So the great things about coming to N Thailand in the dry season are the lack of rain, the ability to explore caves and plentiful sunshine. The drawbacks are there is only a trickle water in the waterfalls or rivers (so no swimming or tubing) and the farmers have started burning off their land which is a great spectacle to see at night but the plumes of smoke across the landscape isn’t great for the air quality. Last night we stayed at Pai Canyon to watch the sunset and then rode back on the moped past some pretty hot a fierce fires.
Pai Canyon was really impressive, slightly terrifying sliding around on the sandy ridge routes but a great place to be for sunset. Earlier in the day we visited a Japanese memorial bridge and also attempted to visit some waterfalls – one had little water and one turned out to be a 2 hour walk but it was already nearly 3pm so we will do that on sunday perhaps.
We hired a moped to get about (and a sexy “Pretty Lady” helmet for me) which allowed us to go up and over the highest point in the region and down to Nam Lod caves. These were huge and after some climbing up and down you got on a bamboo raft and they punted you along to other chambers. There were teak coffins and human remains found in the furthest part. Pretty amazing! We also found Pete’s place – I’ll let you guess which photo that is in.
