Welcome to the Jungle

After cosmopolitan Bankok, the jungle-carpeted mountains of Thailand's rustic north were a dramatic change. An overnight train journey brought us to the "northern capitol," Changmai. Despite its status as Thailand's second city, Changmai retains a wonderful overgrown-village atmosphere. We spent a few days wandering the streets, eating fantastic food at the myriad street corner stands, and exploring a multitude of beautiful (and occasionally bizarre) Buddhist temples.

Despite Changmai's charms, however, we soon succumbed to the call of the highland jungle beyond. Striking out to the west, we decided to do a loop out to the Burmese border and back. Our first stop was Mai Hong Son, a market town by a lake featuring a phenomenal night market. At the nearby temple, residents build up good karma by releasing cylindrical hot-air balloons, made of paper and heated by candles, into the night sky.

Our next stop was the aptly-named Wilderness Lodge, a guest house in the jungle north of the main east-west road. We reached it by taking a local bus to an isolated farming village, and then hiking 4km through the jungle. When we reached the lodge, we discovered it was no longer open; we were met by a hilltribe family who had taken up residence there. They agreed to lodge and feed us for the night after a flurry of grunts and hand-gestures.

We were up before dawn the next morning (monkeys make great alarm clocks!), intent on reaching the spectacular limestone caves north of Sappong before nightfall. We steeled ourselves for a long walk, but less than 5 km. into our hike we were picked up by a Thai family in a pickup, and made the village market in time for a local noodles-and-chicken-liver breakfast.

Susannah was happy to be back on her own two legs, and out of the wind!

The next couple of days were spent hiking through the hills. We passed sweeping vistas on our way to a village nearby.

The next day we explored the caves, which definitely lived up to our expectations.

A highlight was the sunset "bird show," when half a million swifts swarm into the cave for the night. Apparently, they use a form of low-frequency eco-location similar to bats, in order to hunt insects and avoid collisions in their dark rookery. Eco-location and speed, however, are not enough to protect bats and swifts against the cave's population of specially adapted racer snakes: they can slither across the ceiling, using stalactites for leverage!

Finally, we made our way (by motorcycle-taxi, pickup truck, foot and bus!) back to Changmai, en route to the Laotian border.