Thailand: North

On the train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai.  Each cabin had four beds (a top and bottom bunk on each side) and since Seth and I each had to purchase our own (at all of $20), we often had the cabin to ourselves.  We boarded in the late evening and rode overnight, getting into Chiang Mai early afternoon (on something like a 6 hour delay).  None of us minded, the train was so nice and comfortable, especially compared to Amtrak!

As you can see from the clean plates, this vegetarian place was one of our favorites in Chiang Mai.   We're sitting upstairs in this photo, where there were tons of low tables and floor cushions, and thankfully fans too.  It was a neat little place, with a giant wall lined with books in many languages for sale.

We thought at first that this place that we stopped on the way to the homestay was old, but it was actually new construction, to be the home of a bathhouse taking advantage of the natural hotsprings there.  The construction was beautiful nonetheless and really interesting to walk through, though none of us could figure out why they weren't currently at work on it or when it would be an operational spa.

This is Seth and my cabana at the homestay; it was wonderfully cool inside, a nice respite from the temperatures the rest of the trip.

Our cabana from the other direction, Sarah in the doorway.

The porch on Sarah's cabana.  You can see I have an incredibly adorable, tiny dog in my lap: Jina, perhaps Thailand's friendliest resident.

This is the mountain slope as seen from the homestay.  After a couple of nights there we went on a jungle excursion with Winai, our host, and Jalay (who you'll see a photo of soon).  Jalay was a local villager who did a lot of jungle exploring and foraging (he brought the ant eggs that we were treated to our first morning there).  Despite our knowing his name, Winai continued to refer to him exclusively as "Jungle Man" during our stay.

Sarah, pleasantly muddied on our excursion into the jungle.

This is Jalay, our gracious jungle guide, and this, apparently, is a tree that he lit on fire.  We passed more than a few burning and smoldering areas as we trekked, and Winai explained to us that this is how logging is accomplished by the village there.  They light the base of a tree on fire, and once it has burnt through and fallen over, they come back to harvest the rest of the tree.  Sarah went to take a picture of this burning tree, and Jalay proudly jumped into the frame.

Jalay during a break on our hike.

Seth and Sarah hanging out in our lean to- when we got to where we were going to camp Winai and Jalay took out a bunch of bamboo and several banana trees to build this thing.  It was pretty impressive to see them put it together with nothing more than their machetes!

Tea brewing in bamboo stalks on the fire

Peeling garlic for dinner

Winai bringing me more veggies to cut up.  To the left you can see the bamboo cups and chopsticks that Jalay made for us after we got to camp.

Dinner!

Seth by the lean-to

Hiking back to Winai's the next day.  We had planned to stay two nights in the jungle, but Sarah and I were eaten alive by insects during the night.  That morning, Seth explained to Winai, "I think it would be better if we went back today, they are discovering that maybe they are not jungle women."  True.  Let me tell you, the jungle is a very different place than the forest; one, I think, that is not quite so comfortable for human habitation.

Pretty mountainy views on the hike back

On the walk back down from Winai's homestead.  The path (about a mile) from the road ran through a hilltribe village and their crops, all up the hillside.

After our stay at Limeleaf, we picked up one of the kids from the village on our way back into Chiang Mai, where Winai and his wife Noi were headed for the Songkran festival anyway.  Winai grew up in Chiang Mai, and when we got into town we went to a friend of his' bar, got drinks and waterguns and joined in the city-wide water fight.  He we are at the end of the day out front of our hotel.  Obviously we didn't get to take any photos in the wetness of it all, but people with better protected cameras did.  Here's a youtube video from Songkran in Chiang Mai last year: Songkran Video  We rode into town in the back of Winai's pickup, and like many people in this video got a head start on the fun as a result!

This giant plate of indian food and the sweet pancakes below are what $1.50 bought us (to share) at the street market the night that we had banking difficulties (an ATM at our card and Sarah's bank put a hold on her out of country transactions).   Thank god for street food!

Sarah enjoying some ice cream at the same street fair later that week, when our funds were replenished (thanks Dad/Western Union!)

The rooftop patio at our hotel

The outside of one of the more impressive Wats in Chiang Mai.  Although we visited several, I never took pictures inside of the Wats out of respect.  However many people (with better cameras) do.  Here's a link to some photos of wats in Chiang Mai.  

Sarah at one of the many open air cafes in Chiang Mai

View from the train station in Chiang Mai, waiting for our train south.  There were huge flowering trees all over Thailand in so many colors, but mostly this red-orange, yellows, and purples.

That's all for now; I'll have another post of the Southern part of our trip soon!