After zig zagging all over the Khmer temples to the northwest, I finally arrived at Ubon Ratchathani, the eastern most stop I’ll be making on this trip. Ubon Ratchathani, is like some of my other stops, just a very convenient and pleasant place to stay while I explore the area. I did of course take a day to explore the city, though. Thung Sri Mueng, seen above is pretty much the center of the city. It seems a bit out…
From Udon Thani it’s just a short drive south to another important northeastern Thailand city, Khon Kaen. I’ll have to turn in my rental car when I arrive and pick up another rental car when I leave (long story), so I’m going to spend the day seeing a few out of the way sites before losing the car and checking in at my hotel. I started with a cruise through Phu Wiang National Park and a quick hike to the…
I left Kamphaeng Phet in a deluge of rain for what was the longest drive I’ll be doing on this trip, about eight hours, northeast, clear to the other side of the country. Luckily, the rain got lighter the further east I got. A little over halfway there the highway was blocked because of flooding. Uh-oh! I followed the detour signs into a very rural area which added about ten miles to the journey, but while traveling through some small…
The next stop of this trip was supposed to be Mae Sot and Um Phang way out west in remote Tak Province to see the tallest waterfall in Thailand. Unfortunately, the road going to the waterfall is inaccessible due to flooding and mud slides. And even if the road was clear it wouldn’t matter because the waterfall is overflowing so much that it completely destroyed its viewing platform and the nearby campground. So the government of Thailand closed off the…
My drive from Chiang Rai south was thankfully, uneventful. There were reports of flooding on part of my route through Phayao so I considered briefly taking the long way through Chiang Mai. Good thing I looked at the radar online though before leaving because Chiang Mai was getting pounded. I took my chances with my original plans and made it to Sukhothai with no problems. On the news were lots of pictures of Chiang Mai flooded with water and mud….
After exploring Chiang Saen basically as a couple of day trips from Chiang Rai, Now it’s time to explore Chiang Rai itself. I was the most worried about dealing with floods in Chiang Saen, but it turns out that Chiang Rai got flooded much worse. The water has receded and the city is mostly cleaned up, but the streets are very dusty and dirty with now dried mud and there are piles of mud on the sides of some streets…
The flooding danger seems to have gone away for now in the two stops I decided to skip. So, I’m going to attempt them now, starting in Chiang Saen. Chiang Saen never did flood, but it is one of the villages that they were most worried about since it’s located right on the bank of the Mekong River. And just as a precaution I decided not to sleep there and instead stay in Chiang Rai about an hour away. It’s…
From Nan it was about a five hour drive north way way up into the hills of Phu Chi Fa National Park. It’s time to take a break from all the temples and focus on some hiking. I quickly found my accommodation for the next few nights perched on this very steep slope, Chill Chill Camp. This place is awesome! It’s one of many similar camps along the single lane mountain road up here. I’m not even sure what village…
Well, I was supposed to head north from Chiang Mai, but it turns out there’s a giant typhoon wreaking havoc and causing devastating floods from Vietnam, across Laos, northern Thailand, and into Myanmar. The whole region has gotten about three times the average amount of rain so far this year. That’s a lot of water! Anyway, two of my next three planned stops are either dealing with floods or are in danger of flooding soon and unfortunately for me, my…
Greetings and welcome to Thailand! After having my visa rejected over a typo about six months ago, I finally got everything straightened out and NOW, I can enjoy another Holy Crap Adventure in this beautiful part of the world. Thankfully, my journey here went super smooth. But I also arrived super late, so I just stumbled into my hotel and crashed for the night. After a good night’s sleep I’m ready to start exploring my first stop, Chiang Mai, in…