Hold On, I Have a Rock in My Shoe…

After I arrived in Mae Hong Son, I booked a trek through Friend Tour to run around in the Thai jungle for 4-6 hours. Crazy, right? Well, I just finished reading Survivorman Les Stroud’s book Survive!: Essential Skills and Tactics to Get You Out of Anywhere – Alive last week, so I was excited to test out some of the skills he covers. Unfortunately, Mr. Stroud would have been very disappointed in my lack of preparation. Fortunately, my trek didn’t have any accidents or emergencies, but it did have a little hiccup:

When I booked the tour, they said there would be a local guide and an English-speaking translator. Oops, when I got to the tour agency, they told me the translator had an emergency and wouldn’t be able to make it. They handed me 200 baht and said “Ok?” Sure, I guess that’s better than missing the local guide. (Honestly, it turned out not to really be an issue because the guide spoke pretty good English and I speak survival Thai.)

Soon came the only other brave soul who would accompany me, a gangly Frenchman from Ethiopia. We met our guide Patii (emphasis on TII), a member of a local Karen hilltribe. We all hopped in a van and 10 minutes later were dropped off on the side of the road. I sure hope Patii has done this before.

We walked into the woods only about 20 meters before Patii stopped to show us something. Oh joy, it’s a giant wood spider about the size of my hand. (I quickly turned back to the truck, ready to make a break for it, but it was already gone.) Turns out the jungle is literally crawling with these gigantic spiders and Patii stopped me from walking into their webs several times. Every time I thought, gee it’s been awhile since we’ve seen a giant wood spider, he would stop us and point one out. He even showed us this wonderful nest with hundreds of their babies. Fantastic, Patii! (

Don’t Go, Chae Son Waterfalls

Pii Pan, Sara's fellow teacher in the English department and our good friend, was nice enough to take Sara and I to Chae Son National Park about an hour outside of Lampang. Sara and I had wanted to visit the park for awhile but couldn't get there on our motorbike. On the way to the park from Hang Chat, Pii Pan picked up one of her good friends to visit the park with us. We drove through some beautiful scenery and arrived at the park in the early afternoon. After a failed attempt to get Sara and I out of the tourist (read: farang) price of admission, Pii Pan and her friend sat down for a picnic lunch while Sara and I explored the park.

We started at the hot springs, which were hot enough to cook eggs , if you could stand the sulfurous stench. At about 180°F, you have to leave them for 17 minutes so that’s plenty of time to run over to the mineral spa.

New Year’s Doubler (ok, half a doubler, but the rest is coming soon!)

As soon as the Christmas festivities at Sara's school were finished, we hit the road for the New Year's holiday. Sara had found us an amazing place to stay on Doi Inthanon in Chiang Mai called the Bamboo Hut. We caught a bus to Chiang Mai on the side of the road in Hang Chat and almost made it out of the city before the bus broke down. Luckily, the bus attendant had a backup plan: have everybody stand on the side of the road and hope someone came to our rescue. About a half hour later, a different, equally disheveled, twice as full bus rolled up and the crowd of refugees squeezed on board, bound for Chiang Mai. For real this time.

The owner of the Bamboo Hut (and their homestay), Nong, picked us up and we headed about an hour outside of Chiang Mai city. She dropped us off at a temple in the main town Mae Wang. It was here that we met Nong’s husband Koko, who would be our constant companion for the next two nights. His reliable old pickup truck just managed to climb the sheer cliff "road" that led up to the cabins, and I considered us lucky for surviving until Sara and I noticed hill tribe villagers riding their motorbikes up and down the mountain.