Doi Inthanon

For our last day in Chiang Mai we decided to go to the national park of Doi Inthanon. It was an adventure let me tell you. To start with we were told to go to a flower market to get a song-taaew to the town next to the national park. Once we had got to the flower market, we were told that we were in the wrong place even though we could see the song-taaew's driving past. Instead we went to where the buses left the town and got on one of them instead. Now for a day in the national park you would need nice sunshine and such. Well, while we were on the bus it started to rain and joint with that was thunder and lightening. Not a good sign. Once we were dropped of at the town we had to find a way to go the 8km to the park. According to the guide book, we could get a cheap song-taaew to the entrance and then another to the top. We had a bit of trouble with that. When we asked the song-taaew to take us to the entrance, they said that they cant do that but what they can do is take us on a tour all around the park for a stupidly expensive price. Just because we are 'farang', they all think they can cheat and rip us off! After a lot of talking, we managed to persuade them to take us to the entrance for the cheap price. Once there we looked at the waterfall at the entrance and we then found out that the other cheap song-taaew's to take you to the top weren't running.

 We decided to start walking along the road to see how far we could walk and what we could find. About 5 minutes later we came across a hill which we did not want to walk up. Instead we decided to hitch-hike. The first truck that came along just waved back at us but the second truck that came along with 4 or 5 people in let us hop in the back and we were on our way. These people were stopping off at different points so we stopped with them which was good as we were able to see different bits of the park. First stop was a small village which made its own coffee. 

 When we had stopped, we found out that the people who were driving us who I thought was a family, were in fact uni friends who spoke quite English. The next stop was near the top. We stopped off at two pagodas. They were beautiful and we were at the height where you could get surrounded by low flying clouds.

 We looked around and took a lot of pictures before moving on to the highest point in the whole of Thailand. It wasn't as impressive at we had expected. On one side was a nuclear fission research centre with armed guards outside and a sign saying 'no pictures'. I sneakily took one anyway and didn't get shot which was good. The highest point though was in the middle of a load of trees and bushes so even though it was cool and we were at the highest point, all the trees could have meant that we were low down.

 On the way back down we stopped at a waterfall just as it was getting dark.

 At this point we realised that the last bus from the town going back to Chiang Mai was at 5pm and we were going to miss it. We decided that we were going to have to hitch-hike back again! As we were leaving the waterfall, it started to rain. We were sat in the back of the pick-up truck in the wide open. We got very wet! We had some umbrellas so we went to where it was most sheltered from the wind and huddled under them. The only problem was that the water ran to back where we were sitting so we ended up sitting in a puddle of water. One good thing was that the people driving us were also going to Chiang Mai so they took us all the way back. The bad thing was that we spent all of that time in the back and in the rain. Oh well, we had been very lucky having the sun until the end of the park and we were getting taken back as well. We were dropped off near the university so we could get a song-taaew and as we were leaving, our drivers gave us their e-mails and facebook so we could swap pictures. They were so nice and we were so lucky to have met them.

We were then going to meet one of our volunteers friend and their parents for dinner but we were soaking wet. As we didn't have much time though we just went for it. It was a really nice hotel so we felt so bad walking in in our state. We decided to act like we were staying there and we managed to get in without any trouble. A quick trip to the toilet to sort out hair and make ourselves a bit more presentable and we were sorted. The dinner was an amazing buffet which was so good. We spent so long just sat there talking and eating that we were there when they were packing up and trying to hint to us to move. All in all a very good day.