have a family day out on a Sunday. Last week they invited us to join them on a visit to the Ang Khang Royal Agricultural Centre up in the mountains near the Burmese border. It’s at about 1700m above sea level and the 2-hour journey to get there goes through some spectacular scenery. Fortunately Kurt is used to the roads and handled the hairpin bends and oncoming trucks with no probs. We felt quite safe.

We stopped for a drink at a roadside cafe.

The Agricultural Centre itself was OK but not inspiring. It’s like a cross between the Eden Centre and B&Q – a huge site with formal gardens and vast shade houses. Apparently they specialise in developing fruit trees and crops that can grow at high altitude – it’s one of the few places in Thailand to experience regular frosts. They seem to have a thing about ornamental cabbages at the moment –annual bedding schemes are still in vogue here!

Kurt and Peter among the formal cabbages.

Malee

Peter

Spectacular lady's slipper orchids

What is it with those cabbages!?

On the way back we stopped off to have a quick trek up a hill. The mist was rising through the valleys. Stunning.

The path up the hill

Kurt is an orchid collector and takes 3D pix of flowers.

Misty mountains

Second trip was to Chiang Mai. Having only glimpsed the city in passing on our way through from the airport we thought it would be a good idea to leave our belongings at Malee’s and spend a couple of sight-seeing days in Chiang Mai. It’s only an hour and a half on the local bus (tickets 40B – about 80p) and lots of people have recommended it to us.

Thirteenth century teak wat.

Curiously they don't seem to worry about tourists taking photos of buddha images. I rather liked the abbot in his spex here.

I love this ancient chedi just round the corner from our B&B.

And this is my favourite buddha image. Standing, right hand raised - fearless, peace, "calming animals".

It is indeed a lovely place. The old city is just a mile square, bounded on all sides by the remains of the ancient city walls, next to a fountain-filled moat, with a highway on both sides. Once you get across the highways into the old city it’s great for walking around. You can’t get lost – within a mile you know you’ll meet the city wall – and it’s filled with little tree-lined paved alleyways, friendly cafes, crafty little shops, markets and, of course, wats galore!

Our B&B, found via the net, proved a good choice, tucked into an alley in the northeastern quarter where all the cool dudes hang out. We had a beer and potato wedges in the ubiquitous Irish Pub, enjoying the warmth of the evening and the cosmopolitan but relaxed ambience.

This Worcestershire girl was deeply offended. "Bold American recipe" my arse!

On Friday we explored the old city, wandered round wats and the park. Then we checked out Saturday, walked back to the bus station and caught the bus back home. On the way down the bus had been fairly empty – just a few passengers. On the way back it was a different matter and we were a bit concerned to notice that the two-person seats we sat on all had three numbers. Sure enough when the bus was full more passengers were ushered on board and the bench seats were pulled out slightly into the aisle so that we could fit three bottoms per seat. Once we had the sacks of rice loaded as well I seriously wondered about the ability of the engine to heave us up the hills. But we made it!

Back home to our bungalow no. 9. Oh, and the great discovery last week was Michelle’s – the little bar down the road – with pool table, relaxed atmosphere and a few friendly regulars. I’ll gloss over the embarrassing incident with the whisky and the smashed glass here. Needless to say it was all someone else’s fault. What do you expect if you hand out free shots and you have a tiled floor!? Fortunately we have not been barred.

Our Malee bungalow last week.

The white flower with leaves and fruit this time (Mark). I wondered whether it was related to rose-apple (which we've jusst discovered for the first time - yum!).

The wat at the top of 500 steps just up the road.

One of our peaceful walking valleys.

You can learn how to build an adobe roundhouse here in Chiang Dao.