DAY 8

Having had little or no sleep, we met for breakfast the next morning. The only person who seemed to get any sleep was Ian but they both still looked like they needed to sleep for a week. Jay and I both, 'touch wood' , have not gotten sick, being in and out of air conditioning and around so many people has had us worried.

We ate a quick breakfast and headed off to the markets. It was a fluke that we happened to be in Chiang Dao for their weekly Tuesday morning markets. They were full of people when we got there with more arriving. Hill tribe people were arriving crammed into the back of trucks and utes, all in traditional garb. But this was not for show, they were there as consumers and bargained as hard as the next person.

We did a spot of shopping and took some great photos before heading to Tham Chiang Dao, which is a cave complex close to where we were staying. Just outside the gate to the complex is a twenty-five top pagoda that dates back to AD 191 according to the sign. Heading in through the gate Jay heard the call of nature and while he went in search of the 'hawng nam' (toilet) we had a chance to explore some old stone Buddha's set into the side of the mountain covered in grass and moss. Close to the monks residence we found some old stone structures with barred windows which we believe may have been where they walled in the old monks when they meditated but that is pure speculation.

By this stage we were getting closer to the caves but there was so much to see outside. Just outside the entrance was a large clear pond filled with large carp and some really ugly catfish. We bought some fish food and fed them. The catfish are the greediest huddling together with their mouths open making a horrible sucking sound. Their heads out of the water, they caught the food as we threw it to them.

Finally we made it into the caves. The caves extend around 14 kms into the mountain and a very small portion of this is open to the public. We hired a guide to take us through with a gas lantern. It was pitch black inside and without the guide we would definitely have gotten hopelessly lost. I was looking forward to hearing about the legends of the caves and how they were formed. It was not to be, our guide spoke limited English and instead pointed to rock formations and told us what they had named them. 'Look! This rooster! See!' 'Look this elephant! See trunk! Good for photo, sit here!' He pointed to stalactites just beginning to form and shouted proudly, 'Fried Egg!' He took us through the smallest openings where we basically had to crawl through to get into a bigger cavern. Michelle was a little unsure as she suffers from claustrophobia but she coped really well despite some of the small spaces we crawled into. I think we walked, crawled and ducked through about 2kms of the caves. There were some old reclining Buddha's, one Thai, one Burmese housed within the caves.

Luckily for us I had a guidebook and so was able to find some of the legends about the cave while we were there. It is said that if you remove a piece of rock from the caves you will lose your way in their passages forever. I kept a close eye on Jay as he has a tendency to test these types of things and I had no desire to be lost in a cave forever!

The local legend of the caves say that it was the home of a reusii or hermit for 1,000 years and he was on such intimate terms with the deity world that he convinced the Buddhist equivalent of angels to create 7 magic wonders within the caves, a stream flowing from the pedestal of a solid gold Buddha, a storehouse of divine textiles, a mystical lake, a city of 'naga' (mythical serpents), a sacred immortal elephant and the hermits tomb. These are apparently deep inside the mountain where no one can see them. There was however, a shrine to the hermit that we were able to see.

After dropping Ian and Michelle off at the bus station for their trip back to Chiang Mai, Jay and I headed for a pretty place we'd heard about called Tha Ton. There wasn't supposed to be a lot there but we wanted somewhere picturesque where we could chill for the afternoon. The trick was getting there, English signs are few and far between, most are in Thai script. After stopping once to ask directions we established that we were on the right road. We arrived in Tha Ton, which is a pretty little town on a picturesque bend of a river, Mae Nam Kok. It was getting late in the afternoon so our first priority was finding a place to stay. Relying on the Lonely Planet we went to the 'Tha Ton Garden Riverside' which was their pick for the budget to mid range. The place had no character to it and certainly not the relaxing vibe we were looking for. We told the man who showed us the room that we were just going to check out another place and we'd come back. He told us, rather arrogantly, that we had 25 minutes and that he was expecting a busload of people who might book all the rooms! I highly doubted that but he made my decision, there was no way I was staying there!

This proved lucky for us as the next place was perfect! The 'Garden Home' consisted of beautiful thatched roof bungalows in amongst a well maintained garden. We splurged and got ourselves a bungalow on the river. Soon we were sitting on our verandah toasting each other with a cold Singha while the river rushed past and the sun reflected off a stone Buddha on the hillside above us. The perfect end to a perfect day!

THE PHOTOS FROM DAY 8 ARE NOW IN THE GALLERY!