do random tots still exist?

only in the pristine silence of the night does my tots come clean...

im tired of reaching within myself to find strength. time to reach out.

it dawned on me that my extended absence from home is making me lose touch with my friends.

my world revolves around my cells. i have enough expts on my to-do list for two grad students.

time to regroup. make mouse, green colonies, write review.

push forth, and blossom.

Honeymoon part 4 - the enjoyments of life... =D

Enough of the rough-it-out adventures... it was time for the darlings to pamper ourselves! At Pai, we decided to find a nice lodge to stay and have a good time chilling out. 7km from the city center, there was a place which had personal hot tubs for the guests as they channeled the thermal hot spring water directly into each of the huts. oooohhh... that sounds GREAT!

but 7km away... the solution: scooter rental! this time though, we each had our backpacks... so we decided to each rent one scooter. no more pillion rider for me this time... but time for some vrooommm-vroooommm!!!! (i did try a little the last time, but just the few hundred meter play-play kind... haha)

daring with his green bike (matches his bag eh?)

and my adorable pink bike!!! so coincidental that we were given a pink one! haha. it would be funny if a guy rents, and realizes that he got a pink bike. LOL.

Our night's stay was at Spa Exotic Home. this was really a nice rustic place... the paths leading to our little bungalows, and a stream running down alongside... ah, so peaceful, so relaxing...

our home for the night. =D

ta-da! the pretty room inside...

and the highlight of all.. the tub for the hot sulfur thermal water! soak-time!!

and time for some nice restaurant food too! (the food at cave lodge was pretty gd, decent too! but just nice to be back into the city, having dinner with more class? heh)

thai pineapple fried rice, tom yum and some stirfried pork

WOAH! guess what??!!!? our 4 good buddies had told us that they were heading to Pai too, and we were just saying back then at Cave Lodge that we may get the chance to meet up again in Pai! Pai is a small place... and we were walking down the street when we caught sight of them at a restaurant! after chilling out at the bar, we crashed over at their hotel and started playing bridge.

what i din mention previously was that we started teaching the 4 of them how to play bridge back in Cave Lodge, and they had gotten addicted to it! and so since then, when they had the chance to sit down and play (like during our meals at cave lodge) it would be 'bridge time'!!! haha

it ended up that we played till 3am... lol. and we finally parted goodbye and took our scooters back to our hotel. that was almost certainly our final goodbye - we were going back to chiangmai the next day, while they had made plans to go kayaking in Pai itself... a little sadness when we parted, but truly real great frens they were, and maybe we'll see one another sometime in the future!!

lonely planet mentioned a night market that is famous for its wide variety of fresh seafood... a tourist trap in a way, but definitely good food!!! nearing the end of our trip, a big meal certainly sounded like a plan!

a simple padthai to start... the good stuff is coming!!!

oooh... black pepper crab!! too bad this was kinda disappointing, cos the crab meat kept on getting stuck to the side of the shell...

now THIS was the amazing one for the dinner... costs a massive 3/4 of our total dinner bill. *gasp* we din realize that is woud be SO expensive initially. but oh well, a splurge here and there doesn't matter, esp for some gd lobster!!!

cant wait to dive into our curry baked lobster!

so good, my darling's lickin' his fingers clean... =)

our last 2 night's stay at Thapae Boutique Hotel- budget, but definitely classy and modern boutique hotel! great value =)

simple but well-chosen designs/furnishing, makes the entire room have a great feel to it. =) i fondly remember the little pillows (the little green on next to fm) stuffed with green tea leaves... hmm, so fragrant!

our last day in chiangmai, we arranged to go on a day trip to the elephant nature park. it's listed as a no 2 highlight in thailand to visit, so we were interested to see what this place had to offer. instead of the usual elephant trekking and riding that many places offer, this is a conservation park, where visitors only feed, bathe and watch the elephant and there was no riding activities.

fm offering the elephant food - pumpkin, bananas or melons, and the elephant reaches out with its trunk, wraps around the food and shoves it into its mouth. the elephants are pretty picky about their food though, definitely showing preferences for some rather than others. Bananas were always welcomed, but pumpkins and melons were sometimes dropped from the trunk deliberately, before picking the pieces again after the feeding basket is empty and they decide that they should probably rummage the stuff on the ground... haha.

me bathing the elephant...

the park also has their own babies - 2 of them in fact, a 2 month old boy (in picture) and a 4 month old girl... awww... babies are always sooo cute!

all in all, the elephant nature park was... well, so-so. there was nothing much to do throughout the whole day actually, with a lot of down time and chilling out. especially considering that we paid quite a hefty sum for the day tour. it's marketed as working for a great cause for these abused elephants... so hopefully the money is put into good use, and really benefitting these animals as promised. =)

came back from the nature park, and spent the night roaming around... chilling out...

view of Singapore as our plane descended down to Changi Airport...

as with any amazing enjoyable vacation with darling, there was definitely longing for the trip to never ever end... but it was time to go home. the 9 days simply passed sooo fast it was unbelievable. nevertheless, it was a super fun honeymoon trip in northern Thailand!

