Our final destination in Thailand was up to the northern hippie town of Pai. Nestled in the mountains, the landscape of this town takes your breath away and I would say that, for the most part, I loved it, however, the place is crawling with youngsters who were just there to party, which is more annoying than it is charming. That said, it was very nice to get away from the chaos of large cities and enjoy beautiful natural settings. As the title states, the road was fully of winding curves to get there. It was rough for a person who gets motion sick and who was stuck in the…

From the monkey town of Lopburi, we took a 12 hour, miserable train ride up to Chiang Mai. It went from being hot and sticky on the train during the evening to freezing cold in the middle of the night! But, I made it through and we arrived to our hotel at 6am and were able to get a few hours of sleep there before hitting the town. We stayed in the Old City, which is about a one square mile area that houses a lot of boutique hotels, restaurants, massage parlors and some of the historic wats. Typically this is where many people will go to visit elephant sanctuaries,…

Our next stop on our journey north was to the lesser visited town of Lopburi. It is one of the oldest cities in Thailand, and my favorite that we have been to so far. There are several reasons for this; first, the traffic is significantly lighter here than in the places we have previously been; second, the people are so friendly and laid back; and third, the monkeys! About 800 years ago, a Hindu shrine was built in the middle of a densely forested area. This forested area had previously been the home to a number of macaques. As the town grew up around this temple (which eventually was converted…