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Mae Hong Son

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Mae Hong Son

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Mae Hong Son

(day 8, 9 and 10)

These days turned out to be the most expensive of our trip, but also the most authentic experience we have had in Thailand. After breakfast in Pai, we went to the bus station to buy tickets for the next shuttle to Mae Hong Son. Unfortunately, there were none. We were disappointed, what a beginners mistake! As we had booked our next hotel already, we had to go there and started shopping for the cheapest taxi. Strangely, no one wanted to go lower than 2000 baht, and some even told us the last price was 2500 baht. Only one guy made us a special price of 1800 baht. We agreed. The road was almost as curvy and with steep ups and downs as from Chiang Mai to Pai. It would take 3-4 hours everyone told us. Our guy made it in 2,5! Gaspard was green (sick) most of the ride. And we ended up paying him 2000 baht since our hotel was 15 minutes on the other side of town. 

Fern Eco Resort: for nature lovers! The first thing we saw was pictures of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt hugging the receptionist, which was the same one welcoming us with a drink and the message that we had been upgraded to a bigger hut. Gaspard asked: can we get the same one as Brad and Angelina? We could not… This eco resort is huge (compared to our standard) and green. It has rice terraces, a pool, restaurant and a bar. 24 hours a day, the crickets, frogs and other insect makes an incredibly loud noise. Therefore, it is never quite, even though there are no TV or radio in the whole resort. They had many dogs that we befriended, among others, Snow White and the crazy one-year-old Van Dam.

As we wanted to go for a serious hike, we found a guide, Mr. Pordee, in town who was willing to bring us to a Karen village and to a sunset viewpoint. He did not seem concerned about the time, even though we did not leave before 11.30. On the way, though, he told us that he usually brings tourists on this trail as a two days tour, starting at 9:00 in the morning, with a sleepover in the Karen village. Now we would try the same route in one afternoon. Needless to say, we did not have time to do anything else than walking: no pauses, no pictures, no swimming in the river, and no talking. It was a difficult and hard route, crossing in the Mae Hong Son river many times making our feet wet from the beginning, walking on dodgy bamboo bridges and narrow paths along a mountain filled with dry leaves making the path slippery. Mr. Pordee did not talk much, but said over and over: don’t fall down. No fall, no tears.

Later he told us that tourists had started to cry on this route and asked him why he would bring them on such a trek. It was beautiful nature in this part of Thailand but would be even more so after the rainy season as everything is dry and brown now (we recommend trekking in north Thailand from November to February). The route started between fruit trees, coffee plants, and some houses. He hit down a huge papaya that we ate on the way. After, we followed the river most of the way to the Karen village. There we had lunch, and then we walked through some rice fields and continued up in the mountain through an overgrown track. Nina’s legs got scratch up pretty bad. We got very tired, but Mr. Pordee did not seem to bother until he smelled thunderstorm. Then he freaked out. He didn’t like lightning, he said, and desperately tried to call his friend to have him pick us up sooner than planned.

The day after we stayed the morning at the pool before heading down to Mae Hong Son town where we rented a motorbike. The guy we rented it from was also a guide, and when we told him we had been out hiking the day before with Mr. Pordee, he said: Oooh, Mr. Pordee only walking, no talking.

We stumbled across a massage place by blind people and tried it. They did pressure massage, looking for the tensest places, and it really hurt. After, we drove out to the Sutongpe bridge, 8 km outside town. It was a long, beautiful and curvy bamboo bridge, going from a temple full of children monks to a small village on the other side of the rice fields. There were also a lot of dogs at the temple, one which bit badly another tourist. He received first aid from a monk, and all the curious children monks gathered around him to watch. 

We drove back to the temple overlooking the town, Wat Phrathat Doi Kongmu. After we went to the small night marked placed at the lake and had a cold grilled chicken. We gave the leftovers to a hungry dog.

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Pai

(day 6 and 7)

The first thing we did in Pai was to visit the hospital. There was no waiting time, and the nurse seemed to enjoy calling “Miss Nina, miss Nina, miss Nina Benedict!” over and over. We had no idea where they wanted us to go. She also told us: What? You left Chiang Mai to come to our small hospital in Pai?! After taking the weight, blood pressure and medical history, a doctor looked at Nina's ear. It took her 5 minutes and she prescribed eardrops to the incredible sum of 19 baht (5kr/80cent) to take 4 times a day, during 7 days. A bit disappointed, we went to get a massage. Our place here is nice and cheap. It’s called Pai Country Hut. Pai is in many ways as good as people describe it. Loads of hostels, eating places, bars, you can buy different hippie stuff and clothes, get a massage, tattoos etc. Everyone rent motorbikes and drive around.