Thailand Honeymoon part 3 - cool, new experiences in the villages and towns

from the city of chiangmai, we took an overnight bus to the village of mae hong son. This is a little place that is great to relax and explore, away from the city buzz.

we arrived in the wee hours of the day, and after walking around the deserted streets aimlessly checking out some of the accommodation, we settled on this new and pretty guest house called the residence. "a cheery bright yellow building" as lonely planet described, this place is run by a couple, pretty friendly and speaks english. the room was very well furnished, simple but classy, just like a boutique hotel.
dropped by the morning market to check it out, and darling caught sight of youtiao (fried chinese dough) and soymilk. of cos he wouldnt give them a miss! (that's him muching happily on his youtiao breakfast)

there was also a store selling nonya-like kuehs, these sticky rice cakes made with different flavors.

mae hong son itself is really really small and there's nothing much to do. the little attractions to go are several miles away and the only way to commute is via motorbikes! of cos, the darlings always welcome new exciting adventures, and so we rented our 2-wheeler and off we went! (it's actually not a motorbike, it's a scooter.) so fm loves this story: at the rental place, this teenage girl came to show us how to operate the scooter. "so kick up the foot stand, press the brakes, then press this button to start engine, ok? both sides handles, press to brake. turn here (the right handlebar) to go. ok? ok. that's it." she went thru as she demonstrated, and then 'class' was over. haha.

but yeah, riding a automatic scooter is super easy. hubby of cos got the hang of it fast, and we were chuggin along the empty roads to start our exploration! there was one car/van/motorbike which would pass us once in a while (cos we were travelling sloooowwwly. lol) or came in the opposite direction. but other than that, the roads were clear.

here's me enjoying the ride behind my dear driver for the day. and snapping away pics and videos =D

in mae hong son there are many many rice padi fields, agriculture being one of thailand's major industries. loved watching as we chugged passed the pretty green padi fields.. we chose one to stop by, so darling could actually appreciate them more than a glimpse, as he tried to concentrate on keeping the scooter on the roads. =P

up close and personal with the rice padi!

our little automatic scooter did us proud by conquering all the huge upslopes, crawling but certainly inching its way up north. we were aiming for the villages up at the thailand-myanmar border. back in the days during the ___________, chinese people fled to taiwan to refuge and some fled over to thailand as well. thus, one can find a small community of chinese-speaking villages.

lunchtime at the village! after a few days of foreign thai written and spoken all around us, we never thought that we would speak chinese in thailand! we walked into a random restaurant - order stirfried homegrown veggies (some leeks or shoots), black chicken herbal soup 炖黑鸡汤, braised pork shoulder (which was HUGE!), and it came with 2 steamed buns 馒头 too! =)=) haha... yummy lunch.

the ride back down south was WAY much easier on our poor little scooter. haha. it was downhill all the way and we hardly used up much of the gas!

a scenic spot along the way - magnificent waterfall. just too bad that we couldn't go down much closer to it cos the area was cordened off. =(

have been waiting for this for the whole day!! MUD SPA! =D mae hong son is apparently the only place that has offers mud spa, and so after a long day of scootering around, this was the last place we headed to for some pampering. first we were painted with the volcanic mud goo and went to a platform to get ourselves dried in the sun. while waiting, the darlings of cos never fail to entertain ourselves by taking all sorts of puppety silly shots. =P and then later on, we got some tamarind scrub and orange facial, ending with a hot thermal water swimming pool soak... woot~!

next morning: before leaving mae hong son and heading to our next stop, we took another short ride down south this time to some hot springs. when we were there, the hot springs turned out to be a set of rectangular swimming pools and there was a ton of construction going around, presumably to upgrade the facility for capturing future tourists.

instead, fm was drawn to the padi fields next door. there was a man at the edge of the padi fields, climbing into the flooded fields, taking some things out of the fields and smashing them with a shovel. We were curious and went over to find out what he was doing. With our 'expert' sign language =P, we managed to get a little conversation going, heh. and he showed us that he was picking out the snails amongst the rice plants and killing them with his shovel. he generously let us wander around on the little mud banks aroudn the fields as he continue diligently with his work.

then we got more daring, and asked if he minded us going into the mud too and helping him for a bit. i guess two little kids wouldnt do much harm rite.. and he grinned and urged us to go try. i would collect our snails till a double-hand full, and went to him with the entire bunch, where he would gladly smash them on the ground. he certainly found some free labor for some good half hour's work!

the (super) hot springs were finally given a short visit as we washed off our muddy hands and feet there. lol. and it was byebye to the springs, our gracious farmer friend and mae hong son...

so the next stop we had decided to go was Pai, this tiny place where one could go enjoy the hot springs, do some caving, chill out at the pubs. so we got onto the bus to head to Pai. Along the way, the bus stopped at this small village town for the regular passenger pick-up/off-load and toilet stop. We noticed the sides of the road littered with many signs for guest houses/hostels/lodges etc. Curious, we looked up our good old lonely planet and realized we were in Suppong. AND... there was a big gray box that screamed right to us: Best place for caving and exploration of the limestone caves.

