Wow! What a day! Its days like this that let me know why I have yet to get my life long curse of travellers ‘itchy feet’, here in Northern Thailand. Here for 3 years now and still discovering so much, right here on my doorstep. There is just so much to discover, from the sublime to the ridiculous. These road trips just rock me everytime, a whole blast of emotions; wonder, awe, laughter and overall pure joy.
There was alot of the joy factor today as we headed up into the Hills, after meeting at my place at around 10am. So many beaming smiles from the locals.It still blows me away.
I swear I was thai in a former life; even as a child with a turbulent life I gained the nick name “Smiler”, I learnt how a smile was infectious and got such a rush from making other people smile. But growing up, through teenage to adulthood, in the UK, you get wary of smiling. People have got so distrustful and paranoid that smiling at strangers is likely to bring you trouble in someway or other.
Here, my natural happiness is free to express itself and bolstered by so many others doing the same. Thailand I love you.
Ally had suggested a ‘lake tour’ and I suggested we start at the most local lake that me and Boon have been swimming at recently.
Taking the short cut through the village roads, we passed some local farmers hard at work in the paddy fields.
Further on we joined one of the main Hill roads and Ally thought she knew where I was taking her.
As we took a left turn off to the Lake she admitted that she was wrong and that this was going to be a new one for her. This pleased me; Ally does do many more road trips than I do and often leads the way to amazing places she has found; so it was good to lead her to something new for a change.
Now you may have gathered that I’m a bit hopeless with naming places alot of the time. Thanks to Ally and her gps machine I can now tell you that this first Lake was Mae Tip reservoir.
We went down to see about having lunch there but unfortunately both cafes were only offering fish…which neither of us were keen on.
An offroad track on the other side of the reservoir, that we hoped would lead us onward on a diffrent route, ended up taking us full circle and we retraced our route for a while before carrying on along the hill road to Thi Reservoir.
Clearly another popular fishing spot.
There were some great views from here, including two nearby Temples which we had passed on the way.
Although I would have loved to go and see them, my hunger for lunch was an overiding factor, so that will be another days trip.
There did not appear to be any food outlets at this site.
More off roading from this reservoir and we ended up in a Lam Yai field….happens alot, all part of the fun. I’m never happy unless we get lost at least once per trip.
Finding our way again we headed down into Ban Thi, having lunch at the cafe I eat at everyday before school
Then it was off towards San Kam Paeng, around the San Kam Paeng Lakeside Resort and up the ‘brick road’ to Huai Lan Reservoir.
More stunning views here.
This was around the fifth time I’d visited this lake since Boon first brought me here 3 years ago, and our most recent visit was about a month ago.
Whilst there, the peaceful serenity of these forested hills was disturbed by the sounds of large rockets being fired from somewhere beyond the reservoir, further into the Hills.
Realising that this may be more of the rainy season celebrations going on all over the provinces at the moment, we thought we best go take a look.
There has clearly been alot of work done in these hills making them more accesible and we followed a track all around the reservoir and through the trees, working our way towards where the rockets were being fired.
And there, in a large clearing we discovered quite an extensive party/festival site, complete with foodstalls, stage, and many many local Thais gathered to watch the firing of these huge rockets on the ends of very long thick bamboo.
It was apparently the Kao Pan Sa Rocket Festival.
At the far end of the clearing was a very rickety looking , tall platform rig, with a long sloped walkway to the top. The rockets we carried up the walkway and ignited at the top.
I managed to ride a little to close to the firing and got the announcer shouting “hey you you, u turn u turn” over the PA, much to the amusement of the crowd. There was clearly much betting going on, though we couldnt quite work out the criteria for the ‘winning rockets’.
Not that that mattered, it was just amazing to have stumbled across this, and very exciting watching rocket after rocket soar high into the sky.
More meandering through off road tracks and better ‘brick’ roads a we ended up visiting Huai Pa Rai and Doi Torn.
Also we popped into the Fish farm, close to the Kings Project base, (mentioned in one of my previous posts). I really wanted to take a closer look but wasn’t prepared to try getting past the reception committee, a noisy pack of dogs.
We then tracked back a little and round to Wat Pa Tung, ( visited previously with Boon) and up to see if the dead end I told Ally about really was a dead end, as her GPS appeared to suggest that it should lead somewhere.
Nope…its a dead end alright, at least for the bikes.
Intrepid Ally fought her way through the brush and up quite an incline to the edges of Mae Pha Nae reservoir.
My open sandals really weren’t suited for following her and I’m rather glad, as her investigation revealed that there was a proper road that would get us there.
But time was getting on and Ally had a prior engaement to get back for, so that will be another day.
For many more photos from this great trip, please visit our photobucket album here.