After our best night of sleep, we rented a motorbike and went to visit an NGO: conservenaturalforests.org. Really recommendable! A Mexican guy, Miguel, decided to spend his money on making a difference in this world by planting trees and rescuing elephants. He made a point out of that it is not a sanctuary he has, it’s a rehabilitation place. He got two pregnant elephants that he bought from one of the tourist places where elephants do shows for tourists. Three years ago we went to one of these places ourselves and saw elephants playing soccer and painting, all while a man with a sharp hook made sure they did what they were supposed to. 

Western tourists are more reluctant now about going to these places as they have learned about the mistreatment of elephants, but the boom of Chinese tourists has made elephant shows a bigger business than ever! The elephants now need to learn how to live in the wildlife again, for example how to find food and wash themselves. We also planted a tree each. It is the future, Miguel said. We have to make compensations for our carbon footprint. Soon everyone will have to pay for tree planting, to compensate our greenhouse gasses emissions and mitigate their effects on the climate.

Thailand has got a new king since last time we were here. We have tried to ask some Thai-people about him. They say they like him, then they look down on the floor. We asked Miguel about the king of Thailand. He told us that the Thai-royals are the richest royal family in the world! And they basically sit on all the power in the whole country. If you talk bad about the king you can get 15 years in prison! So just do not mention him, he advised us. One thing we do like about him is that he officially promoted his puddle, Foo Foo, to the rank of air chief marshal in the Royal Thai Air Force!

After hanging with the elephants a whole afternoon, we passed by Pai Canyon. It was a weird landscape of narrow paths with steep fall on each side and no security at all. Gaspard tried his fear of heights. If you visit Pai, make sure to eat at Om Garden. They serve the most creative shakes and food in town.

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Hang Dong, Chiang Mai

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Chiang Mai

(day 4, 5 and 6)

We flew from Surat Thani to Chiang May. In search of sun, we picked a nice little place 30 minutes outside Chiang Mai for our next two nights. It’s called Rice Barn and Rooms and is more like a homestay than a hotel. It had a swimming pool, two dogs, a cat, two sheep, ducks, and chickens. A weird group of Chinese people lived in the rice barn. When we arrived, at 8 pm, they had already turned off the lights and gone to bed and since everything was dark we could not explore the garden until the next day.   

They didn’t serve any food where we stayed, and since we were in the countryside, our biggest challenge was to get food. When we asked the host where to get food, he said: we can order pizza and KFC for you, and you have Netflix free in your room. We are not here to watch Netflix and eat junk food, so we declined the offer. We found a Belgium place (Tintin), by riding bikes for 10 minutes, selling expensive Belgium beer as well as quite tasty Thai food.

The next day it was warm, blue sky, sunny and 35 degrees in the shadow. We stayed at our place, hanging in the pool and reading books, except for the two times we had to walk to find food. There were two very fancy places, which seemed really out of place there on the lost countryside, called Phufinn Doi (café) and Phufinn Rooftop (restaurant). The food was not great, but the atmosphere was nice and we had a view over Chiang Mai and the surroundings. For some reason there were loads of frogs in the street at night, we even saw a double frog. The frogs were quite fast, trying to get away from the camera flash.

In the morning before we left the next day, we went to the Grand Canyon water-park. We paid 300 baht and had the park almost to ourselves. There is a big area with plastic bouncing stuff and safeguards were all around. A water canon was constantly making the plastic slippery, and we laughed a lot of each other failed attempts to pass the obstacles. Nina also jumped from the high cliff, about 10 to 15 meters high.

Right after we got a taxi to the Chiang Mai bus terminal. 600 baht (150kr/17€) standard price she said, but we got a ride from the airport to the homestay for just 300. Gaspard was annoyed over this, but we couldn’t do much. The owner had ordered the taxi for us. The four hours minivan ride to Pai cost us 150 baht each. Nina had got water in her inner ear after the jump (so she thinks) and had pain the whole ride to Pai.

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Ko Pha Ngan

(day 2 and 3)

At 5:50, the alarm went off, and it was time to head out to the famous Ko Pha Ngan Island for some sun and chilling. We were a bit worried about the weather since it indicated cloudy and rain the next week on yr.no. People say that it will only be thunderstorms that will pass between the sunny parts of the day. We trust the people. 

