Ko Lipe: last Wednesday we arrived in Ko Lipe.
To give you some background information: Ko Lipe belongs to the 51 islands of Ko Tarutao (Ko = island) National park in the South West of Thailand. The clostest of the islands is only 5 km away from the border to Malaysia. Most of the islands are unihabited, building on them is prohibited and there is only boat service to 5 of them. One of them is Ko Lipe. As it is kind of a hassle (more about that in a moment) to get here tourism is not quite booming yet as on the other islands in Thailand. However, with parts of Ko Phi Phi and some other once really famous islands gone (though they are being rebuilt after the tsunami) the island is developing quickly.
Getting here is time consuming. Leaving Chiang Mai on Tuesday in the morning we flew to Bangkok and then after a 3 hour lay over to Hat Yai. Military is defenitely more present at the Hat Yai airport, probably due to the closeness to the three problem regions of Thailand. From Hat Yai airport we first had to get a bus (once again pick up truck with a few benches in the bed of it) to the center of Hat Yai and then take a 2 hour mini bus ride to Pak Bara, the starting point for boats to Ko Tarutao National Park. As we missed our boat, the boats only leave twice a day, we overnighted in Pak Bara, which is o.k. but really just the starting point for boat services.
The boat trip took about 4 hours and finally we arrived in paradise! The water is very clear and turqouise, the beaches white and the center of the island pretty jungely.
On 3 sides of the islands there are beaches and along them a bunch of little restorts with bamboo bungalows, some restaurants and jewelry stands- everything pretty basic. There are no roads, only sandy paths around the island and therefore no cars and only very few scooters. The island is inhabited by around 500 people, living in a little village made of tin and bamboo houses. Some reserts offer a few things to buy but there is only 1 shop, which is a real exaggeration. It sells postcards, basic sanitary and medical stuff, some typical backpacker clothes (overpriced) and that's about it. Everything is defenitely more expensive than say Chiang Mai.
But all this makes the island very laid back and remote- thought at this point in time all resorts are booked out.
We will probably stay here until Thursday morning.

first glance of Ko Lipe. That's how small it is

getting closer!

from the main boat on a long tail boat to the beach. Almost there!

our bungalow directly on the beach

view from our bungalow

the most famous beach on Ko Lipe is Pattaya Beach. Not to be confused with Pattaya near Bangkok, the party and sex tourism area of Thailand.

nice warm water

village

in front of our bungalow

the village is set among palm trees

sunset last night

Ko Hin Song

sunrise

Visiting beautiful Wat Phra That Doi Suthep.

Chiang Mai: Our trip in the mini bus from Pai back to Chiang Mai went very well. A mini bus is just a whole lot faster. Getting into Chiang Mai we were a bit shocked after quiet laid back Pai. This here is a busy city with lots of traffic and buzzing around. Plus a lot more humind than in the mountains. At first it was a bit much for us. Friday evening we just walked around to get used to the area and even had a short visit to famous Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. Amazing how many vendors there are! On Saturday we finally slept in, made some further plans and actually went ahead and booked our flights for going down South. We also made reservations for a trek. More about that in just a moment. Chiang Mai is inspite of traffic a pretty cool town (a bit too busy for Nathan though). I think I read that there are more than 300 wats in the city. Pretty much on every corner another wat. As we have not seen any temples since Sukhothai, we decided to go around and pick out the most famous ones. They sure are pretty. In the evening we finally spent some quality time at the Night Bazaar. At first it just seems overwhelming with different shops, but after a while you realize that it just repeats itself. Stands with tiny summer tops and other chaeply made clothes, jewelery, all kinds of handicraft stuff, faked watches, sunglasses and purses... it sure was heaven to me until my feet almost fell off a few hours later. Nathan was a very good moral support to me.

The wat is located on top of a hill and takes about 45 minutes ride from the city to get there.

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View of Chiang Mai from top of the hill. Unfortunately so hazy that the sourrounding mountains aren't visible.

