Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son - A Very Curvy Adventure

Taking a minibus from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son is not for the weak at heart! First was the tasi ride which only cost 108 baht (a little over $3) but took forever and the driver did not believe in a/c and had eaten a LOT of garlic for breakfast AND spoke absolutely no English. I thought I'd never get to the supposed 'scary' part of the trip. That being said, it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected it to be. I took a non-drowsy dramamine even though I'm not prone to getting car sick and I don't think I really needed it as my seat was one rown behind the driver on a 12-seat bus, but BOY are there a lot of curves. Luckily I became friends with the couple sitting in my row (she from Scotland, he from England and now both living in Southern Spain) as we kept sliding into each other. You couldn't fasten your seatbelt tight enough to prevent this. So, after a six-hour ride with a stop along the way and another in Pai, we arrived at the bus station which is of course located WAY outside the town. Their hotel was on the songthaew (a truck with seats and a roof in the back) route while mine it turns out was not. So I hopped on the back of a motorcycle taxi with two bags on my back and my suitcase between the driver's legs and off we went to Palm House - a hotel with a much more exotic name than is indicated by appearance, service, etc. In fact, I still have not seen a human that actually works here! The room is adequate and close to the lake and night market which is great but I crave more nature and am moving to a place in the forest for my remaining time in this amazing mountainous area which is very close to the Burma border. We were actually stopped twice on the way by border patrol making sure no one was crossing illegally. Today I went to a bamboo bridge which leads to a wat (temple) and curves through what are rice paddies in rainier months but was planted with peanuts at this time of year. It was very beautiful there and I spent some time just admiring the scenery and the ingenuity of the bridge builders. Then off to the mud spa which I've wanted to do since a woman I met in Bangkok years ago told me about it. It was worth the wait! I was given a facial, massaged, then totally painted from head to toe with mud and then sent out to dry. After, I was rinsed, scrubbed with an exfoliant of some kind, rinsed again, sent to a mineral pool for a soak, rinsed again and had cream that smelled wonderful applied all over. It was quite an experience and Sonchai, my driver and new friend, waited patiently the whole time. Since I'd mentioned that I liked Khao Soi, he took me to his friends place where I had a bowl and he went back for seconds. I said lunch was on me and it came to 70 baht! It cost just over $2.00 for 3 bowls of noodles with chicken! How can that even be??

So today was a celebration/festival of some sort in the town with chanting monks, drumming monks, a sort of parade with people riding in the back of trucks through town and explosions (thinks fireworks without the pretty part). I asked everyone what it was and never got an answer. Upon looking it up, there are three possibilities that happen in February in Mae Hong Son: A rice harvesting festival, a tea tasting festival or a winter fair. Don't know if I'll ever find out but it was fun! I climbed up many, many stairs after watching the festivities to the Burmese wat on the hill and then left the city by taxi to the amazing place I'm staying until I fly back to Bangkok. That little tiny temple at the top of the mountain is where I walked to and the stupa is what it looked like up close.

It is peaceful, relaxing, has yoga classes, two pools and a hike to a waterfall that's about 1-2 miles or you can do a loop which is a little over 5 (I think). That's on the schedule for tomorrow. Anyway, I have gone on enough although there is so much more to say about Mae Hong Son but I'll stop yapping. Oh! One more thing is that it looks incredibly smoky in the town, especially from the wat on the hill, but it felt more like haze (maybe mixed with smoke?) but my eyes didn't burn and there was no smell of smoke in the air. Still probably not good for you! So, there is a jungle rooster eating rice, the rice paddy and garden at the back of the property, a view from my porch, sunset over one of the two pools and my new best friend.