Elza here, guest blogging while Mike makes me coffee, Thai style. To make Thai style coffee, add one scoop of instant coffee, one scoop of milk powder, and one scoop of cane sugar, into a mug and fill with hot water. For added sweetness, there’s also an option to add some sweetened condensed milk, which I have done on occasion 🙂
We left Chang Mai on the 21st in a rented van with a driver and headed north towards the Srilanna National Park. On the way, we stopped at Buatong National Park, located in the middle of the jungle, and known for it’s unique “sticky” waterfalls. There’s apparently a mineral in the water that creates rock as it flows (feels somehow related to the formation of stalactites/mites, but I’m a bit fuzzy on the science), and the rocks have a subtle “sandpaper”-like texture that your feet can grip easily. This makes it a breeze to climb up and down the waterfalls without slipping. It was so cool!
After we dried off and ate rice cakes, we loaded back in the van and continued on to Srilanna National Park, where we would be spending the night in a houseboat! The lake was created by a dam (kids were weirdly excited about being able to say “dam”), and the views were absolutely stunning! We started our adventure with a gorgeous seafood lunch by the lake. The water front, open-air restaurant did not disappoint and we enjoyed a variety of fresh fish (no land-locking here, Dejy!) served both steamed and fried with garlic.
After lunch we loaded on to a long boat with all of our luggage and rode 10 minutes across the lake to our houseboat! There were many houseboats floating on the beautiful water. Some were sitting alone and others, like ours, were connected to other houseboats and a small restaurant. The houseboat was incredible! The front room opened on to a large deck where the resort brought us a huge Thai style dinner and, the next morning, a huge Thai style breakfast (no shortage of Thai style coffee, obviously). The kids and Mike spent the afternoon, evening, and morning swimming in the lake while I enjoyed the water and views from a safe, dry location with my camera 😉 Our houseboat was also connected to a series of floating slides which the kids loved! In the morning, we got to wake up with our new eleven year old twins!! Foster described his birthday view perfectly, I get to wake up on my birthday in a postcard! It was great to love on the twins a little in the morning, since we knew we had a drive ahead of us which they were not too excited about.
After morning swim, feeding the ducks, Thai style breakfast with coffee and rice porridge, we loaded back into the narrow, long boat and got back in to the van to begin our journey north to the Mekong River near Khai’s village.
Ozzie and Khai had done the drive from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong in Chiang Rai Province (where we were headed) many times, but because we were traveling from Srilanna National Park, the route was different and they had not traveled it before. Instead of taking a couple of hours, it ended up taking over five hours and required us to go up and down a huge mountain. The mountain roads were tight and full of really sharp curves. There were two narrow lanes bumpered occasionally by metal rails. All of our kids were holding bags and trying not to throw up in the back of the van. Towards the top of the mountain there was so much fog we could not even see the road in front of us! At one point, though, Ozzie, Khai and I noticed some red cones about a hundred feet ahead of us and realized when we got closer that the cones were surrounding an area of the road where the left lane had completely crumbled and fallen down the side of the mountain cliff. Our driver rolled into the other lane, avoiding the cones and the landslide, and we went on our merry way! I would certainly call it and “unforgettable” experience!! We made memories we’ll never forget 🙂
We arrived in Chiang Kong around 7:30pm and were all pretty tired and hungry. Despite a beautiful morning on the houseboat, the birthday twins were feeling a little homesick and worn out after the drive. Fortunately, Khai had one more surprise planned for them on their birthday. We sat down at a restaurant on the Mekong River in Chiang Khong (a reservation of 12 happened to cancel earlier that night, so they had a table all ready for us!), and Khai met her sister outside the restaurant with four beautiful coconut cakes made by her 15 year old cousin. The cakes said Happy Birthday Sage and Happy Birthday Foster in both English and Thai. The twins were so touched and surprised! We sang to them and, per our family tradition, each shared the things we love about them. It was a long day with a lot of difficult driving, but it started and ended very well 🙂 Defiantly a birthday the twins will remember forever 🙂
December 23rd started with traditional breakfast (chicken and rice), and then we loaded back in the van to head to Mae Chan where the new Friends of Thai Daughters (FTD) Sunflower Farm. It was another incredible day, but I’ll let Mike pick it back up from here 😉 Thanks for reading!