" A Thai, Chinese and Dutch man walk into the Forest" - Chiang Dao, Thailand

Day 11

We first woke up at 5:30am to use the bathroom. Of course, I had to go before Theresa to check out the roach situation. Just a small one, no big deal. We then got up 3 hours later to get ready for our day trip. When we arrived at the meeting point, a woman at the resort asked, " Did you sleep okay with the gecko last night?" Theresa replies, "Not a gecko, cockroach, three big cockroaches" and the woman says, " Black ones? Better your tiolet than my kitchen." Then she offered to move us to another room. Apparently, this was not normal.

We then met our tour guide, a Chiang Dao local and took us and a Dutch couple to the first stop of the day, a Myanmar Temple near the border of Thailand and Myanmar (Burma). The temple was built by Myanmar people who had moved to the Thailand side of the border. A lot of the statutes and structures at the temple were duplicates of those existing in Myanmar. It was interesting to see, as there were replicas of buddha in the myanmar style, thai style, and hindu style. We were told that Wednesday is "Buddha Day" and that is when the locals go to the temples and worship and sleep. It was high up on a hill, with a great view.

Our next stop was the Pha Dang National Park. At the starting point, the map said that it was a 2 hour hike. Our tour guide said that we could do it in 1 hour. That's just crazy talk. With Theresa there, more likely, it would be 2.5 hours.

He led us deep into the underbrush at brisk pace. Uphill, downhill, and only occasionally checking to see if we were behind him. I was in the anchor position so I could keep an eye on Theresa. She wouldn't let me take a picture of her huffing and puffing, with hands on her hips as we walked our way to the top. But she did get a picture of me getting low to go under a fallen bamboo as a bug flew right into my eye. It took us half an hour to reach the top and we were dripping wet. So glad that it was not summer time. The walk down was a little tricky, making sure to look for trees to catch yourself from slipping. Theresa was holding on to our guide's arm for the initial decline. When we made it to the bottom, we made a quick stop at the herb and fern garden. From there, we walked to the waterfall, where we cooled off. Being in the water with it coming down the rocks was very refreshing. They even brought us towels to dry off. I think when Theresa realized that we didn't have to go on the hike to get to the waterfall, she wished she had gone straight there. We then had a picnic lunch at the base of the waterfall consisting of salad, sticky rice, thai-style fried chicken and tofu, apples, and pineapple jelly cookies.

Our next stop was the Pong Arng Hot Springs. As a result of a layer of hot rocks underneath the ground, the springs can get up to 51 celsius (127 fahrenheit). That was a little too hot for us, so we went into the other hot springs which was warm but not boiling. While it was nice and warm, we couldn't fully enjoy it because the water doesn't have that much movement, so you kinda wonder what sort of bugs are harbored in that water. After maybe 10 minutes, we got out to shower off.

Our final stop was at a local farmers' market. It was very interesting to visit. They sell little snacks, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables and lots of raw meats and other delicacies. Live bugs, toads, and fish, and raw chopped up buffalo, ox, and chicken. They were also selling honeycomb. Bee larvae is apparently very tasty! This old lady was selling these small sticky rice snacks with coconut milk wrapped in banana leaves for 1 baht (3 cents). Theresa wanted to try one, but the flies hovering about put us off a bit. I don't think our stomachs are as used to the environment as the local peoples. We wanted to be careful.

Once we arrived back at our room, the first thing we did was take much needed showers. Then we napped for two hours. Felt so good! We decided to have dinner at their Thai restaurant in Chiang Dao Nest 2, which is half a mile away from our room. It's pretty straight forward, we followed the main road, except it was pitch black by 7:00pm. The Thai meal was good, as we had Northern Thai curry pork and peanut cocunut curry shrimp. After filling our bellies, we headed back to our room.

Room update: Looks like we traded cockroaches for ants that may or may not bite. We're debating which is worse. I prefer ants because roaches are messier and harder to kill. Theresa almost prefers roaches because that room had wifi. We should be okay as long as the ants don't get on the bed. Soapy water seems to kill them pretty easily.

To view our pictures of the day, go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=theresang1977&target=ALBUM&id=5388349594032763521&authkey=Gv1sRgCOOvldvF6JnQdA&feat=email