After a warm journey, and a tuk-tuk that took a super-detour to deliver some Germans at a lost hostel in the jungle, we finally reached Amaresa Skybar and Resort Chill Place on the very southern tip of Ko Pha Ngan. Our little bungalow was all we could hope for! Faced directly to the ocean with big windows, build up on poles so it felt like we were flying, and with our own hammock and sunbeds on a porch. It was a liberating feeling, standing there in front of the never-ending sea.  

We had exactly two and a half hours with sun through thin clouds before the rain started, and it did not end again.

The nearest town, 10 minutes walk away, was the full-moon-party hub of Haad Rin. The town is developed around young backpackers ready to party hard, and this is reflected in the surroundings. The demands from the tourists really transform small villages like these. It seems like there is no environmental policy whatsoever, and no landscape architectural thoughts behind the constructions. Children help their parents mix mojitos for tourists. Loud music and light shows keep people awake every night. The locals all starts the same businesses, they sell the same clothes, rent out motorbikes and waits for the tourists to be in need of a taxi. 

On the map, it looks like there is a path along the coast of the island, and the guidebook describes a part of it like a rough but manageable hike. We could not even find the start of the hike and got lost in between abandoned hostels, towers of garbage and screaming monkeys. While walking on the “back stage” of the town, we discovered that the place seems overused and between the hotspots, it is overgrown and wilderness. Some people we asked told us it was impossible to do any hiking, and that we rather should rent a motorbike. So we did. 

We drove through the rain to the beach of Ao Thong Nai Pan, on the northeast part of the island, which is a more relaxed and isolated place than Haad Rin. The road is good, even though it is curvy and with a lot of steep ups and downs. We did not do much there, but we finally went for a swim in the ocean. It was warmer in the water than outside. We also ate an overpriced crepe Nutella. Gaspard said it did not even taste good.  We drove back to Haad Rin, under the rain. Rain really hurts on the face when you are driving. We ended up between two trucks filled with bamboo sticks and were soaking wet when we reached our hostel again.

The rain did not seem to end, so we changed our plans for this holiday. There will be no chilling on the beach under the sun. Instead, we will go for a round-trip in northern Thailand, visiting Pai, Mae Hon Son and Chiang Mai.  

The last night in our hut was scary. It was a lightning show that would never end. At the tip of the island, we were exposed to the wind and had a widescreen view of the ocean. With thin paper walls, and unstable poles to support the hut, we got the whole thunderstorm experience. The hut was moving and shaking and the sound of the waves and the thunder seemed to only get louder. A gecko also did its part, suddenly screaming: geeeckooo, geeckoo, gecko, gecko, geck, geck, oooo.

We did not sleep very well.

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Surat Thani

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Thailand march/april 2017

Surat Thani (day 1)

After 15 hours of smooth traveling, we were hit by 30 degrees heat, the sun and still air of Surat Thani. We found our hotel: Me Dream Residence with a tuk-tuk and slept a couple of hours before we head down to the night market in the city center.

 We found a wat (temple) with a funny tower and tried fried egg with seafood, served in a plastic bag. We also walked the seaside promenade were people were fishing and playing, and we found a mall, and that is pretty much all that Surat Thani has to offer for tourists. Most people here cannot speak English, so we try our best with gesticulations and simple words.

 In the evening we ate at Kampan Restaurant which our hotel host recommended us. The place looked fancy with a fountain garden where calm music was played, but the price was only 125 kr (11euro) altogether for three dishes with rice and two big beers! They had over 150 dishes to choose from. Medium spicy? said the waitress. Yes, said we, and regretted after. It was very spicy, but interesting and authentic Thai food.

 Then it was time to walk back to the hotel, only 350 meters away, said the hotel host. We spend 1 hour finding the way. Inside a food store, we engaged five shopkeepers to find out where our hotel was, and later we disturbed a dinner party, who sent us in the opposite direction (using Google maps). When we finally passed them again, 20 minutes later, one of the men run after us. He was sweating and apologized over and over. Ha had jumped on his motorbike and looked for us, he said, when they had understood that he had given the wrong direction.

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This has been an unforgettable experience. We are glad you took the time to live it with us!

