Mai Sarang to Chiang Mai

We depart the Riverside Resort promptly at 9:00 AM. Driving out of the town of Mae Sarang you can see every place (school) that the Princess had visited because it's completely decked out in her colour purple and with huge photos of her. Thais sure do spend a lot of money on their Monarchy and by most accounts they love their King. His photo is seen a lot around here.

For miles and miles down the highway the purple flags stuck in the ground provide proof that the Princess had traveled that route.

First stop of the day is Chom Tong Waterfall. Honestly, by this point I've seen so many waterfalls I'm not so sure what makes this one special two days after I saw it.

We stop in a town with a very well known Wat. It's obvious upon stepping inside that it is a very significant Wat. I could've spent 1/2 a day here taking photos but unfortunately we were in and out in about 20 minutes, I would guess. In a back room they have a very special glass vault with iron bars. This back area is only opened to the public for 2 weeks a year around New Years and I was fortunate to be there when it was open to the public.  It is filled with hundreds and hundreds of solid gold Buddhas.  

One of the smaller Wats I visited but one of my favourites. 

Solid gold Buddhas behind plexi-glass, iron bars, & lock & key.  

Normally, this area is closed to the public.

See the cash?  Thai are very giving people.

We enter Doi Inthanon National Park. You can tell it's a very popular place as we are in a traffic jam. Shortly after entering the park we stop for lunch at the only lunch stop place in the vicinity. I would liken it to a mammoth-sized cafeteria except the food is served to you at the table. Sutthi goes up to order our meal and it is brought to us within 5 minutes which is the norm in Thailand. I've never experienced such speedy food service anywhere else I've ever visited. We eat cashew chicken, the tasty Thom Yam Gai (or Thom Sum Gai) soup that has become one of my favourite Thai dishes, and fried rice. Sutthi had also brought along a few pieces of fruit and the lunch place cut it up and presented it beautifully on the plate. We had pomello, star fruit, tangerine, watermelon and pineapple.

Family-style lunch with the fruit that Sutthi had purchased earlier in the day

and the restaurant cut it up for us and displayed it so nicely for us.

Our next stop is to another Karan Tribe: Mae Klang Luang inside Doi Inthanon National Park. This tribe is not long neck. They are coffee farmers among other crops but are known for their coffee. Starbucks used to buy their Arabica beans at one point. The village is traditional bamboo houses, teeny tiny by North American standards. A Karan woman greets us dressed in traditional attire. Married Karan women wear a white head scarf. The scarf kinda look like the way you'd wrap a towel around your head after having washed your hair. We take a look at the white beans drying in the sun. These beans are not yet peeled. Sutthi pours some beans into a manual coffee grinder and the Karan woman makes us filtered coffee the old-fashioned way. She pours hot water into the cloth sack filled with coffee grounds. She lifts the cloth sack high into the air letting the brown water drip out the bottom. Then she takes that container of brown liquid and dumps it through the filter again and again and again. Sutthi and I sit at a long bamboo table and bamboo bench and enjoy or fresh roasted, fresh tasting coffee.

We head up the top of the highest mountain in all of Thailand, 3500 meters above sea level. I go to the viewing point to take some photos but all I could see were the clouds below me. We do a lovely walk through the rain forest on wooden walkways. It was a lovely 15 minute little hike through the dark green aged vegetation. I get to stand on the very highest point in all of Thailand and Sutthi takes my photo.

The tallest point in all of Thailand.

We head back down the mountain and stop at Wachiathan Waterfalls. Wow! The spray from the fall was keeping people far back from the fence. It was a very gorgeous and powerful sight to witness. It was roared like thunder too.

Next stop is Chiang Mai. Sutthi wanted to show me one of the most famous temples in Chiang Mai before we part company. We went to Wat Chedeliem. It was the perfect time of day. The gold and red intricate adornments of the Wat shone in all its glory in the setting sun. Photos don't do it justice in portraying the beauty of it.

Wat Chedeliem

Sutthi drops me at Top Garden guesthouse run by Victor from Montreal and his Thai wife Thanya. Sutthi and I say our goodbyes and I try not to cry as I hug him goodbye. Hiring this man was the best decision ever. Sutthi showed me a Thailand I would not have seen on my own. I enjoyed his company and I promised to send him a memory stick with music on it. The memory stick came about because he was playing a CD of older 70's music and he was asking me about John Denver when the song "Country Roads" came on. Well finally after two days he asked me "is this John Denver singing?" I said "No". Sutthi says "Who is it?" I said, "I have no clue but it's not John Denver, and that wasn't Peter, Paul, and Mary singing Blowing in the Wind either." We had a good laugh at it. He had bought the CD in Laos or Burma and obviously got ripped off.  {confession: I have not sent the memory stick!}

I check into my guest house and head on down the Soi to find my Christmas Eve dinner.