We spent a great, relaxing week at Khao Sok National Park. There are a cluster of resorts and restaurants near the park entrance, and all the resorts will book various activities. The main reason to go to Khao Sok is to do a overnight trip to Cheow Lan Lake (a reservoir) and stay in a bungalow on the water. Two day / one night trip including all meals, transport, guides, and bungalow was 2500 Baht/person. Our bungalow had a private bath, a fan, and generator power from 6pm till midnight. Not all tours included bungalows with a private bath, so be sure to ask.

We also visited the “Monkey Temple” (Wat Tham Phanthura) , which is a great place to watch monkey play. I did a ‘night safari’ guided hike thru the jungle, and got to see a bunch of cool spiders, lizards, and frogs.

We stayed at the Morning Mist Resort, and recommend it. They let us leave all our stuff in our room for free while we did the overnight trip to the lake. The best food in town was at Pawn’s Restaurant.

Some of our best photos of our entire trip so far are from our trip to the lake. The rest of our Khao Sok photos are here. We spent a lot more time in Khao Sok than necessary, but highly recommend the lake trip.

Our final night in Thailand was in Surat Thani, so we could experience the food at the fantastic night market (photos).

Every time we told someone we were heading to Koh Phayam, folks asked ‘are you going to the full moon party?’

Ko Phangam (on the east side of Thailand) is famous for its all night parties, something we had no interest in. Ko Phayam, on the west side, is the exact opposite. Very few travelers we met elsewhere had even heard of it.

Ko Phayam only has about 200 residents (about 1/2 of which are Burmese immigrants), and maybe another 100 tourists while we were there. At the peak of season there might be 300 tourists. Most of the island shuts down 6-8 months per year during the off season.

Ko Phayam currently has no cars, and no roads wide enough for cars. Instead there are nice, paved, scooter trails. For me, that was one of the main attractions to the island. Unfortunately they have plans to build the first road across the island. While this may increase tourism in the long run, it will certainly chase away folks like me.

If you think you might want to check out Ko Phayam, note that the main island web site claims that the season starts in November, but many things don’t actually start until sometime between Dec 1 and Dec 15th. Good Cell phone coverage, Wi-Fi, and electricity more that a few hours per day are all new this year. Electricity is still pretty flakey, and went out for a few minutes several times per day, and is not strong enough to run air conditioners, etc. They are building a new generator for the island, so probably there will be 24×7 electricity next year.

A surprising number of people we met on the island come back every year, and there is a great live music scene at Irie Islands Music Bar run by a cool Japanese guy. There were very few Americans here compared to other places we went in Thailand, and LOTS of Germans.

We stayed at JJ’s Beach Resort, but if I had it to do over, I might have preferred to stay next door at Bamboo Bungalows (which had kayaks, massage services, and better food) or Coconut Beach (which had really nice staff and better food).

Unfortunately there was a LOT of rain the week we were there (we came a bit too early in the season), and there were lots of mosquitos. But overall a very nice relaxing week.

The sand crabs made amazing art on the beach twice a day after every high tide (see photo below), and I discovered the snapseed photo editor app ‘grunge’ filter (also see photo below).

Selection of other photos is here.

Pai in northern Thailand is my favorite place on our trip so far. I could easily spend a month there just hanging out, hiking, and exploring the countryside by scooter.

Pai has a really great relaxed vibe. Its touristy, but not too touristy (for now).

Every night the Pai ‘walking street’, which is really 2 streets with a total 4 blocks of vendors, comes to life with the most amazing assortment of both Thai and international food, all not too overpriced. We stuck with Thai food, but the hamburgers, lasagna, and Indian food all looked really good.

The traveler scooter culture is really interesting in Pai. Seems like about 90% of the tourists end up renting a scooter, and about 90% of them have never ridden a scooter/motorbike before. Hence you see many people with a “Pai Tattoo” (AKA road rash). But no one seems to get seriously hurt, as everyone drives very slow, and there are not many cars. The police set up road blocks everywhere to make sure tourists have an international drivers license, and make you pay 500 Baht ($15 USD) on the spot if you don’t. You are more likely to get stopped if you are not wearing a helmet (also illegal, but not really enforced ). Be sure to get an international drivers license if you plan to rent a scooter in Pai or Chiang Mai. For the record, I rented a scooter for 2 days, wore a helmet in town, and did not have an international drivers license. I got lucky.

Our hostel (Suandoi Backpacker Resort) was fantastic. Really nice people ran the place, which was a 15 min walk to town. We were the only ones over 35, but had some great conversations with folks. There are quite a few 19 yr old Germans doing a ‘gap year’ in SE Asia, and are actually quite fun to talk with.

I did a 2 day ‘trek’ to stay with a hill tribe village. We walked 12km the 1st day, and 10km the second day through some really beautiful country side. The village had no electricity, but small solar panels on most houses provided a least a bit of light in the evening. The villagers were not really all that friendly, but did not seems to mind us there.

Here is a blog on Pai that I found useful, and some info (somewhat dated but still interesting) by a long time expat.

Selection of photos.

After 2 months in Vietnam and Laos, our next stop was Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is the first place on this SE Asia trip that I had been to before (in 1987), so I was looking forward to seeing how it had changed. And wow has it changed.

After 2 months in Vietnam/Laos, it was a bit of a shock to be back on the world of Starbucks, 7-11, Macdonalds, Burger King, H&M, etc. The Maya Shopping Mall next to our AirBNB could have been anywhere in the world. But once I got over the initial shock of being back in the first world, I found Chiang Mai really nice! Great temples, food (the Panang Curry and Khao Soi is amazing), art, music clubs (including a really fantastic jazz club), and a cool ex-pat scene,

We learned a ton about local food on a morning market / street food tour, and Christine took a cooking class. She then made an incredible meal with the recipes from her class. I love being able to rent condo’s with a full kitchen on AirBNB!

I got quite scratched up riding through the jungle on a mountain bike tour.

I got to play a couple songs on drums at jam night at the North Gate Jazz Co-op. The level of musicians was every bit as good as you’d find at the open jams in San Francisco, and included Thai’s, expats, and travelers. I met a couple retired expat musicians that live here and do gigs 3-4 times/week. I may need to come back for a while….

Christine did a day trip to Chiang Rai to see the incredible ‘White Temple‘ and the crazy ‘Black House‘ while I recovered from a bout of food poisoning. She also visited a “long neck Karen’ village.

I was surprised to see that trekking trips are no longer a thing here. Trekking was the main reason people came to Chiang Mai in the 80’s, and trekking is currently huge in Sapa Vietnam, so I expected it to still be a thing in Chiang Mai, but no. All the treks in 1987 included a day of elephant riding (now politically incorrect) and optional opium smoking (now very illegal), so without those options I guess trekking is dying out.

It is also interesting to see the influence of Chinese tourism on the area, especially in the newer ‘Nimman Hill’ part of town. All the restaurants and hotels have signs and menus in Chinese, as well as English.

A selection of our photos from the week can be found here.

Our last stop in Vietnam was Hue. More great local food, good sites, and really great people.

Our guesthouse was fantastic! And the abandoned water park was particularly cool. Our tour with ILoveHue is highly recommended.

As always, our goal was to try all the street food specialities. The Bun Bo was particularly good. I didn’t expect to like the cubes of congealed pig blood, but it’s really good!

Selection of photos are here.