Nina and Gaspard, 2014

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Shanghai

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12 hours in Shanghai turned into 36

After spending a last night in Manila we waved goodbye to Alexis and headed for Shanghai. We originally wanted two days in Shanghai, as a 72-hour transit visa is free for European citizens, except for Norwegians. Nina would only be given a 24 hours transit visa because of the Nobel Prize winner of 2010, Liu Xiaobo, who the Chinese government disagreed should get the prize. So we settled for a 12-hour stopover by night, arriving at midnight. The taxi we took downtown drove in 170 km/h in 80 zones. After the English-skilled Philippines, we were confused over the non-existing English competence among the Chinese people, especially among taxi drivers. Arriving to the main business district we were met by no people and blackened buildings. Was this really Shanghai? We couldn’t believe it and were unsure weather it was a good idea to stay awoke the whole night. We ended up booking a room at a very atmospheric hotel called “8 Art Hotel” right next to the Bund and slept some hours.

The next morning we were eager to see some of Shanghai’s hotspots as we were leaving at 14:15. We walked along the Bund from where you see the skyline as a wall of high buildings and took the Bund sightseen tunnel to reach The Pearl of Asia, the weird formed tower with blinking balls. The sightseen tunnel was a flashing experience of neon lights with a voice saying things like “meteor storm” and “the deep blue sea” while we were transported in small wagons looking like eggs. Among the tall buildings we aimed high and decided to go all the way up to the highest ball of the Pearl of Asia. It was labyrinth of elevators and ladies in space suits showing us the way to the top. The view was a bit disappointing as it was foggy, but we were 351 meters above Shanghai. The whole thing took us a while, and we had to hurry to get to the airport. The metro was slow and arriving at the airport the helpdesk-lady told us that our plane had already boarded all the passengers and was ready for take-off. They had changed the time without informing us. We were so ready to go back, and here we were, still in Shanghai with visas expiring and really strict police. We managed to be rescheduled for the next day’s plane, but they could not guarantee us the connection flight from Denmark to Oslo.

With another 24 hours to kill, we returned to the Art hotel and walked to the main pedestrian street which is peppered with shops and screaming advertisement. This was more how we had had imagined Shanghai. Unfortunately, the world famous acrobat show was sold out, so we claimed up in the tallest bar we could find, Radisson blue, and had a glass of wine while watching the lights of the night arrive. The restaurant of this round tower was actually turning, but gentlemen had to be dressed properly, so Gaspard was denied access. We kind of lost our way while walking back to the hotel and ended up in a Chinatown (in China) before we finally found back to the Bund and took some shots of the skyline by night. The next day was a loooong day of transportation, starting with the superfast train to the airport. It actually reached 431 km/h, which is insane. While slowing down, we found 200 km/h slow. The strict Chinese police made us wait for 1,5 hours because we had overstayed our visa, but we manage to talk ourselves out of paying the expensive fee. From Copenhagen we had to take different planes because they were all full, but at last, at 1 am, we arrived at Smestad exhausted after 21 hours of travelling.

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La Union and Subic Bay

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La Union and Subic Bay

We changed our mind many times while trying to figure out where to spend our last days. Finally we decided to go to La Union, which is claimed to be the Philippines best surf spot. Unfortunately, the waves were more or less inexistent and there was no wind either to do any kind of windsurfing or kiting. One thing they did have was jellyfishes, and Nina got a nasty burn on her arm, which was treated by vinegar and ice cubes. We did try stand-up paddleboard and played in the white-water with surfboard in the evening. As prices were high on the beach resorts, we ended up living outside town where nothing happened. For dinner the first evening we went to San Fernando and tried some street food in an atmospheric street. Scared to be sick, we didn’t eat much there and tried a Chinese restaurant instead. The food there was also quite disappointing (remember that there are two French food enthusiasts traveling, so everything we eat goes through strict tests).

