How we rolled on the hair-pin loops of North Thailand #Lockdown

We had had our share of beautiful Thai beaches thus far, so this January we decided to drive up north to the mountains. And as they say - when you want to escape your life, you go on a road trip. And this time it was a cross country trip with Chiang Mai being the chosen destination. However, since we had the car the destination changed multiple times and the entire 7 days trip became a journey in itself.

Hiring a car in Thailand is easy, all you need is an International driver licence and a credit card. We reached the airport at 6am to pick our car and to our surprise the car was a different model than what we had booked. Never did this happen before, well as they say, there is always a first time! After spending almost 2 hours with no luck trying to get a better car we finally decided to start the trip with what we had and left the airport at 8:30am.

Day 1: Bangkok - Lampang via Ayuthaya and Khamphaeng Phet. Overnight stay in Lampang.

Our initial plan was to reach Chiang Mai but as usual sitting next to my husband I started reading blogs on places to see in the North of Thailand. I saw there were a few unexplored spots not to be missed in Lampang and that is how we rounded up on our first stop.

Day 2: Lampang to Chiang Rai.

The roads are empty, you will get multiple chances to sit on the road with nobody passing by, or you may scream in the middle of the road but nobody will listen to you. Driving through the long stretches we reached Wat Chalermprakiat in Lampang Province, one of the most unique temples of Thailand. Also known as the mysterious mountain temple, there is not much information about how the temple came into being and remains a mystery even today.

One needs a private transport to reach the entrance and from there you get a pickup truck for a further hilly ride that takes you up from where you start the hike. The ride lasts only a couple of minutes but you will end up holding yourself tight on the steep and bumpy road, just like on a roller coster.

This is not an extremely difficult climb but you will find yourself stopping a couple of times panting and running short on your breath. The hike is a straight climb taking you 800 meters up the mountain through 300 steel steps and bridges. When we reached the top we gasped in admiration and wondered how did someone possibly create this. Sitting there for a few hours I spoke to the wind and heard her whisper back, it was nothing less than a sea of tranquility.

As the sun started setting, the mountains disappeared and we headed on a two-lane road to Chiang Rai.

Day 3: Chiang Rai to Khun Yuam via Chiang Mai.

Sitting in our hotel room in Chiang Rai at 2am my eyes lit up when I saw images of this beautiful Mexican Sun flower valley in Mae Hong Song, a tiny village by the Myanmar border. In our lust to experience the beauty, we jeopardised our entire itinerary and decided to take a detour off over 400 kms. And, we also had two other stops to make before the long drive. This was not a smart move and our advice to co-travellers is to stop in Chiang Mai.

Wat Rong Khun, famously known as the White Temple. This is an epitome of art and the artist who created this masterpiece has put in his own imagination and knows that no one ever will be able to recreate. His confidence comes from the fact that he has not made any earning out of this. In fact he has funded the project with his own money. The chosen colour of the temple is white because white signifies purity, whereas, gold the colour of most temples signifies greed. Now that is an interesting thought.

Choui Fong Tea Plantation, this was recommended to us by a Thai family whom we met at the temple the day before. This is the biggest tea producer in Chiang Rai. The scenery is beautiful and the atmosphere is very relaxing. The icing on the cake is their amazing desserts and drinks made from their own products. Besides they also have tea leaves and other souvenirs for sale. After enjoying the serenity of the tea garden, I grabbed another glass of Thai tea and we left for our next stop on the GPS, Chiang Mai.

By the time we finished our dinner stop at Chiang Mai, it was past 9 pm and we still had over 220 kms to go. We were about to find out that it wasn’t one of our smartest moves.

We sped along dark mountain roads with no lights or signs. It was an endless loop of roller coaster hair-pins. We lost all network and the GPS stopped working too, damn right, we were scared! Out of nowhere, we reached a village where a group of people sat at the cross road, drinking and singing along. They mocked us when we stopped and asked for directions. One of them said, “the road is difficult you should not go now”, we looked at each other and said, “we have driven in India this is easy”. You might say this was our first of few mistakes. It was not an easy drive and it took us 4 hours to reach our destination. However, famous for its hair-pin loops (1,864 curves) this route is considered to be one of the best routes in the entire South East Asia for bikers. It was 1am and we had to call the day off.

Day 4: Khun Yuam to Pai via Ban Jabo

In spite of a late night we woke up beaming with excitement. We met the hotel owner told us that we were late by two weeks, the Mexican Sunflowers had died and we had missed it this season. It was apparent that the excitement was acting unfavourably. Yes, you read it correct! November and December is the time when the entire valley is carpeted in Mexican sunflowers and obviously we had not done our homework well.

We faced a decision: go back the way we came — drive seven hours for nothing, basically — or continue our adventure. The decision was obvious especially after the drive the previous night. As we approached the brown valley we witnessed the flowers had withered. All was strangely silent, but we stood there admiring for a long moment retrospecting and making the silence significant. One thing we knew deep down in our hearts was that we would come back to see a million suns. I took some seeds of the sunflower and we headed to our next stop, Ban Jabo.

The village of Ban Jabo is one of the ignored sites of Mae Hong Son. This authentic village has a few cafes located on the mountain range, similar to a hanging terrace. You can sit on the edge of the wooden frames with your feet hanging in the air (literally above the clouds) and overlook the spectacular landscape in front of you. People visit this place to see the sunrise but obviously we had messed up our plans and by the time we reached here it was time for sunset. We chose a spot to stretch our legs, talking to each other about everything but mentioning about that morning. Slowly there were scattered clouds and we left for our next stop, Pai - the secret hotspot for travellers.

The drive to Pai is another beautiful journey and if you are looking for some good food, adventure and firangs then this your destination. Pai is the hippy enclave of Thailand that attracts backpackers throughout the year. We wandered around the walking street all evening until late night. We found street food like no where else and market stalls selling everything from clothing to jewellery to personalised gifts. And yes, the temperature was just perfect! Finally, I got to wear my hoody in Thailand.

Day 5: Pai to Chiang Mai

This was the last leg of our trip. Funny how the actual destination before the trip started (Chiang Mai) was last on our actual itinerary. It was the perfect drive with approximately 750 turns up and down hills. We stopped at the famous Mon Jam Royal Project, Chiang Mai’s secret mountain top. The tiny gardens up the hill are just gorgeous. There are variety of flowers in each garden which are owned by the locals. The entry fee to these flower gardens is as little as 10TBH. This was a perfect place to end our day. We recommend you stay at one of the tents here under the clear night sky. To our luck we were there on a full moon night and we could not have asked for anything better. However, the tents are very popular and the bookings happen 2-3 months in advance.

Day 6: Chiang Mai to Bangkok

We had so much to talk but neither of us said anything. We had explored so much in the past couple of days that we were just lost in our own worlds. In silence we spoke and followed the navigation back home.