!!!!!! if we were going somewhere farther for ok caving, why not stop here and do amazing caving?? but were we ready to step into the unknown and simply drop off the bus? deliberation time was actually not too long... did you already guess that we DID IT? yes, we told the confused bus driver that we wanted to stop right there. (he tried so hard to convince us we were not at Pai... =P) so the bus drove off, leaving us and our backpacks behind...

we asked around to find out how we could get to this "Cave Lodge" in Tham Lot village, which was the center where all the outdoorsy activities were organized from. A lady selling fruits at the roadside stand then emptied the back of her pickup truck of fruits, and drove us up (7-9km away) to Cave Lodge, through narrow mud tracks and the heavy drizzle for 300 baht. well, not too bad, we managed to get to our destination!

we were greeted by friendly faces who asked us to first put down our stuff around the common place (there were a small crowd of pple sitting around) and asked us to order our dinner first, before we settle the rest of the stuff. already, we got the first sense of Cave Lodge being quite like a mini self-sufficient activity center. there were hand written board plastered all over the place, including the food/drink menu. and there were photos/notes/everything tacked/pasted on the walls of the 'reception' place. a lot of them were about john, the guy who discovered the caves and set up the cave lodge itself, his adventures and experiences.

the kitchen/reception area:

dinner was ordered, and we wandered around to look at the posters around, some were describing the bird sightings in the area, the one-day trips available to the long-neck tribe villages, the caves, etc. There were several treks/cavings options available, and water rafting trips too.

The common area. note the sides filled with various posters... there was also a ping pong table (bottom left side of picture)

there was also a wooden swing for little girls like me to play! ^_^

Chatting up with some of the other guests, we learnt that one group just did the full day trek+caving and loved it. They definitely highly recommended that we take up one of those trips.

We then chose our room, decided on the smaller cheaper one since we weren picky abt it. just a few steps from the common place, this little hut was our home for the next 2 nights.

me and our bed, comes complete with a mosquito net, nice!

That night, we found out that another group of people had just arrived that evening too, and were planning to take the trek/caving trip too. so we discussed about it and agreed to form a group together. They were a bunch of 4 Lithuanians, 3 medical students and a lawyer, taking a one month summer vacation here in thailand (so long!!! jealous!!) easy-going , fun loving people, similar age as us, and we quickly got along well!

so the next morning, we met for breakfast, and were off on our expedition!

hubby all pumped, ready to go!

with our new-found friends and the guide (fm was taking the pic)

it was off to a cool start, we walked through plantations growing sesame and corn... and as we trekked along, the guide would (via sign language) point out interesting things to us, like ginger plants, pine and teak trees that are often used for furniture (the wood smells amazing!)

dwarfed amongst the tall corn plants...

REAL corn!

yes! we reached our first cave! burrowed down from a tiny little entrance which then opened up into a big cavern. there were broken parts of wooden coffins lying around in the caves. in the past, the tribal people would bring their dead to the caves, just like they did in China.

darling with our 4 Lithuanian frens... all geared up with the helmet and headlamps. (it was actually dark inside the caves, the flash doesn't do much justice to the actual atmosphere in the caves. the helmets were very important to save our heads from all the big crashes into the cave sides/roof, and of cos, the headlamps were crucial to shining the path ahead!)

out from first cave, and trekking along to the 2nd cave... and this was the sad state our shoes were already in... bleahz. =P

O-M-G... we were certainly NOT told that we were gonna immerse in water...... down went the shoes, first muddy, now wet!!!!

us definitely having fun, the shoes were, well, not so happy... too bad. ^_^

trudging through the cave, waddling in water...

the explorers in action!

definitely a true caving experience this was... no signs of touristification like boardwalk/planks, spotlights etc! it was uneven rocks/boulders, low ceilings at times, running water... we were grabbing on to the rocks and boulders for balance and support, and even at times went down to all fours!

this was the 4th and last cave, the christmas cave cos it's festive white!! pretty stalactites!

wandering through the caves, enjoying the view...

at the end of all this... oh boy were we muddy, muddy, muddy..... =P

EXTREMELY fun n exciting trip. so thankful that we made that quick and decisive move to drop off that bus at Suppong to make it to this!

(we also went on the kayaking trip the next day, and it was pretty fun too! too bad we were kayaking, so no pictures... =( darling and i shared a double, and we were with another 2 guys on the trip. kayaking down a number of rapids. some were actually quite fierce and tough... and we also kayaked thru a cave... =D)

so that's it for Tham Lot and Cave Lodge adventures! next up, finally... on towards our initial destination 2 days ago... Pai!