Memories of Chiang Dao

Chiang Dao, literally translated, means City of the Stars; located some 73km north of Chiang Mai which is usually travelled by local bus or privately hired minibus. This is a place that is missed by most traversing the northern Thailand tourist trail but is a gem in itself for this exact reason. Lonely Planet describes this place as "an easy escape for 30-something travellers looking for mountain scenery and rural ambiance", and whilst the description of what you will find is true and correct I almost took offence to the implication! It seems that unless you have hit the ripe old age of 30-something, the only portion of Thailand that you will enjoy involves excessive drinking and full moon parties on the beach. Don't get me wrong, excessive drinking is still a part of our lives - and a full moon party sounds like fun, but apparently we are not the one dimensional 20-something travellers that Lonely Planet assumes we are. 

Our journey to Chiang Dao began on a Saturday afternoon - we had the best of intentions for an early start, but sleep took precedence! We arrived at the Chang Phuak Bus Station, to the north of Chiang Mai, and boarded a bus almost straight away. Within 15 minutes we were on our way for the bargain basement price of 40 baht each. The local bus system was not air conditioned, instead there were a series of fans mounted on the bus roof; together with open windows, it was a comfortable trip. The buses in Thailand are clearly made for Thai people with Dave not being able to stand up straight without hitting the roof. There are no bus stops in this region, instead the bus pulled over to pick up any person who hailed it from the side of the road. Each stop was for no more than 5 seconds for the waiting passenger to climb on board through the already open rear door before we were off again.

Our journey took us through the northern suburbs of Chiang Mai before the townships thinned out and we started to see fields and even rice paddies. Soon enough we started climbing and the scenery become remarkably better, the bus groaned to make it up the winding hills but there was plenty of time to take in the scenery surrounding us. Though once those hills were upon us, the handles on the back of each chair became a very handy tool to stay in your seat while the bus took on the winding mountain roads. We left Chiang Mai under the impression that Chiang Dao town was only 17km away and we spent some time wondering whether we had missed our stop. With heads craning to find a road sign in English, we discovered that we were still on the right track (and still 35k's from our destination). Eventually we arrived in the township of Chiang Dao - and it turns out that the ticket collector on board the bus knew where we were going, because he let us know that this was our stop - with a total travel time of just over an hour from Chiang Mai. 

We disembarked the bus outside the central 7-11 in town and turned to face what was left of a building that was still smouldering from a recent fire. The only remains were a couple of walls and piles of ash. We were not the only one's staring though, the locals were all standing around too - having a good look. There were no ropes, no fire brigade, just a smoking pile of ash for everyone to see. We moved on - heading north - knowing that we were no where near our destination as yet. The township of Chiang Dao is just that, one main road with a bunch of connecting side streets and there is not much of anything to see. Where we were headed was the caves...

After a typical lunch of chicken, vegetables and rice, washed down by a refreshing Leo beer in a local restaurant, we continued our search - now fed, energized and ready for adventure. We had no map to go by, only the memory of the one small map of the area I had found on a birdwatching site in my couple of hours of research. We walked a little further and came across a sign written in a combination of Thai and English that pointed us West towards Chiang Dao Cave. The first 2k's of our walk showcased rural Thai people at their finest, sitting on front porches just doing their thing, almost like cats lazing in the afternoon sun. We passed an older man mending a fishing net on his front porch, Dave gave 'wai' (bowed head with two hands meeting) to which he smiled and returned the kindness, many of the locals appeared surprised to see us walking down the road, which gave the feeling that they don't see a great deal of Westerners in the area, but the initial surprise faded to interest and always, a smile followed.  We passed a banana plantation and a couple of empty paddocks in the area but it was mainly housing. There are no defined areas in a place like this, hovels can be on one side of the road with a near-mansion directly opposite, shop fronts are also common as a part of people's homes. It breaks the suburban imagery that Australia has impressed upon us - shops are shops and houses are houses, but here it is all combined. Eventually, the housing gave out to misty paddocks and forest scenery and we knew we were getting close. An old Thai man tooted his horn and stopped to offer us a ride to the caves in the tray of his rusting old ute, which we gladly accepted. We spent the next 5 minutes rolling through forested area which opened up to another village before we arrived at Wat Chiang Dao (Chiang Dao Temple). All the scenic areas of interest in Thailand seem to have temples built around them and the Chiang Dao Caves were no different. 

Temple grounds at the cave entrance

The temple grounds were immaculately kept, as all sacred grounds are, with a combination of natural and man made beauty abound. Temple buildings, statues representing the animals of the Buddhist 12 year cycle, ponds and streams all built into the side of a mountain which was surrounded by lush vegetation, all created in the image of Nirvana. Upon entry to the cave a donation of 40baht is required for electricity costs but otherwise it is 'technically' free, once inside the cave system we were met by a group of guides who are women from the local village. You are able to explore the electrically lit cave by yourself, but the system is huge and there are no paths or lighting through most of them. There were a number of signs warning people not to enter the unlit caves alone so we hired one of the local guides with a kerosine lantern to show us around.

