mae hong son

although we only spent two full days in mae hong son, we definitely packed in the sightseeing. mae hong son is a province located in mountainous northwest thailand bordering burma and is most famous for its diversity of ethnic minorities, good weather, and blooming sunflowers covering mountains in nov-dec. the winding mountain roads are often treacherous due to the inordinate amount of curves you have to drive through (1,864 curves in less than 300 km from chiang mai-mae hong son...there are shirts sold in mae hong son saying 'i survived 1864 curves' as well as certificates you can get from the local tourism office). we took the easy way out because we flew on a prop plane (30 min flight vs 8+ hr drive) and it was well worth the extra $ we had to pay because i would definitely have gotten carsick.

first night in maehongson:

we wandered around the center of the city, featuring Jong Kham Lake, and two famous Shan-style temples (Shan people, also known as Tai Yai here, are from Shan State in Burma), Wat Jong Kham and Wat Jong Klang. there are parts of the temple that are forbidden for women to enter, which is common in Shan-style temples but made me kinda :( because that's uncommon in most of Thailand. these temples featured an interesting collection of carved wooden figures and also a small museum with random things (ie foreign currency). we also watched a show on the National Geographic channel about one man's attempt to catch civets in Indonesia (he failed).

dinner at fern restaurant, supposedly one of the best places for thai food in maehongson (according to let's go thailand, anyway). live music performed by guy on guitar who sang covers of farang songs. pretty decent green curry and bbq chicken wrapped in fern leaves.

first full day in maehongson: breakfast at the hotel (included in the price of the room), then off to sunflower cafe to meet our driver for the day. we had a roomy ford truck and bryan sat shotgun so chris and i had the backseat to ourselves. the driver couldn't speak hardly any english so took to conversing with me even though he really wanted to talk to the guys. highlights of this looong day trip included:


elephant riding (this was mostly for bryan , who claimed he didn't care if he rode an elephant or not, but chris and i knew he was lying). bryan got his own elephant and chris and i rode another named mapae, who was 28 years old and very happy and playful. the mahout was laid back and let mapae generally do whatever he wanted, which included stopping to eat a lot and tear leaves and branches out of trees/brush and play. the mahout also had a slingshot and collected pebbles to shoot at random noises or mapae if he wasnt paying too much attention. the ride itself was fun but the scenery was not as interesting as i had hoped. we did get to cross a river though, which was cool.

paduang karen village (also known as the Long Neck Karens) the situation of these people is sad because they fled burma to thailand but are still stateless. their village is set up mostly as a tourist attraction for people to come and see the women who have a cultural practice of putting metal rings around their neck to give the impression that their necks are elongated. women can start wearing neck rings at the age of five and gradually add more and more rings as time goes on. supposedly, the metal rings push down on the clavicle but don't actually increase the length of the neck. we didn't take pictures of the women because i felt it was kinda exploitative, but supposedly they all have a choice as to whether or not to wear the rings and can also remove them if they don't want to wear them anymore.

mae aw village - this is a former Kuo Min Tang Chinese village on the Burmese border. not much to see here, but we did get some home-cooked man tou (chinese buns), sampled some tea, and ate good chinese food (fried pork, chinese sausage, and vegetables with mushroom oyster sauce). there were lots of free roaming horses and cattle in this village as well.


tum pla (fish cave) - local Shan believe the fish here are sacred and don't kill them, so they grow up to 1 m in length. tehy are soro brook carp and are bluish colored, and found only in six provinces in thailand. the cave was interesting because you could see the fish trying to swim against the current into the rock but supposedly no one knows where the water comes from (you see the fish from a cavern, not really a cave). we fed the fish here lettuce, tangerines, and fish food. the tangerines seemed to be the biggest favorite. note how big the fish are (in the really clear stream) in this pic!


random coffeehouse in the 'switzerland of thailand' (pangtong palace?) - at this homestay, our driver showed us coffee plants (i never knew what they looked like before) and giant bamboo groves. we also saw the 'roasting room' where coffee beans were roasted.

phu klon mud spa - according to the guy who introduced us to the menu at the spa, there are only three mud spas like this in the world with the other two being located in romania and israel (random, right?) the hot springs at this mud spa warm the mud, which is taken and purified. next, some thai traditional herbs are added to the mud and it's left out to bake in the sun. at the spa, you can see a mud pit, get a mud mask, or do a full body mud wrap. chris and i did the full body mud wrap while bryan got a mask. it was fun and not really spa-like at all (we were painted with mud and had water dumped on us from a big trash can in wooden 'shower' stalls by the spa workers when it was over - very thai style) and i felt like that it really did make a big difference. the spa workers, like many others in thailand, were convinced chris was thai and decided that we should be having children.


