For our last day in Chiang Mai, we decided to leave the city and head north for some hiking. With the help of our hostel, Drew found an awesome trek in Chiang Dao National Park that doesn't see too many tourists, probably because of it's distance from the city. Our guide, Dechawat, (who we accidentally called Aisha all day because we misheard him introduce himself), drove us about 72km from our hostel to Chiang Dao. On the way, we stopped at his friend's restaurant to pick up lunch for later, coffee, and some snacks. He also bought us some hot corn on the cob from a street vendor to munch on during the drive. As we drove deeper into the forest, we learned about the different villages in the area, and Dechawat seemed to know everyone around.
We parked the car, soaked ourselves in sunscreen and bug spray, and started to hike - we were promised a beautiful waterfall about an hour away. On the way, we saw sky-high bamboo shoots, banana trees, coffee plants, tea plants, and tons of butterflies. We reached the waterfall and Dechawat suggested we "take a shower" before lunch, so we swam around for a little while. At one point we turned around and saw our guide actually scrubbing down with a bar of soap and brushing his teeth. After swimming around and eating our lunch (basil chicken and rice with a fried egg - not your typical picnic lunch), we hiked back to the car.
On our drive back to the hostel, Dechawat pulled over a few times to buy groceries from some vendors on the side of the highway - He lives in the city and prices out by the mountains are less expensive. We stopped three or four times - once for bananas, once for passion fruit, and the other two times we weren't completely sure why he stopped. After about an hour and a half, we were back at our hostel.
We rested a bit and then headed out to dinner at Swan, a highly rated Burmese restaurant. Given our obsession with Kyusu (a Burmese restaurant back home) we were excited to see what Burmese food tasted like a few hours from the Thai-Myanmar border. We were happy to discover that while tonight's dinner was perhaps more authentic, Kyusu just couldn't be beat. The night concluded with mojitos at THC Lounge, a Rastafarian themed bar in the city center.
We parked the car, soaked ourselves in sunscreen and bug spray, and started to hike - we were promised a beautiful waterfall about an hour away. On the way, we saw sky-high bamboo shoots, banana trees, coffee plants, tea plants, and tons of butterflies. We reached the waterfall and Dechawat suggested we "take a shower" before lunch, so we swam around for a little while. At one point we turned around and saw our guide actually scrubbing down with a bar of soap and brushing his teeth. After swimming around and eating our lunch (basil chicken and rice with a fried egg - not your typical picnic lunch), we hiked back to the car.
On our drive back to the hostel, Dechawat pulled over a few times to buy groceries from some vendors on the side of the highway - He lives in the city and prices out by the mountains are less expensive. We stopped three or four times - once for bananas, once for passion fruit, and the other two times we weren't completely sure why he stopped. After about an hour and a half, we were back at our hostel.
We rested a bit and then headed out to dinner at Swan, a highly rated Burmese restaurant. Given our obsession with Kyusu (a Burmese restaurant back home) we were excited to see what Burmese food tasted like a few hours from the Thai-Myanmar border. We were happy to discover that while tonight's dinner was perhaps more authentic, Kyusu just couldn't be beat. The night concluded with mojitos at THC Lounge, a Rastafarian themed bar in the city center.
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