Nan to Chiang Mai

Nan Province has its capital Nan city. From Pua (the town near the national park) I headed there. The bus is a pickup truck with benches and just smooth enough to read on.
In Nan I stayed a simple hostel with a large room and comfy bed. The town was alright, some interesting temples,

one with a room of mannequins containing scenes from hell. They were burning, being torchered, having liquid poured down their throats and one monk flying like an angel on top. It was right next to a Wat with a 4 giant Buddhas, once facing each direction. This is all in the same compound.



One day I rented a bike and roamed the countryside, stopped for a curry and returned, all this while my laundry was laundered... it was about time after a week of hiking... Here is a river I went along


The highlight of Nan was a Buddhist restaurant. It is open to serve Buddhists and is a local vegan restaurant. I had heard of these but they are mainly for locals and don't advertise. You get a large bowl of brown rice and then there is a buffet to add as much as you want on top. There were veggie dishes and some imitation meats. It was the cheapest meal I had had, 50 cents, and it was one of the tastiest.

From Nan I headed to Chiang Mai, the second largest city in the country. Bangkok and area has around 11 million people and Chiang Mai 200 000. Still a large city and it was great. I arrived on Sunday evening in time for a night market. It was very different than Bangkok as no one actively sought you out to buy things. The attitude was warm and friendly, and there were musicians in the street. To be continued....

Hiking in and around Doi Phukha National Park

One day I rented a scooter and headed to the hills. It was hard to remember to stay on the left side of the road, but gradually I stayed out of scary situations.

The mountains reflected the shining sun and every now and again I would stop to look out at the view. My destination was another national park and a waterfall. I found a great lookout,

a path by a river

and I scooted around the park to the waterfall where I had a dip and met a couple Thai guys.

 After a few days in the park I started to know the staff. I met one assistant director Mam, and she spoke English and helped me change my menu. I had the same thing breakfast and supper for a few days as I don't have the vocabulary to ask for anything else.

Mam had invited me along to go with a group of staff to a waterfall the next morning. When I showed up another friend (the other assistant director) implied that everyone was ready and waiting for me... I said I had to eat and gobbled down my food. After I finished, he sat down to start eating and said we still have some time. Language barriers are a fun thing!

The next thing i learned is the outing was changed and I was going on a park patrol. I got into the back of a pick up with 10 guys in camouflage and carrying semi automatic weapons. I was joining them on a trek to see who if anyone was cutting the forest in a park. We stopped half way to pick up another truck with soldiers and headed into the mountains. After a long ride on a trail I would have had trouble walking on, bordered by cliffs and beautiful scenery, the truck came to a stop and we continued on foot. A line of Thai officers and yours truly.

We came to a couple areas that were burned, one already had a rice field in it and the other was very fresh.

The people doing the burning are a hill tribe called the Hmong. The problem is that they have no other place to grow food and live off an average weekly Canadian salary for an entire year. You can't fine them, if you put them in jail their family can starve and it is their land in a sense. It is an interesting conundrum as maybe some endemic plant species will go extinct, but the people need to eat. The park passes the info to the police and I wasn't able to understand what happens next.  The guys also gave me many forest foods to try, here are some nuts I had to crack open, some had bugs inside and others were yummy..

It was a fun day with lots of sticky rice!

The next trip was supposed to be a hike for a couple hours. This time it was many of the staff of the park and a couple guides who also work there. The trail went up to the highest peak in the area and it was unused since the year before. The frontman was constantly swinging his machete to clear the trail, and stopped a couple times to blow into a bamboo flute and summon flocks of birds. They were small quick birds and about 40 would show up, and they danced around the canopy.  There were aso cool insects...

Then it turned out we were hiking all the way back to the park along a ridge, which happened to be an ancient trail used for hundreds of years (but still full of vines and prickly things)

We came across a giant stick insect, about 35cm long,

a couple patches of flowers on the ground that looked like sunny side up eggs,

and many many many leaches. They stick up in the air as if imitating a rocket ready for takeoff, except they blast off up your boot and seal up to your skin tighter than a space station airlock. You have to pull pretty hard to get them off.

The views were amazing, only we didn't see them as we were in a cloud all day. After five days and nights of clear skies we had 2 days of fog. It was a mystical hike.

Here is Mam and OK (I hope that I have the name right) enjoying dinner, Mem is incharge of the park staff and OK is in charge of the park patrols....  They helped me have this super experience...

One of the best parts at the park was the sunrises and sunsets. it was easy to see both in a quiet atmosphere....
As I was getting ready to leave I saw this insect on a urinal...I later saw a giant one in Chiang kong...you can barely tell its an insect the way the wings fold!