By Chloe

With a heavy heart, we left the beautiful beaches and crystal clear seas of Tioman Island, ready to move on to the next leg of our trip! A two-hour ferry ride, six-hour sleeper bus, one-hour taxi ride, two-hour flight later and another 45-minute taxi…. (pheww!) and we were finally in Chang Mai, Northern Thailand.

We’d been told that March/ April is pretty much one of the worst times to visit Northern Thailand because it’s a) just before the wet season and so very dry and hot, b) It’s not as green and lush as it can be in January and February, and c) It can be very hazy as the farmers burn their rice fields ready for re-planting. However, we loved it! The scenery was still stunning, even if it was a little less green than it would have been, and although it was hot, it wasn’t as humid as we were expecting, which was a bonus!

Chiang Mai

We spent the first few days in Chiang Mai getting acclimatized and sorting ourselves out with new helmets, protective gloves and hiring scooters for the first leg of our tour! Chiang Mai is beautiful – we stayed in the old center, which is surrounded by a crumbling, old red earth brick wall and a moat. The small streets inside are filled with cafes and shops that perfectly cater to the laid back and slightly hippy travelers that find their way this far north.

Before we started on our motorbike tour, I just want to say…Thai food is just outstanding! We’re both massive foodies, and Thai food has without a doubt been the tastiest, cheapest, yummiest food we’ve eaten on this trip so far, and the 18 days we spent in Thailand were some of the best (gastronomically) ever!

Chiang Dao
Our first stop on our northern Thailand tour was to the sleepy town of Chiang Dao, in the shadow of a beautiful mountain, filled with amazing caves! We stayed in a beautiful little bamboo hut looking out over the mountain and were serenaded each night with the buzz of cicadas, croak of geckos, and mechanical sawing sounds of mating frogs (noisy bastards!)

We had a guided tour of some of the outstanding Chiang Dao caves – with just a little gas lamp and a petite Thai lady as a guide (who must have been half mountain goat), we were led through nooks and crannies, through tiny holes and across massive caverns filled with bats. It was amazing!

Chiang Dao is also home to the most bizarre temple we have ever come across….the torture temple. The grotesque and distended statues of torture were covered in blood, situated right by a cafe, and were used as a climbing frame for small children – I mean, what else would they be used for!

 

 

We did, however, happen to stumble across an amazing procession and religious celebration whilst at the temple complex. Everyone was wearing their finest, carrying colourful twigs filled with string and fabric, and carrying poles of pots and pans (we think to maybe be blessed, or just for the amazing noise they made).

Fang
We packed up our bikes and off we went to Fang- a few hours drive north of Chiang Dao. Fang has a beautiful national park called the Doi Fah Hom Pok National Park, with the park’s visitor centre surrounded by a natural spring, a geyser, sauna and mineral baths. We spent a beautiful day relaxing in the shade of manicured grounds, chilling out in the mineral baths and sauna, and having a go at boiling some eggs in the hot springs!

We finished off our time in Fang with a visit to an All-You-Can eat BBQ restaurant. Each table was given their own charcoal pit and metal grill, and you could cook your own food and drink as much as you’d like for a staggering £2.70 per person. Perfect!

Chiang Rai
After Fang, we got on our bikes again and made the three hour trip to Chiang Rai for a brief stop-over. It happened to coincide with James’ birthday, so we went all out! ‘All Out’ obviously means that we had to visit a cat cafe for breakfast, the most over the top white Hellscape temple, and then head to the most stunning 4-star hotel nestled in the mountains bordering Myanmar, just in time for dinner!

 

Phu Chaisai Mountain resort and spa was just another world – the view from our bamboo suite was stunning, the infinity pool was beautiful, and the food (ohhh the food)! We massively splurged for dinner as a treat for James’ birthday and blew a day and a half’s budget just on dinner…but what a dinner it was. It has to be one of the best meals either of us had ever eaten in our life! The staff at the hotel were welcoming, helpful and charming. As we’d splurged so much the previous night we decided we should have a packed dinner of cuppa noodles and biscuits for the following dinner (oh how the mighty fall), and the manager, having heard of our plight, sent us down a complimentary chocolate fondant….just because! We would visit here again in a shot; it was beautiful and so chilled.

Phayao
Feeling rested, we set off on a rather over-ambitious five-hour drive down to Phayao. Now, so far, we’ve resisted commenting on Thai driving and roads…but it was tough going. You needed to have all your wits about you, and drivers generally don’t check before pulling out, and people would undertake and overtake on very unsafe stretches of roads. We were incredibly glad that we’d taken our CBT (Compulsory Basic Training) for mopeds before we arrived in Thailand. Otherwise, I’m sure neither of us would have felt up to the challenge of staying upright (and alive) on our bikes whilst exploring Thailand by scooter.

Anyway! It was this five hour drive which convinced us that our road-trip time had come to an end – driving took to much mental energy, and being in constant fear that you’re going to die in a horrible road accident (we came across the aftermath of at least three whilst driving about), convinced us we should cut our road trip short and head back to explore Chiang Mai in more detail.

Phayo was beautiful, situated right by the side of a lake- not many tourists stop off here for longer than to see said lake- and it was a great place to chill our for a day, and explore the lively markets and food stalls at the weekly market.

The following day we got back on our scooters for the final leg and scooted back to Chiang Mai along some stunning mountain roads, with views across the lake and into the jungle-strewn mountains. Our road trip had been an amazing assault on the senses, but it definitely wasn’t a chilled out affair, and now it was time to relax and spend some down time in Chiang Mai before heading off to Cambodia to meet up with Chloe’s parents!

With love, The Backpack Duo x