(I was in cleaning up the blog in preparation for the next trip when I found this entry that never got posted, so here it is, better late than never)

Well the time has come for the vacation to end and it is back to Seattle for what we are told has been a very poor summer so far, but I am getting ahead of the story……

Our plan for the last part of the trip was to spend time at the beach and mostly just ‘hang out’ and relax, and we have been doing our best to keep our part of that plan on track.  The weather in Kata has been very co-operative so we have spent most of our last days doing just leisure activities: sleeping in, reading by the pool, hanging out at the beach – well you get the picture.

Our last big adventure here was to go on a tour in Phang Nga Bay.  Phuket hangs down a bit form the mainland and it’s east coast forms a large bay between Phuket and Krabi that contains 100s of small islands and karst outcroppings.  Mrs Columbus and I did a boat tour of the bay last year when we were here and it was one of our favorite tours so I thought that Brooklyn and Russ would really enjoy it also.

We picked a different tour package from the one I did last year and instead of going out only on the bay the tour we selected went up into Phang Nga province by car with a couple of stops at some rather large caves that have eroded themselves in the limestone hills and then out onto the water to see the famous ‘James Bond Island’.

Our first cave stop is at Wat Suwan Kuha – the cave is part of a temple that is sometimes called the Monkey Temple because of the 100s of monkeys running around the grounds.  You can buy some fruit from the vendors, but once you do that you are going to have a lot of new friends until some other tourist comes around with more fruit.  The temple itself is inside what turns out to be a huge cave with several Buddha statues and a number of vast caverns.

After a brief lunch stop we head off to our 2nd cave on the tour.  Phung Chang Cave (Tham Phung Chung), is one of the highlights in the tour brochure and luckily the reality matches the sales pitch.  There is a large foothill that basically blocks off a deep valley and the cave runs through the center of the foothill.  A creek runs through the valley and millions of years of erosion has channeled the creek through the foothill creating the cave.  The water running through the cave  means that our exploration is a little different than the other caves we have been to.  For the first several hundred feet we get into a sea kayak and a Thai guide paddles us in, then the cave narrows so we transfer to a bamboo raft and gudes then walk through shoulder high water pushing us on the raft for a few hundred more feet before we finally get off the raft and then wade our way deeper into the cave.  The locals are trying to keep the cave as natural as possible so there is no external lighting inside the cave, our only source of lighting is LED headlamps that we are all wearing.  Our exploration takes us about 1km (about 0.6miles) into the heart of the foothill and the channel through the cave becomes to difficult for tourists to go much deeper.  Our guide has us turn all off our headlamps and we get a feel for true 100% darkness and we spend a couple of minutes just appreciating the solitude and the gurgle of the water running through the cave.  Then it is time to move on so all the lamps get turned back on and we turn around and make the whole trek in reverse back to the entrance.

From there it is off to the pier in Phang Nga town to get onto a boat for the trip out to Ko Panyi and Koh Tapu (James Bond Island).  As expected the sights in the bay are sensational and I am quickly reminded why this is one of my favorite tours in southern Thailand.

My last trip to Ko Panyi was part of an all day boat trip of the bay and we stopped there for lunch at one of the huge floating restaurants that cater to the day trip crowds.  Unfortunately during that trip we did not have much time to look around after lunch, so we only got to see a small part of the ‘Sea Gypsy Village’.  This time however we are here with plenty of time to look around and it turns out the place is an interesting maze of homes, shops, schools and even a floating soccer field!

After about an hour of looking around and a bit of shopping for Brooklyn and Russ, it is off to James Bond Island.  The little island is busier than the last time I was here, but we have a bit of time to look around and get the standard tourist photos of the island.

Back to our hotel in Kata and we have time for dinner, a massage, and a last walk on the beach.  We have to pack up in the morning and start our journey back home.  It has been a great vacation and a bunch of new memories have been added.  It was fun to travel with the ‘young adults’ and hopefully they will have many more great adventure like this in their future.

Until next year (I hope)……

After a few days at Karon Beach we packed up our stuff to move down the coast a little to our last stop on this trip – Kata Beach.  We were hoping for a weather change from the rain and overcast skies we were seeing our first few days in the south and along with our move we got a nice change in the weather.

