New Year's Day Chiang Mai

It was time for us to say "good riddance" to 2021 and we chose to celebrate its departure in a non-traditional and relaxed fashion.

Karen, a Calgarian we met at a dinner get-together, invited us to join her on a day tour to see the floating pagodas and hot springs located a couple hours east of Chiang Mai. We embarked on our journey at 7:15 on Friday morning in our driver, Steven's private car.

After about an hour we stopped at a hillside café where three of us had some java and Brenda had a fizzy passion fruit mocktail. All were delicious and the view overlooking the valley from the patio was breathtaking. We continued onward over narrow, twisty mountain roads until we reached our destination in Lampang: Wat Chaloem Phra Kiat Phrachomklao Rachanusorn. We'll just call it The Floating Pagodas.

Built high on the mountaintop by Buddhist monks who carried construction materials on foot to the summit, the temple is barely visible from the staging area where we parked. From there a harrowing ride in the back of a songthaew up a very steep, twisty road, wide only enough for one vehicle, had all us passengers hanging on to avoid falling out of the truck! Once we were back on terra firma, we then had to scale eight hundred or so steps to reach the temple.

The monument is known as "The Floating Pagodas" because they are built atop jagged limestone outcroppings that, from below, give them the appearance of floating in mid-air. The view from the summit of the valley below was drop-dead gorgeous and photos cannot do it justice.

After a tour of the mountaintop buildings, we went back down the way we came and waited for another songthaew to return us to the parking lot. At the base we stopped for a quick plate of Pad Sie Ew before continuing our journey.

Steven then drove us on to Chae Son National Park where the locals boil baskets of eggs in the pools of 75.1°C water that is fed by hot springs. I'm not sure if the smell of sulfur in the air emanates more from the springs or from the locals chowing down on their eggs, but the aroma is most definitely pungent!

From the springs we walked up to the six-tier waterfall whose pools are home to hordes of fish swimming happily in the fast moving spring. Steven thoughtfully brought along bags of fish food for us to throw at the marine life, who would literally climb over each other, splashing relentlessly, to get a morsel.

By now it was approaching 4:30 PM and we were all starting to feel the day's travel and exercise. The drive back to Chiang Mai alnog the highway was less scenic, but much more pleasant than the mountainous route we took in the morning. We arrived back in Chiang Mai at about 6:30 and had Steven drop us off at Good Souls restaurant where we each had a very delicious New Year's pizza.

A stop at Tesco on the way home to buy a couple of bottles of beer to ring in 2022 after which we planted ourselves in front of the TV and watched a very bad Thai boy band sing off key as the clock ticked down.

We rang in 2022 standing on our balcony and watching the fireworks in the sky above the Tha Pae gate.

If years were US presidents, I'd say 2020 was Donald Trump and 2021 was George Dubya. Let's hope 2022 is an Obama year.

สวัสดีปีใหม่ (That's "Happy New Year" in Thai)もっと詳しく