Wat Phra That Doi Kong Mu - this temple is on a hill overlooking Mae Hong Son town with an amazing view of the city and the surrounding environs. Two Shan stupas house the ashes of two famous monks from Shan State in Burma. Like many other wats that we toured in Mae Hong Son, one of the chedis at the temple had different Buddha images for each day of the week. You can make merit by donating to the Buddha corresponding to the day of your birth. The Buddha image for Sunday, for example, is standing, while Bryan's Buddha image (Saturday) is sitting on the coils of a naga (mythical serpent). The naga has many heads and uses them to make a roof over the Buddha to protect him from the falling rain.

Another interesting contraption related to the Buddhas corresponding to the day of your birth is a Lazy Susan-like thing holding different bowls with the days of the week labeled on them. These are encased with a glass box-covering and a slit for coins or bills is made at the top of the glass box. When you step up onto this wooden box, a motor activates that turns the lazy susan. You get off the box when the bowl corresponding to the day of your birth comes under the slit for putting money in and then drop coins or bills into the bowl, hoping they fall in. i had bad luck the first two times i tried this and didn't succeed, but the third time i was successful. making merit can be fun after all ;).

on the way back down the mountain from this wat, we noticed other wats and staircases leading to the top of the mountain, so we decided to walk there after we got dropped off at the hotel to check them out. i don't remember the name of the first wat we went to, but there were a series of faceless buddhas sitting in a circle in the museum there that i found intriguing. also, there was a large seated Shan-style Buddha outside as well as stone lions guarding a tall (old-looking) stone naga staircase. needless to say, we didn't make the trek up the stairs but had fun exploring the area around sunset.



dinner at kai mook, a local chinese-thai restaurant, where we tried local curry with wild boar. wild boar didn't really taste like anything, kinda like bland super chewy pork. we also had bananas fried in batter. after dinner, we walked around the local night market again & picked up a few souvenirs. chris also bought his absolute favorite food ever, moo ping, or marinated pork on a stick, and was instantly a star among the local temple dogs there, who followed him around and begged for pork until he gave them a little to eat.

second day in maehongson: the driver of our truck offered to take us around again and came up with an itinerary that seemed okay, so we hired him for another day. the big highlight of this trip was a huge cave, called Tum Lod. Tum Lod is one of the oldest known caves in Southeast Asia and is made of limestone. There is also a wide stream running through it with huge blue-green fish. At sunset, or around 6 pm, tons of bats and birds fly into the cavern to sleep. If they run into each other or one falls into the stream, they get eaten by the fish! we didn't get to see this, but our guide confirmed that it was true.

The cave is made up of one main cavern with three caverns coming off of it. We had to hire a guide with a lantern and a man on a bamboo raft to take us to the different caverns, which we explored by climbing up lots of wooden stairs. In one of the caves, also known as 'Coffin Cave', there were many wooden coffins that were discovered by anthropologists years ago. In different areas of the cave, there were children, women, and men buried. Another cave, nicknamed 'Doll Cave' at all these rock formations that looked like small dolls. Overall, the experience was pretty amazing.

Wat Tham Wua Sunyata - a forest monastery located on a large parcel of land. This wat was very peaceful and beautiful and focuses on running vipasanna meditation retreats. We explored the meditation cave, which was more like an outpost from a short limestone cliff, and the main hall with large Buddha images.

lahu new year celebration - we just happened to run across the end of this village's new year's celebration on our way back from mae aw village and our driver stopped to see what was going on. basically, drunk guys were lighting unbearably loud firecrackers while a few men in the middle of a circle were playing traditional music while a larger circle of women danced around them. free cold drinks (red and orange pop, water, and beer) were distributed to anyone at the celebration, and everyone was decked out in traditional costume. people were friendly to us and i was happy that we got to see a local cultural celebration.

Sesame oil ground by water buffaloes/cows - located in a little house with an open hut in the backyard, this is the only place in the North that still makes sesame oil 'the old way'. The method is simple - basically the cow/buffalo is hooked up to this wooden contraption and walks in a circle. As the cow/buffalow walks, the wooden pestle grinds the sesame and the oil is collected from the bottom. One bucket of oil takes about three hours of grinding. Once the oil is done, it is purified and then used to make different products such as lip balm (which i bought!).

the flight back to chiang mai was pretty non-turbulent and i decided that maybe prop planes weren't so bad. for dinner, we dropped in at pasta cafe & also had some homemade ice cream (i tried red bean & green tea - yummy!) on the walk home. the next day, we were off to bangkok!