The Trek: The past 2 days we went on a trek, the typical tourist thing to do around Chiang Mai or in the North in General: all tours include some hiking (some more some less) to hilltribe villages, overnighting there, elephant riding, bamboo rafting. There are a ton of guest houses and other companies offering those tours. Actually we were a bit hesitant to go on a guided trip. In Vietnam, though in hinsight all trips there were great, we learned that organized tours often work differently than advertised: delays, people of 10 groups meeting in the same place etc. Anyway, we decided to do take the chance and chose a company that first of all seemed to do it more eco friendly plus they are giving a part of their income of the tours to the inhabitants of the villages. The trek was a full success. We were 9 people and a good mix of nationalities: Avi from the US, Melanie and Heike from Germany, Sebastiano, Maria, Max and Elisa from Italy. Our two guides were so funny, very entertaining and very educated on the task of hilltribes, elephants and the sourrounding nature. On the first day we first visited a waterfall, had lunch and then hiked about 4 hours to the Karen, one of this hill tribes, villages. On the way we saw a geysir and hiked through rainforest and higher, pine trees. The tour company had their own house in the Karen village. We had to shower in the river and there is only little electricity. Our guides and some other village people cooked for us and after dinner we sat around the camp fire, learned about the Karen culture, sang some songs, were thaught some thai dances. A truly great evening. Sleeping was another thing. We all shared the room and just slept on thin matresses. It got really cold at night and though we were provided with sleeping bags etc. it was freezing. And the roosters start at 3.40 am... After breakfast we hiked to the elephant camp, did an elephant ride and then the promised rafting. All was so much fun- especially as our guides really made us laugh all the time. The whole group got along great and it truly was an unexpected great experience.

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The oldest temple in Chiang Mai

Our 1st stop was at this nice waterfall.

Waterfall

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We stopped at hot springs on the start of our hike. Boiling and way too hot to swim. The largest gyser in Thailand.

Landscape pic

Hello!

This was the 1st village where we stopped for a short break.

Moo!

This is the house where we stayed.

This is where we slept. Hard floor and mosquito nets! It got very cold at night.

Hanging out by the campfire. Check out the poochies!

Our guides singing by the fire. They were very funny and very good entertainers.

Our guides singing by the fire.

Our host, a Karen villager, starts the fire in the morning. Christina and I went for a walk while breakfast was being cooked.

A pic from our morning walk.

Christina taking a walk in the Karen village before setting out on our hike.

Buffalo?

The second part of our day was a 1.5 hour elephant ide. We were distributed on 3 elephants. Though we might have chosen a trek without elephant riding (there was none) as we had just done that a few days ago, it was fun and relaxed.

The first part of the second day of the trek was a 45 minute hike to the elephant camp.

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The ride pretty much went in and out of the river.

... and a group of swimming water buffalo.

From this little village we started our rafting trip.

This is us on our elephant. This time we got to ride with a saddle (2 people) and a third person on the neck of the elo.

On our way we met a group of elephants heading back to the camp. Among them was a 1 year baby elo.

The last part of our tour was rafting on bamboo rafts for about 2 hours through beautiful landscape. You either stood or sat on the raft. Our backpacks were stored safely and as we had to pack everything waterproof we could not use the camera during the journey. It was a super fun ride as there were quite some rapids enbetween. We all got petty wet.

Two guys on each raft had to help steer with the bamboo polls.

Tomorrow we will fly to Bangkok and then to Hat Yai and from there we will head to the island group of Ko Tarutao Marine National Park in the South West of the country. These islands are supposed to be still be a bit less touched by mass tourism. As the boats only go twice a day, we will not arrive there until Wednesday. If we like it, we will stay for about a week.

After a great day we just rewarded ourselves with a Thai massage. They are usually pretty rough, with a lot of pushing and pulling, but this one was pretty relaxing and mild.

Instead of going to Chiang Mai we got on the next bus to Pai, which is a little town about 130 km from Chiang Mai. As the road to get there is very windy, it took us almost 4 hours in a very old bus. The brakes were squeaking so bad when going down and the tires did not have any profile. Well, we made it fine. Pai is a very touristy but cute hippie town with lots of artsy things to buy, spas do do, cooking classes to take etc. Tons of restaurants and all kinds of cheap massages to get. Also, you can take elephant rides, and treks in the neighboring villages. We got a really cute garden guest house with our own bungalow again, big trees around and a great view of the mountains around. Also, to get around it is best to rent a motorbike, which we did for 2 EUR per day. It was so much fun cruising around.

In the morning we visited some hot (sulfur) springs. The hottest is 80 degrees celcius and people were actually boiling eggs in the water. The springs are pretty popular as they feed many pools of spas and guest houses. Extra value to sell!

us on our speedy scooter

Nathan is one of the lower hot springs.The lower the cooler they got but still hot enough in really hot summer weather!