Ghost Emails from the Past

So I went to my blog this morning, checking out the photo to reply to Chong Jin who asked about the women in the class photo (see previous post), and lo and behold! The starhub server finally delivered my email blog from Chiang Dao, Thailand, that I had sent from my Xphone in Dec 04! The virus scanning sure took a bit of time, or it must have taken the slow boat from Phi Phi and got caught in Tsunami or something .... but here are the two posts:

Amazing Doi Chiang Dao

It is not every day that life affords you the chance to climb a mountain and then wander a few km in its belly on the same day. such was today. Ruth and i followed the advice of our host, Stuart, an englishman settled here with his thai wife, and came upon the overgrown Nature Trail of Chiang Dao just a few hundred metres from our resort, the Chiang Dao Nest. we thought it would be a nice country walk; but it turned out to be a rough climb through rocky slopes and bamboo forests, following a disused trail that often just melted into the muddy slippery slopes. after an hour of trudging around, we thought we could be lost. fortunately, the distant sounds of human chatter and dog barks gave us sufficient hope to push on.

We then came upon the famed Chiang Dao caves, an intricate network of caves a total of 140 km winding through the belly of the fountain. it was the largest cave formation I've ever seen. tucked away in a small Thai town, i thought it deserved much greater attention.

After 4 hours of near continuous walking, we made it back to the nest for one of the best western dinner EVER, cooked by Stuart's wife, witcha. she was trained as a chef in England. amazing duck with passion fruit sauce! find out more about stuart and his wife at www.ChiangDao.com

so far, ruth and i had much better luck here than in our first honeymoon in Spain, where the weather was horrid and i fell sick. think we're both enjoying this trip so much more :) It's very bonding.

tomorrow we go visit the Lisu tribes with stuart. It's probably going to be quite a tough trek.

In the shadow of the mountains

Today was yet another excellent day at the Nest. in the morning, we had a hearty breakfast of eggs and toast before heading out to the mountains, to the Lisu village of Beautiful Sky. it was a quiet village when we arrived at 11, most of the folks were out on their farms. they were quite similar to the Hmong villages i visited last year during the Challenge around Sapa.

Our first stop were the caves. lived in by an ascetic monk keen on forest meditation. it wasn't quite as impressive as the Chiang Dao caves we visited yesterday, but they were a whole lot more challenging. There were a home number of chicken doors, so to speak, that we had to crawl through. but it was worth it.

Then it was back to the village for a lunch of chinese sausages. grilled and deep fried. very yummy. we were served cold guava as well, which was refreshing after the greasy main course.

By this time, Ruth had grown a little quieter, usually a sign that she was getting tired. But she cheerfully agreed to press on to see the waterfall. and boy was she rewarded! :) it was a 30 min trudge up a stream in ice cold water in some of the loveliest mountain scenery. the water fall wasn't a big deal, dropping just 20 metres or so. but the whole setting was enchanting.

We also got a lot of time to talk to Stuart who had to stand in because the main guide was with his wife in hospital. a real interesting chap. Fell in love with his wife while holidaying in Thailand.

i wish i can pen down all the thoughts that crossed my mind in the midst of so much beauty but it probably won't mean anything to you until you've seen it yourself. will have to wait till we put the pictures up :)

but it was a beautiful day. Both Ruth and i agreed that it was in some ways the honeymoon we had planned to have back in march.

For more info, can refer to Ruth's blog on this .

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