The day we moved the skies were still a little cloudy, but they did not turn into they heavy dark rain clouds we had been seeing, and we enjoyed a nice light day getting settled in, walked down to see the beach, and hung out by the pool.

Now into our first full day here and today and the next few days are forecast to be clear and sunny – 0% chance of rain!!  We decided this would be a beach day, so after lazing about a bit in the morning we wandered down to claim a small section of the sands.

Russ decided that he would like to try surfing, so he found a place that rented boards and gave lessons so he signed up to tackle some waves.  Brooklyn and I took turns guarding our turf and watching Russ take to the waves.

We spent the full day at the beach so by the time we got the salt and sand all washed away and went out for dinner everyone seems ready for bed.

PS: I may not post a lot of photos from here as it seems that their internet connection must be based on 2 tin cans and a length of string…… 🙁

Traveling during the rainy season in the tropics is always a bit of a cat and mouse game.  It never seems to get really socked in and rain for days on end like you see in the movies, but there is certainly a good chance that it might rain every other day or so.  Typically the sky will start to cloud over and then with not a lot of notice the sky will just open up and rain heavily for about an hour or so and then you can carry on with your day.

After spending many weeks in Thailand over he last few years during the rainy season we have been fortunate enough to never really have our any of our plans impacted by the rain.  The rains have come overnight, or we have been able to do something else like stop for lunch while an afternoon storm passed.  It now seems that statistics have caught up with us, and since our move from Chiang Mai in the north to Phuket in the south we have encountered some sour weather for a couple of days.

The sun is out in the morning, but my younger travel companions seem to have a little sluggishness in the morning so they are rarely up to see it, but I did manage to get a couple of hours by the pool yesterday as can be witnessed by the change in my skin tone.  My brother once mentioned during one of his vacations that people in our bloodline seem to only come in 2 shades – pasty white, and red – I can verify the accuracy of his claim as I have traded in my pasty white for a much more Canadian reddish tone.

Because the rains have come a couple times per day it has been hard to commit to much in the way of tours or anything, so we have mostly been hanging out at the hotel – going for a quick swim or catching up with the rest of what is going on in the world via the magic of the internet!

The weather is supposed to change on the weekend so hopefully we have paid our dues to the rain overlords and we can get some beach time in.

Got all our shopping done (for me this amounted to very little, but the others did a diligent job of stimulating the local economy), had some nice slow days, and of course a lot of massages and now our time in Chiang Mai is drawing to a close.  Our flights out of here leave at around 10pm so we have a full day left for one last adventure.

Our new friends Tee and Captain Bob at Ginny Place/Ginny Cafe have told us about an adventure that is not on the obvious tourist list.  Mrs Columbus and I have done most of the typical tours here, so something ‘off the menu’ sounds like a lot of fun.  It seems that the mountain outside of the city (Doi Suthep) is riddled with ‘roads’ that are used mostly by the hill tribe people for farming.  Tee hooks us up with her friend Neing who has a Jeep and knows a bunch of these off road tracks so that we can go out for a day on the mountain and a new adventure.  This kind of trip is not in any of the travel books, or brochures so I am hoping to see a lot of things most people don’t see, and to have a great experience.

Our day starts off with a big shuffle – we have to check out of our hotel, and our friends at Ginny’s have graciously offered to let us store our bags there while we are out on the mountain, so Neing picks us up at 9:30 and we truck all our stuff over for storage, and then it is off to the great beyond.

Russ has wanted to Zorb since the last time he was with us in Thailand so our first stop is at the X-Center about 30 mins outside of Chiang Mai where they have all sorts of extreme sports – Zorbing included.  Zorbing was something that started in New Zealand and consists of one or more people strapped inside of what is basically like a giant beach ball, the ball rolls down a hill and the occupants tumble their way down, often ending in a pond of water.  Brooklyn steps up to the challenge and her and Russ decide to go together while Mrs Columbus and I document the process for posterity.

