This also happens to be Thai New Year...what do Thai people do at New Year when it's really hot? Why they throw large buckets of dirty river water at people while they are driving down the highway of course! What else?
The Songkran Water Festival has been in full swing these past few days! We couldn't have picked a better week to be on a motorcycle..
on a highway...
with all of our essentials exposed to the open air....
It did feel kind of good to get wet in the heat though!!
Day 1:
First stop was to Doi Inthanon National Park where we got to see 3 different spectacular waterfalls and spent the night in a tent where a kind ranger gave us a trash bag for our rented pillow and sleeping bag (because you can rent a tent and gear here for $9!)...we were hoping for a secret "don't bucket us with dirty water" word...but the bag was handed over to us instead, with a look of..."oh you silly tourists, what were you thinking!!!!"
Day 2:
From the National Park, we spent the morning wandering about a serene royal garden and an isolated waterfall and then enjoying a day motorcycling thru mountains bathing in a serene and quiet waterfall called Mae Pan Falls, which we discovered after a 40 minute hike thru the forest! AMAZING!
Back on the road we passed many little villages, deserted sandy fields and plenty of mountains with cows, snakes (we almost ran over one in the dark) and people with water buckets in the road, finding our way in the dark to a small village and an open guest house! Whew! The temperature changed drastically with every mountain climb and the views were incredible!
Day 3: Day of assholes and beautiful mountains
We spent all of yesterday biking thru mountains, towns (including Mae Hong Son and Pai), and getting lots more water thrown at us.
One lovely gentleman with a very large bucket almost got ran over by us, jumping in front of us on the highway...but he got scared by me screaming my head off....which was good!
"SLOW DOWN! OH MY GOD! WHAT THE $%^ ARE YOU DOING! AHHH!!!!!!!"
(I think I stunned him into getting out of the way.)
Another lovely gentleman threw a large bucket on our heads from the back of a truck as we were swerving down the side of a cliff....a lot of people die this week (a few hundred have gotten hurt according to the Bangkok Post)...but we didn't...and that's good...and drove on.
We're extremely glad we did it! Loads of fun getting to see all the beautiful mountains, trees, waterfalls galore, and getting very, very wet.
It's been a great past few weeks in the North of Thailand! Here are some pics of Lampang, our elephant adventures, Chiang Mai, and our great motorcycle trek thru the north!
Click here for pictures!!!
1 comment:
Well, I am sure that getting dirty water splashed on you was not fun, but that is a memory to last a lifetime! Happy belated New Year!
Post a Comment