Thai borderlands

Leaving Chiang Mai I headed for Pai. At the bus station in Chiang Mai I was surprised how small the bus to Pai was considering that many people want to go there. Once on the road however I discovered why the bus was so small. The road had so many twists and turns that a bigger bus simply wouldn't be able to negotiate it. Anyway after about four hours the bus safely reached Pai.

I had heard a lot about Pai and it is well known as a laid back town where foreign travellers like to hang out. It is located in a picturesque valley surrounded by mountains and forest. The place has a pretty relaxed atmosphere and you can see why people come here to chill out. I passed the evenings there drinking herbal tea out of long bamboo tubes and watching the people go by.



I hired a motorcycle for a day and rode to Soppong (aka Pang Ma Pha). The ride itself had some great mountain views. The area reminded me a lot of Laos in that it was forested and very mountainous with very little development. In Soppong I rode out to visit Tham Lot (Lot Cave). Ja studied the caves in this area for his Master's degree so I was keen to see them for myself.

Tham Lod is one of the biggest and most spectacular caves in the area. It is also the most developed for tourism. Before entering the cave you hire a local guide with a kerosene lantern. The cave was quite spectacular with three large chambers. There were some beautiful limestone formations. Most interesting was the coffin cave. This cave contains 1,700 year old coffins and human remains.

A lot of the exploration of caves in this area was done by Australians including John Spies who is now a long term resident of the area and operates a guest house called Cave Lodge. You can see some great photos of the caves here.

From Pai I headed on to Mae Hong Son. Getting there involved another twisty bus ride through the mountains. I had long wanted to visit Mae Hong Son and it turned out to be well worth the trip. It is a small town compared to Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai and the small lake at the centre of the town with the beautiful Wat Chong Kham nearby is very picturesque. Most of the temples in Mae Hong Son and other nearby places are Shan (Tai Yai) rather than Thai. The Shan style has a multi-level roof with the eaves adorned in silver trim. The temples are also mostly constructed from teak which highlights their relative simplicity and natural design. All in all they provide a refreshing contrast to the modern concrete Thai temple.

Mae Sariang was my next destination and it provided another nice stopover as I slowly meandered back to Bangkok. I hired a bike for a day and rode around visiting a few small villages and temples. Most of the people living in the area are Karen.

From Mae Sariang I had a long ride by songthaew to Mae Sot. A songthaew is a pick-up truck with a canopy over the back and two rows of seats down the side. It was a long journey and for much of the way there was little but forest and mountains. Villages and other signs of human settlement were few and far between. The road travelled close to the Burmese border. In one place I saw what looked to be a small village. However, it seemed to extend for a long distance and was surrounded by a barbed wire fence. I later found out it was the Mae La refugee camp. The camp is home to 40,000 refugees from Burma all of whom are stateless. Many of them have never had the opportunity to leave the confines of the camp. It is a reminder of the terrible human rights abuses that are going on in Burma. Perhaps just as bad is the further exploitation and abuse that many Burmese refugees face in Thailand. The Thai government is certainly lacking in compassion and good will towards them.



I was interested to visit Mae Sot, a large border town and centre for trading with Burma. I took a songthaew to the border, but I found it a little disappointing. It was much less interesting and lively than the border town of Mae Sai in the far north of Thailand.