La Union was no place to stay for long, but we were also unsure about Subic Bay as it is a former US army base and known for sex tourism and the Shit river (a river carrying all the shit of the town into the bay). We didn’t feel like spending three more days in Manila either, so we decided to go to the Bay anyways. Trying to get a bus down south was not easy as the bus companies do not sell tickets beforehand. You simply have to show up and hope not too many other people do the same. We were not lucky, and getting our queue number, we realized that we probably had to wait for many hours before it was our turn. We have learned that there are always alternatives in the Philippines, even if the local people tell you there isn’t. So we tried to stop every bus passing us, asking if they were heading our direction. It took a while, but at the end we got a bus to Dagupan, where we changed to a bus going to Dau, from where we got to Olongapo, the biggest city in the Subic BayWe had no luck in booking a room in advance as everything seemed overpriced for our budget. A pirate taxi took us to a weird beach, where old white men and young Philippine women seemed to be the only attraction. At hotels they had flyers advertising for easy visa for your loved one, if you want to get her to Australia. Even with such a long journey and the sun setting, we decided to return to Olongapo and found a place called Travellers Lodge in the middle of the main street. We were sceptical about the location to begin with, but the street turned out to be not too bad, and with very few rich old men. The first evening we ate at a Korean Karaoke restaurant where we ended up singing for hours, and the waiters actually didn’t seemed annoyed by our bad voices.

The next day we decided to go for a dive and returned to the creepy place as they had a dive shop. The dive was disappointing. It was a big shipwreck called El Capitan with little aquatic life around and the visibility was almost zero. After amazing dives in Corón, it is hard to get anything comparable, but we think that anyone would found this dive not worth the money. Returning to shore we played some pool and then tried to get to the ‘Freeport Zone’. As much as we tried to find out what this label meant, we didn’t get any good answers. We learned that it was both private and public owned, that there are no taxes, that only foreigners live there because of the high prices and that there were no jeepnies there, only taxies (even though we saw some jeepnies). A very cool restaurant (Vasco’s) lays here overlooking the bay and with an atmosphere of a pirate ship. The food was good too. After eating, we played pool again, just to kill time.

Gaspard really wanted to go to the Casino right next door to our hotel, so after a Shisha, we went there and lost 1100 pesos on the stupid machines.

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Sagada and Baguio

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Sagada and Baguio

Following our Lonely Planet guidebook, it seemed like there are a lot of highlights in the North Luzon area, and we were worried that our last 10 days would not be enough to explore it all. Sagada was described as a backpacker headquarters, but to be honest it seems like backpackers are more or less inexistent in the Philippines. We have not met backpackers at all except for Corón and el Nido in Palawan, where all they do is diving. The weather was grey and rainy and the street was dark as the night. Sagada had some decent restaurants and bars though and we ended up in deep conversation with a group of librarians from Manila. One of them was especially funny as this was his first beer in two years and despite his shyness (as he constantly reminded us), he felt very talkative.

We signed up for a hike the next day to see the famous hanging coffins in echo valley. To hire a guide only costed 600 ($15) pesos for the group and he took us for a three-hour walk in a muddy and wet valley. First stop was the Echo Valley lookout where we understood why it was called echo valley. After we stopped by the hanging coffins which are actually coffins fixed under cliffs in the mountain wall. Some chairs were also hanged up there and our guide explained that the dead people are traditionally tied to a chair and put in the corner of the living room for a couple of days while the family is mourning. After they are put into coffins, preferably very small coffins, as it is a sign of birth to be small, and tied under the cliff. Some of the coffins are centuries old, and the newest he showed us was placed there in 2010. After we saw an underground river and a waterfall with a natural round pool. The boys tried to rent motorbikes but they got vague answers from rental places and five minutes after they gave up it started to rain heavily.

The next day we took the bus to Baguio, which was again a much longer ride than we imagined. Baguio was much bigger than expected, but than again, it actually hosts 250’000 students! It is formed as a valley, but it is hard to see the mountains for only houses. It is chaotic and noisy, but we found a nice hotel called Baguio Village Inn a bit outside of town and we only stayed here for one night. The first evening we arrived too late to do any sightseen, so we went to the shopping mall and saw a movie. The second day (after Nina’s wish) we went to a couple of museums. The BenCab Museum (Benedicto Reyes Cabrera) was interesting. It was full of wood carved men with standing penises and modern huge paintings. Mayas jaw dropped a couple of times as the paintings were absurd and difficult to understand. It was really a mix between the modern technology and traditional art, with rice Gods and jungle spirits.

If you look for it, the city actually has a lot of street art and even if there are too many people, it managed to have green areas and parks. We went for a walk in the Burnham Park where they had fountain show and a small lake with boats to rent. We got a pink seahorse boat and did our best to not crash into too other boats, as again, the lake was full of people! For lunch we went to Baguio’s most beloved café, ‘Café by the ruins’. It was the best meal we had in a while.

Maya took a bus back to Manila, while Alexis, Gaspard and Nina headed for the beach of La Union, with the hope of surfing.