Doi Inthanon

It took me the better part of two hours to figure out where we were headed. Because, you know, it's easier to puzzle it out than just ask... 

The trip started at a quarter to 8 and we changed from the light blue to the yellow songtaew after the usual obligatory stop at a Wat. Not sure what yellow means but there we were.

Anyhow, we wound our way up the mountain. Alli and char were going to come but bowed out, so it's just me and 12 thai teenagers. As scary as it seemed at first, I had a blast and even though I was tired I was glad I agreed to go. I got only about 4 hours of sleep Sunday night so that made the rest of the day interesting...

We stopped first at a sort of garden halfway up the mountain. The views were beautiful but I noticed that even in the country/mountains there was a brown haze over everything. The flowers, though, were enough to distract me. There were cherry blossoms and chrysanthemums and orchids and all kinds of things I don't know the name for, but they were beautiful. We walked around and took about a hundred pictures (because that's what you do when you visit anywhere, the Thai people are firm believers in pics or it didn't happen!) and then got back in the songtaew. We stopped next at a nursery of sorts. It looked OTOP sponsored, with special areas for things like growth and demonstration of vanilla and Chinese tea and barley and other plants. Cue more photos. There was a little rose garden by a pavilion where we ate lunch. The roses were huge and smelled great. The kids had made some fried noodles and bought some chicken sausage. It was delicious and filling, and as usual, lacking in vegetables. 

I forgot to mention that on the way to the nursery, part of the road was absolutely terrifying. There were a couple of areas where there were huge holes (think car-sized) on one part of the road because the road had literally fallen off the side of the mountain. And there were humongous potholes that the songtaew had to slowly wind around.

After that visit, we went about 15 minutes back down the road and stopped again at some sort of orchid park. It was overlooking a cute pond. There were a bunch of fake large concrete orchids that were built as markers for the real orchids that were scattered among huge boulders. Cue about a thousand more photos. I went and found a large comfy looking boulder and sat for a while as the kids wandered around, and after about 20 minutes they pulled me down to join them in a different area. 

We left there and went to a place called Small Farm. It was what it sounded like, with a kind of attraction-parkish vibe. They had ostriches and horses and angus steer and sheep. There were babies! A baby sheep you could feed with a milk bottle, a couple of foals that were very shy, and 

Iittle piglets that were striped and adorable. And very smart, they kept trying to sneak out of the pen every time the door was opened. After about 180 more photos, that was it. We climbed back in the songtaew and made our way back down the mountain and came home. 

All in all, even though I was sleep deprived and felt sick at times on the way due to humongous potholes and curvy mountain roads, I had a great day. I'm glad the kids invited me.