Dave meditating under a waterfall

The picture frame

The cave itself was dark and damp, but cool - a relief from the stuffy Thailand weather, but there was not much time to revel in this as we approached small crawl through's in the rock barely big enough to get through with a backpack. These opened into large caverns (maybe the size of a basketball court) which were filled with sleeping bats. Some areas housed larger bats while others offered colony's of smaller bats, and of course, the ground were were crawling around on was covered in guano - bat shit. The beauty of having a guide through the cave was that she was able to point out the stalactite formations which had been named or identified as looking like something, we saw waterfalls, small elephants, large elephants, picture frames, banyan trees and even a giant rooster. Some of these are decorated with offerings from Thai people such as flower garlands and colourful ribbons, they do this for luck (or merit as the Buddhist religion calls it). 

As in many caves in Thailand, there are underground temples or places of worship. As we approached a place of worship deep inside the cave we were warned to be careful on the slippery surface, only later to be told that the drop into the hole we were moving past was at least 20-30m deep! It is only when circumstances like this occur, that you realise how unconcerned the Thai's can be with safety. No railing, no warning signs (not that you could see them anyway), just a flippant comment to be careful and not slip. Talking about this later, we discussed the fact that travellers ultimately have a responsibility for their own safety. This is not like a Western country, where your safety is taken care of for you, here you are expected to take care of yourself - the liability is all on you. Even with a guide and a lamp, we were still grateful for Dave's torch to help us navigate uneven and slippery ground. 

The sleeping Buddha with his sunglasses

We returned to the main cavern via a different cave known as Tham Naam (the water cave), for about 4 months of the year, this cave is home to an underground river and you could tell by the sandy floor. Our guide pointed out the water markings along the wall which told us that after heavy rains in the area, we would have water over our heads just standing where we were. We continued on down a set of steep carved stairs (no hand rail) to the central cavern before heading for the main, electrically lit cave where the Sleeping Buddha lies, carved into the rock by the hermit who is rumoured to have lived in the cave long ago. The Buddha had offerings too, the usual floral garlands and ribbons, and even a pair of sunglasses! 

100 year old Burmese Buddhist Temple

Returning back to the temple grounds and daylight we went in search of our next adventure, I was keen to find a waterfall but after reading a map in the temple grounds and finding the location of the closest waterfall we gave up on the idea and settled for a drink in the village beside the temple. On our way, we came across another temple which was over 100 years old standing on a hill, apparently built by the Thai Yai people (from Myanmar). It was 4:30pm by this stage and we decided that staying the night in one of the nearby guesthouses would be better than making our way back to Chiang Mai, so we went in search of accommodation and found Mallee's.

Mallee is a Thai woman who was crowned Thailand's beauty queen for 3 years running, now she is married to a German man and runs a small group of guesthouses in her home town. The bungalow was basic, but they had a restaurant and a shower which was greatly appreciated by that point. With the night came a storm, loud and directly overhead with the second lot of rain we have seen in our 6 weeks in Thailand. It was peaceful being in a place where the only sounds were rain on the roof, thunder and just pure nature. 

On Sunday we woke to clear air - the kind that you only get after a good rain and we were on our way again. I had read of a nature trail and a temple tucked away in the forest near by so we set off down a small forest road in search of our day's adventures. Within 500m, we came across the starting point for the nature trail - which is popular with birdwatchers and hikers that visit the area. We started following the trail but realised that hiking down steep, muddy trails after so much rain might not be the safest idea - and then there was the issue of aching legs from our foray into caving the day before. We abandoned the idea until our next visit. Instead we walked further on to Wat Tham Pha Plong where we were greeted with the sight of a monk walking his dogs of which there were 4, one of which he was wheeling in a cart because it looked too old to walk. Dogs are common in Chiang Dao, they are everywhere, but the dogs from the temples or guesthouses are among the only ones which appear to be cared for. The temple grounds were immaculate, from the small temple in the car park to the chedi atop 500 stairs with spectacular views of the Chiang Dao Valley. The climb to reach the chedi was not easy, though we have conquered much harder climbs as well, there were inspiring Buddhist plaques along the way and every now and then there would be a break in the limestone walls to reveal the magnificent views both across the valley and of the chedi on top of it. The monks living quarters are located halfway to the top - but we stayed away, it seemed pretty quiet. The views were amazing once we had reached the top and with the recent rain clearing some of the haze we were left with mountainous mist and clean crisp air to admire our surroundings. 

The view from the stairs of the forest temple

Following our descent to the main gate, we decided it was time to go home and we began our 6km walk back to the central town of Chiang Dao. The temperature rose as we descended back into town and we had definitely worked up a sweat by the time we set foot back in central Chiang Dao. We stopped for some lunch before heading back to the main road to wait for the next bus. We were unsure if there were any set stops for the bus back to Chiang Mai so we waited patiently on the side of the road, hoping we could flag the next bus down. It turns out that 2 westerners sitting on the side of the road in Chiang Dao attracts a little bit of attention, so when the bus was heading towards us about 15 minutes later a local guy flagged it down for us - just in case. We boarded the bus which was pretty full and each managed to snag a third of a seat in different locations. What surprised us was that the bus was not considered to be full yet, after picking us up it continued to make a number of stops to pick up more people. We passed through a check point about 10km out of Chiang Dao and the bus was boarded by a Thai official who checked the papers of every Thai-looking person on the bus (which was everyone except for Dave and I), to us he smiled and said sawatdii-krup. I guess the possibility of us being illegal immigrants from Burma was pretty unlikely. 

An hour later we were back in Chiang Mai, exhausted and heading for home.