today (17th of july) we are going to try to get to Myanmar again!

I am now at the airport in Bangkok where I am enjoying the free goodies in the Bangkok airways lounge! 

so yesterday we went to doi suthep, a temple on the top of a mountain where acoording to legend the elephant of the king died. It's quite a beautiful temple and there is an extraordinnary view over the city of chiang mai! Climbing the stairs was not really a challenge, acoording to the book you need to be in good shape, but I don't think so. They even built an elevator for less active people :o. 

After wandering around at the top of the temple we went back to chiang mai and had a relaxing meal and fruit shake before we took the night bus to Bangkok. The night bus was not that nice and we didn't get a lot of sleep, but we'll manage and we are excited about going to the next country!

Myanmar here we come!

the past three days we've spent around chiang mai, the 13th and the 14th in a nature reserve (doi ithanon) in Ban Phra Mon, a small Karen hilltribe. I wrote in my previous post that I had very high expectations, I can tell you now that it was even better than that!

Our guide Surasit (or just Sit) was a great guy, at about 35 years old but he acted as if he just turned 20 so it was great to have someone from my age around. We first went to the top of Thailand: approximately 2565 meter above sea level. He told us that we would have a great view up there, but the weather gods didn't want us to see anything... It was very cloudy, but still the feeling of being on the highest place of a country is pretty nice. So now I can add Thailand to the list (after Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Great Brittan, ...) 

Up on that mountain there is a nice path made for the queen to walk around in the jungle and I have to say it was really nice: a good road and a perfect smell of fresh air while Sit was teaching us the way of the Karen. However again the weather Gods didn't like us and it started to rain pretty heavily so back to the truck. After visiting 2 pagoda's with beautiful gardens, we could enjoy a very nice meal and a walk through a royal project garden. There were all kinds of flowers, verns, flesh-eating plants, fish,... All in perfect condition and I have to say that the greenhouses looked nicer than the 'koninklijke serres in Meise'.

Enough of the touristy visits and towards the pure nature! we followed a small trail amids the jungle and learned about herbs and which plants we could eat as many as we want and which plants that we can only eat once... Sit loosened up a little and he started making a lot of jokes, every time he saw a mango tree, he yelled at me: 'banana tree', he pointed to some strange formations in the rock and told it was because of the tsunami and that he had to glue the rock together again... There are way more jokes, but that could become a little bit boring :D

we started hearing some water and a bit later we came passed a very wide waterfall, it was great as you can see in the pictures. (check introduction post) we went down next to the river and saw some more waterfalls (it almost sounds like it's not special anymore, but I can tell you every waterfall is different and you never stop liking it!) about an hour later we arrived at some rice farms from a hilltribe. If you ever get to see rice fields in the mountains, really do, the view is amazing! The young rice is a little bit flashy green, the mountains make it seem like you are totally away from civilisation but then the houses and the people give some other color to the landscape and then to make it perfect there is a blue sky!

we drunk some hilltribe coffee, damn that was strong and then we took off to Sit's hometown where we would have dinner (prepared on a wooden fire in the middle of the house) and sleep in the house of Sit's sister. 

Next day we went mountainbiking, with very steep parts where I even had to get off from my bike. Going up I only had to get off ones since there was a lot of mud but in the way down I walked quite a bit. My rear brake was not working and I am quite afraid when I go downhill without a rear brake...

Today we had a relaxing day here in Chiang Mai and visit some temples, so beautiful but nothing as exciting as the previous days

tomorrow we go back to Bangkok so that we can finally get into myanmar...

grtz

we didn't make it to myanmar after all, the border is closed so we booked a plane from Bangkok to Yangon on the 17th. Meanwhile we went to Chiang Mai to do some adventure trekking and visit a non-touristy hilltribe. I am really excited about tomorrow!!!

right now we are staying in a 'hippy' guesthouse, it's great, but I hope we can get some sleep in the middle of the Jamaican music and everything that belongs with it...

good night!

P.S.: since we are sleeping in a homestay in a hilltribe we won't have electricity nor internet tomorrow.

P.P.S: pictures have been added: see 'introduction' post

Toon