The Zorb ball is at least 8 feet or more in diameter and after getting all strapped in, they push you down a ramp to get you started and gravity does the rest.  The Zorb run here ends in a small pond and then the occupants are supposed to unstrap themselves and walk inside like hamsters to get the ball to return to the shore where you get out – well from the outsiders perspective this is the most entertaining part of the ride because the ‘hamsters’ inside this ball are not all that co-ordinated, but after a little flailing around and almost falling out into the lake a couple of times they manage to get back to the shore.

From the X-Center we move on to begin our off-road adventure.  We don’t really have a fixed route other than we need to be back for dinner and to catch our flights so we tell Neing that we are all his, and to just make it up as we go along.  We drive up into the Mae Rim valley and past a small village where we can see some crops and agricultural projects on the hills alongside the road, and this is where our adventure really begins.

We turn off the main highway to head up to one of the many Hmong villages in the area.  The Hmong are originally refuges mostly form Burma or Laos and have been ‘residents’ inside Thailand for a few generations.  More recently the families have been able to get status in Thailand (basically a Thai ID card) but this has not always been the case.  As I understand it, any land that is on a slope of 30 degrees or more is owned by the government but that the hilltribe people are allowed to build their villages and farms there, but not own the land.

As we leave the main road and start off into these side valleys it is amazing to see what they are growing on these steep slopes, and even more amazed to realize that all the work is done by hand – even the clearing and tilling of the soil!

We have gone a little way off the highway and while the road is a fairly twisty, it does not seem all that off-road to us, and when we mention something to that effect Neing laughs and tells us that we will be off-road soon.  We go a few more kilometers down the road and sure enough the pavement ends abruptly and the road quickly turns into a dirt track.

We are up on the side of the mountain and the ‘road’ drops off fairly steeply on one side and is hillside on the other and we are basically just following a trail that winds along the side of the mountain.  Clearly the rains find the road as a good path to follow as well because there are deep ruts and places where the run-off drains through that would make this quite challenging for Mrs Columbus to get her mini-van through.  We bounce and jostle our way through the jungle and Neing laughs and tells us this is like an elephant ride (which is also not very smooth going) and we decide that his Jeep is like a red elephant, but as long as the 4 ‘feet’ are on the ground we are ok.

Remarkably the hilltribes use this as their regular road system and as we are going along we see a regular pick-up truck loaded full with fresh lettuce, and are more than a little shocked to see people on motor scooters making their way along these roads over terrain that I would not even think about taking any sort of non 4wd over.  I guess however they are ‘paved’ in places so maybe I am just too spoiled by our roads 😉

There are some fantastic vistas looking out over the valleys and the city and we stop a few places along the track just to take in the view and the fresh mountain air. We absolutely feel privileged  to be able to take this all in even if the bouncing from rut to rut in the Jeep is a little bone-jarring at times.  For me this is a great time though as it reminds me of the off-roading that we used to do in high school with whoever was lucky enough to have a 4 wheel drive.

Along the way we stop at a few Hmong villages and at one spot we get to walk through a primary school that has been sponsored by the King of Thailand (the hilltribe schools are not part of the regular Thai school system).  We check out a few classrooms and see some of the children playing, but they are a little shy around us until Neing convinces a few of them to interact with us.  They are able to talk to us a little in english and ask us where we are from – after telling them that we are Canadians a few of them run off to the map to see where that is and they quickly pick it off the map without any prompting – very impressive.

The hilltribe in this village grows coffee (among other things) on the side of the mountain, so Mrs Columbus decides that she needs a fix and we stop for a cup of fresh ground coffee and some tea.  In this Thai version of Starbucks there is no barista and fancy machine though, and the lady hand grinds the beans in a manual grinder and makes it completely fresh to order.  Mrs Columbus secures herself some of the fresh beans to take home with the hopes that with her electric grinder and coffee pot she chan make something similar – although not quite a strong as it seems that here most of their coffee is served more like espresso than the coffee we are used to.

We get back out on the trail and head down the mountain to end up at a small lake that has been created behind a dam.  The lake is close to the city and quite popular with the local people to come out with their families for a picnic or some swimming.  The lake is surrounded by small bamboo huts that you can sit in and relax or have a meal, and there are small food stands that will bring you food if you did not bring something with you.  We relax and look out over the lake while having a late lunch before heading back into the city.

