Adventures in Siam

Since I have a trusty motorbike now I am putting it to good use!

I drove a few hours southwest today to a place called Doi Inthanon. In Thai Doi means "peak", and the peaks of Inthanon are the tallest in all of Thailand. Today the whole peak is protected as a national park and it is amongst one of the most important protected areas in Southeast Asia for many endemic species. Along the high slope cloud forest occurs. The clouds drape the highland forests in cool moisture where rare orchids, mosss, ephiphytes, and ferns thrive. Hundreds of birds, tigers, guar, gibbons, civits, and many other rare and unusual creatures call this place home. A scattering of Hmong and Karen families also live within the park in a few small villages where they retain their traditional land righs.

After a dusty hot journey by motorbike along the highways south it was a relief to finally arrive into small villages, forests, and hills. Surely motorbikes were made for such curvaceous cool green roads! I visited the summit, stopped off at some gorgeous waterfalls like this one, and eventually found some cheap lodging in a Karen village in a little makeshift bamboo hut by the creek. No one spoke a word of English, and me no Thai or Karen, but we figured it out. Eating some noodles before dusk over the rice fields it was a surprise to meet some University students from Chiang Mai come to visit the park for the weekend. Among them was a German PhD student studying biophysics at Chiang Mai University I met and got to know too.

When I retired to bed it was very cold with narry a cloud in the sky. Instead only crisp, bright starshine draped over the hills and shining off the rice fields...