Doi and Doi-er
I’ve been informed that I’m responsible for covering the national parks beat and that I am grossly negligent in sharing our adventures in the (not quite) wilds of Thailand. So here we go:
Welcome back, dear readers, to the National Park Chronicles.
While in Chiang Mai, we visited two national parks that were similar in both naming and activities. Doi Suthep and Doi Inthanon are both nearby to Chiang Mai, but several hundred meters higher in altitude, a feature that alone made them an alluring destination for us.
Doi Suthep
The first park we visited was Doi Suthep, which is a relatively short songthaew ride up the mountain where we visited a temple (that Em has already posted about) and took a short hike to a waterfall. Simple as that.
Doi Inthanon
A few days later we arranged a car to take us to the much more distant Doi Inthanon. It was a bit rinse, repeat in that we visited the temple, then took a hike. However, our arrival at the top of the mountain was punctuated by a comic moment when our driver stopped to take a picture of the park’s electronic information sign which displayed a shockingly low ambient temperature: 17C (62F). Thailand is frickin’ hot.
The driver opted to start us with a short hike around the unique mountain environment. We were informed that we had to pay for a guide, which immediately put me on alert after our crazy expensive guided hikes in Rwanda but they quickly squelched when the staff blurted that it was just 200 baht (about $6). Moments after we started off I discovered why the cost was so low: whereas our Rwanda guides all had ecology degrees, knew interesting details about the plants and animals and spoke excellent English, it turned out that our Thai guide didn’t speak English, and maybe she had extensive ecology knowledge, but that was not for me to know. She was just there to make sure we didn’t go rogue in the Thai forest. Even so, I couldn’t help myself and I asked her for several of the plant’s names along the way, which resulted in the Hmong (I think) name for each. Eventually she indicated that you could eat one of the berries we walked past in the Thai meadow. As I inspected the plant, I realized it seemed very closely related to salal (similar morphology of berries and flowers, leaf shape and coloration, stem bark and branching), and indeed, the berry tasted almost identical. Cool. My trust dried up though when we passed into the deeper forest and she made the same eating gesture about a berry that in every other forest is the poisonous one that nothing eats - bright red, in tight clusters on an extended stem above three heart shaped leaves. I’ll pass.
Silk factory
On the return journey, our driver announced that we’d go to several factories: chocolate, coffee, silk. Mmm, no. I initially declined, but when it became clear that the boys didn’t actually know how silk was made or even where it came from, we allowed ourselves to be taken to his cousins’ place the silk factory. But the real reason to include this bit of the day is because I learned something: I had always wondered how they unravel the thread from the cocoon. I mean how can you find the one end? Well, it turns out all you have to do is boil the cocoons, which causes the end of the thread to separate from the cocoon, then you twirl a wooden stick in the water and all the threads adhere to the stick. Secrets of ancient China made easy.
Tham Lod Cave
While not a national park, it was very cool. Awesomely, Joe did all the arranging for this trip. He walked into Pai, asked around the various tour companies, found the best price, and booked the time. This cave is a day trip from Pai and has it all: a river running through it* that requires a boat ride, absolutely enormous stalagmites/stalactites, bats and birds, ancient cave art, ancient footprints and ancient coffins. Another non-English speaking guide was required, who showed us around the different sections of the cave using a kerosene lamp. The tour started with a trip through the upper cave where the calcium carbonate formations are for sure the biggest and most impressive I’ve seen in a long time (if not ever). We also walked by a painting of a deer which (sadly) has been mostly destroyed by people touching it. Next, we boarded a bamboo raft to descend the river to the lower cave. Here we became intimately acquainted with the smell of bat guano and saw several wooden coffins dating from 2000-1000 years BP.
*The river was full of fish as long as your arm too, but McLean would be disappointed - they were carp. Regardless, the extensive history and setting of Lod cave made me think of the last line of that novel:
"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and ran over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters."
Literally true in this case.
