.................................................Chiang Mai, the jewel of the north. Our train was about 4 hours late, maybe because we sat at the Bangkok Train Station for 2 hours, going forward 20 meters, then back 10 meters, then forward 20 meters, then back 20 meters. It was a comfy 2nd class car with seats that folded down to beds. Luke and I played cards and drank the Singha Liters to pass the time. When we arrived at our hotel, the Golden Fern, which just so happens to have stolen MY tattoo as their logo, we met up with our friend from the Hat tourney, Lin, and her college roommate Tuyet. The next day we took a sak doa truck to Chiang Dao Nest, a nice resort of bungalows up in the mountains near the Golden Triangle, the convergence of Thailand, Burma, and Laos. That is where a good many hill tribes up there, and we met about five of them. On the way up there we picked up two US Air force that were to be our escort, or at least that is what I called them. Our "protection" was a girl from Ohio that fly's a C130 cargo plane out of Seoul, and her friend, Mike from Michigan, who is an eye doctor out there. They were pretty damn cool to hang out with, and the six of us made a good group of trekkers. We had a nice breakfast then hopped into the back of a pickup truck to get up into the mountains. And what mountains they were, I felt like I was in the middle of a Kung Fu adventure, the rocky out croppings and dry bamboo forests were straight out of a Chinese scroll. We were let out at a bamboo bus stop, and hiked down into a valley to a almost deserted village with two guides. We looked around for a bit, then took about an hour hike out to a real cool cave system. We explored in there for about an hour, having to crawl on our bellies every once in a while. There were great mounds of sparkling white rock and great folds of rock that our trusty guides showed us how to play like bongo's. We turns our lights off at one moment and experienced total darkness. Of course there was the joke, "hey don't touch me there." On the way back our guides started up a ruckus and we noticed that they had found a snake crawling around in the cracks of the rock. At that point I pretty much wanted to get the hell out of there. We then hiked up to a pretty cool waterfall, then back up the hill and to our first camp, that was a great little village perched on the side of the cliff, over looking the picturesque mountain range. We had a great dinner and then hung out and played cards, drank beers, and watched the stars. We finished out the night discussing politics of the war and religion. The next day our "military escort" left early because they were only doing the two day trek, and me, Luke, Lin, and Tuyet took off about 9am on a long hike through the hills and valleys. The path was almost always covered with huge purple and gold leaves from the fall, and it was very slipper going down the slopes. We stopped at another cave that was much more expansive once you got inside, with great cavernous halls about 70 feet tall and 200 feet in diameter. No snakes in this one however. Supposedly there is a crazy old guy who has a lot of cats that lives there but he wasn't home. Then we crossed a river and had lunch in a bamboo grove. Our guides took out there machetes and cut us half tubes of bamboo for our plates and carved us fresh chop sticks to eat our rice and onion/tofu and fish jerky. We then hiked to a more rural village next to a river. It was very quiet and full of livestock. We explored the town and took a dip in the river, then played some more card games and had dinner. It was much more colder that night, and I was glad I had my sleeping bag. The last day it was about a 1-1/2 hour hard hike straight up out of the valley, then a truck ride back down to the nest before going to the elephant riding spot and then hiking through more touristy villages with crazy ladies who would push their merchandise on me in particular, it was comical. We saw a monkey there however, so it was cool in my book. We then took a ride down a river on bamboo rafts held together with strips of car tires, and then took the long ride back to Chiang Mai.
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