After the gibbon sanctuary we visited Phacharoen Waterfall. This is an amazing step waterfall made up of over 90 smaller water falls.
This is the best water fall we have seen in Thailand, although in a few days we will head to Um Phang where we will gaze upon Thailand’s largest and supposedly most beautiful waterfall.
NONE! These are Gibbons, which are apes NOT monkeys.
The Gibbon sanctuary is about 40 KMs from Mae Sot and houses Gibbons which have been rescued from captivity and can not be returned to the wild (many of them have amputated limbs).
I expected Mae Sot to be a small border town, but it is actually a city about the size of Chiang Mai. It is not the most exiting place in Thailand, but the Municipal market is quite interesting.
Warning gruesome pictures below! Squeamish people and vegetarians should probably skip this post
The last night on our trek Adul (our guide) bought a pig for dinner. We watched (by choice) how they slaughtered the pig, and how they butchered the meat and the organs to make some delicious food.
We made it! Our 4 days in the jungle were quite an experience, but we survived to tell the tale.
After a short ride in the back of a pickup truck we arrived at Mae Sam Lam, a small Town on the Salween river, from there we took a 3 hour boat ride deep into the jungle away from any electricity, roads, trucks or noisy motorbikes.
We made it back from our jungle adventure in one piece.
I have lots of stories and pics to share, but no time to tell them, maybe tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning we go on a 4 day trek into the jungles on the boarder between Thailand and Myanmar (Burma). Our Guide from the Karen hill tribe, and has many Friends in the KNU (the Karen Army… they are fighting for an independent state in Myanmar) so we may get to visit some of their camps.
It’s all I can think of.
Today we went to Tham Keaw Komol (Calcite Cave), and while the formations were astounding, and better than anything else I have seen so far (the number 2 cave in asia I have been told… must find number 1) there was no sense of adventure, no challenges to overcome, and so it made the whole experience less enjoyable than the other caves.
We are now in Mae Sariang… it is a small town and there ain’t to much to do.
We plan on going on a 3 or 4 day trek from here, and maybe do some camping in a nearby national park.
It seems I am addicted to caving. We went to Two caves near the Town of Ban Mae La Na: Coral Cave and Diamond Cave.
We got a guide at the village, and she lead us through the fairly long caves.
The Mae Hong Son winter festival had all the usual Thai festival fair, but the coolest thing about it was the hundreds of lantern that light us the sky.
These lanterns rise into the night sky by the hundreds… some of them even have fireworks attached to them.
After Tham Pla we headed for the Myanmar border, to a town called Mae Aw.
This Town is full of old Chinese KMT fighters who settled here a few years back.
A few day ago we rented motorbikes and went to Tham Pla (fish cave… sounds Klingon doesn’t it?), although it really is not much of a cave, but there are 1 meter long fish that you can feed!
