Road Trip!

We have taken long flights and bus trips, made our way around towns on motorbikes and bicycles, but how often do you get to take a road trip on the other side of the world!?  Our good friend Katie just flew to Thailand for her first time in Asia and she's spending 10 days with us.  We knew that she didn't have much time so we wanted to make the best of our time and decided that we would spend a few days up north, a few in Chiang Mai, and end our time with a few days on the beach.  

We put her through a whirlwind on her first weekend:  Flower festival, Jazz Festival, Baan Tawai wood carving fair, and finally Sunday walking street.

We were all exhausted, so we had a leisurely morning on Monday and then Tad's parents were incredibly kind to offer their truck so we could go on a road trip through Northern Thailand.

We started by driving to Pun Pun and Panya farms. Two farms that I visited five years ago!  We made it through all the directions until the last turn- it made no sense, we went in circles asking anyone we could where to go, and just as we were giving up a man spoke English and understood our request.  He pointed us in the right direction and we finally made it.  However, as we arrived we couldn't see anyone at the farm.  There was a Thai woman looking very frantic saying, "We have an emergency".  Ignoring her instructions to stay at their shop, we followed the voices and found that everyone was running with buckets of water to put out a fire that had started in the field. We immediately jumped in line and started to shuffle buckets of water down the line.  Within no time the fire was out, but because of the commotion there were few people that we could talk to at Pun Pun, so we gave ourselves a tour and then drove over to the nearby Panya Farm.

 

Panya is a farm started by Christian, a friend of mine from Bellingham!  He grew up in Thailand, but then moved to the states for college.  About 5 years ago he returned to Thailand and has focused his life on learning about permaculture farming and natural building.  He also treated us to some of his home-made cider wine, a Roselle, but take a look at the list of flavors they make:

After the farms, we made our way to Chiang Dao for some natural hot springs and a good nights rest.  Then in the morning we woke up to a beautiful yet cold day and took a tour through one of the larger caves in Thailand.

Katie was very excited about the idea of going to the Golden Triangle, so we drove all the way to the tip top of Thailand, the point where Thailand meets with Laos and Myanmar.  We made it just in time for sunset, which was beautiful, but meant we had another hour of driving in the dark back down to Chiang Rai.

We spent our last day was in Chiang Rai, and it was there that we added to our means of transportation for the trip: long tail boat and elephants :)

It was one of the best road trips I have ever been on and when we got home we packed all our things for the first time in 3 months, said goodbye to the family and have now arrived in Ayutthaya.  Here is a peak at the amazing ruins... will post more on our time here in the next few days.