As we make our way back into the city Neing takes us to a local market so we can look for a last couple of items that Brooklyn and Russ are looking for, and we are lucky to find a street food vendor selling Pa Tong Go (chinese doughnuts) and Pandanus custard for dipping.  On first blush we would have likely just walked past these, by we have had them at our favorite Thai place back home so we know what to expect and are well rewarded 🙂

The adventure has been fantastic and will go down in my top 10 list for things I have done over here.  I have to give Mrs Columbus an extra ‘great adventurer’ tag for being such a good sport 🙂

A very patient Neing takes us to a few more markets to find one last elusive item, and then we stop to pick up our laundry and it is back to Ginny Cafe for our last dinner in Chiang Mai before we head off to the airport.  Neing graciously agrees to wait around while we have dinner to give us a ride to the airport, and Tee and her staff set us up with yet another tasty meal.  We say our goodbyes to our new friends Tee, Captain Bob and Neing as we did the day before with Riam and Sopa and head off to catch our flight.  We will miss Chiang Mai and the wonderful people we have met here.

Mrs Columbus is returning to Bangkok and then back to Seattle to round up some of the other little ducks, but the rest of us are going on for a few days in the south on Phuket, so more to come on this journey still 🙂

Not a lot to report recently as we have not booked any organized activities for the weekend in preparation for the Saturday and Sunday night street markets.  There will be  fair amount of walking ahead and we don’t want to be out adventuring all day at the expense of being too tired to shopt later!

The Saturday market is just outside the old city wall and runs down a street that they block off for about 8-10 blocks.  They close the street to cars and motorbikes in the afternoon while the people set up their ‘shops’ and the activity starts around 5pm.  For the entire distance of the market the street is lined on both sides (and sometimes down the center) with people selling food, shirts, pants, and various trinkets.  In some places the market spills into the side streets and at intersections they use the extra space to sometimes put out a few chairs for people to sit and eat.  Mrs Columbus and the teenagers are doing their best to jump start a Thai stimulus package and are soon carrying several bags of local goods.  We stopped at a few places along the way for some street food but unfortunately we are all full by the time we find the fried insect vendor so I guess that will have to wait for another time.

We had a little discussion about planning something and Russ wanted to do some mountain biking, but given the amount of mountain biking I already do at home I figured that I was on vacation and should take a break!  Mrs Columbus quickly agreed and we let Russ book something on his own for Sunday morning/afternoon while the rest of us decided that we would hold down the fort while he was gone.

We have discovered a media room here at the hotel that contains some rather comfortable oversized bean-bag chairs, so holding down the fort mostly consists of us catching up on emails and what is going on back home, while making sure that the bean-bags do not sprout legs and try to escape – needless to say we are very diligent about our responsibility and not a single one is able to make it’s escape.

After Russ returns we make our way over to Sopa’s for a massage to shake off the days hard work and to prepare ourselves for the market.  During our massage it decides to start raining but we will not be deterred from our goal of visiting the Sunday market so the troops decide to pop into the 7-11 and see what they have for rain gear:

I decide that I am better off either searching for an umbrella or just getting wet, so me and the Teletubbies head out for the market. The Sunday market is the big brother of the Saturday market and while similar in that it runs down a closed street, it is easily twice the size and according to people we have talked to is constantly growing farther and farther down the side streets all the time.

The market is a Chiang Mai highlight and is popular with both the locals and tourists and when the weather co-operates it is just a sea of people moving slowly up and down the streets looking at the stuff being offered for sale.  Because of the rain though the place is only about 1/2 as busy as we have seen it during previous trips so that is a mixed blessing – we have to contend with a bit of rain, but it is easier to move around.  After getting mostly damp, but not soaked I manage to find a lady selling umbrella’s for a paltry $3 and can now use my camera again, and also keep the rain off my noggin.

After a bit more street food and some more wandering through the market, I decide that I have seen enough wooden frogs, keychains, and t-shirts and decide to trek back to the hotel, leaving Mrs Columbus and the rest of the crew in charge of the search for some treasure that we did not spot at one of the first 500 vendors’ stalls.