trek

After a few days at the Holiday Garden in Chiang Mai I met my guide Poy & my driver Lak. They picked me up at the hotel Monday morning and we set off through several National Parks toward Maehongson (not too far from Burma) where we would arrive in six days. This is one of the nicer roads through the National Parks.

Of course no trip to Thailand is complete without a trip to an elephant camp...(and the accompanying elephant ride). Most "work elephants" in Thailand now earn their peanuts giving tourists rides instead of hauling lumber like back in the old days...there are also (somewhere far out in the deepest jungle) a few wild elephants left in Thailand too.
Just for anyone going to Thailand in the near future...an elephant is NOT a comfortable ride. Fun maybe but in a roller coaster way...don't say I didn't warn you!

Northern Thailand has some really beautiful scenery...there is lots of rainforest and in the morning you can see the steam rising out of the jungle. The steam darkens the sky in the morning and for the first few days I was always sure (paranoid?) that it would rain but it didn't rain once during the entire trip.

Lod cave was one stop on the way to Maehongson. A stream actually runs out of the cave and it is full a fish that live inside the mouth of the cave itself. The sound they make thrashing around in the shallow water is kind of weird.