Today we slept until we woke up, still not using an alarm clock
reliably. We decided that we felt well enough to move on to another
city and took advantage of the internet working in the room to
research the city we wanted to go to next. The original plan was to go
to Mae Hong Son, but after reading about the city, we were not very
excited about it. Instead we decided on the half way point between the
two, Soppong, which turned out to be a very good choice for us.
Soppong is a smaller, less touristy town and supposed to have lots of
trails nearby, some leading to hill tribe villages, normally reached
only through annoying organized tours. The main attraction is Tham
Lod, a large river cave, in addition to which there are lots of other
caves.
Getting to Soppong
We packed up our stuff and went to find some breakfast. We carried our
bags all the way to Tik Kitchen, but again it was closed. When are
they open?? We knew our normal place wouldn't disappoint, so we
returned there for our standard rice soup and cards. By the time we
got to the bus station, it was 11:15 and were told that the next bus
wasn't leaving until 13:00. We had an hour and a half to kill so we
found a place close enough to the bus station, offering good shade and
thai ice tea, and wrote a little. We got to the bus station 15 min
before our bus was scheduled to leave, but in Thai time, we were very
early as our bus left about 15 min late. The bus station was a bee
hive of activity as it was a Sunday and all the weekend travelers had
to return to the big cities for Monday. It was interesting to watch
them fill up mini-buses one after the other.
While we were waiting for our bus, we saw this woman carrying around a
large fire spinning stick and immediately thought: I bet she does fire
shows to pay for her travels! What a great idea for Thailand. But as
it turns out, this was not the case. She ended up approaching us to
see if we knew if the recently arrived bus was headed to Soppong. We
had just asked the driver the same question, so we were able to
confirm that it was. We sat down in the seat across from her and
Robert started a conversation, but now has forgotten what they really
talked about, certain only that it contained the usuals: Where are you
from? Where are you going? How long have you been there? The three of
us hit it off pretty well. After our hour long bus ride to Soppong, we
got off and said our goodbyes. She was headed to a place called Cave
Lodge, walking distance to Tham Lod, while we had a few other
guesthouses we wanted to check out first, but maybe we would see each
other at the cave eventually.
Guesthouse Search Mission
We were now on a guesthouse search mission. We spent 40B on a kilo of
oranges (som), a variety probably closer to pomelos or tangerines and
enjoyed them immensely during our wanderings in search of lodging. We
had three options on our list: Little Eden (300m), Rim Doi (1.5km) and
Cave Lodge (9km). We walked through the midday boiling heat and
humidity to the nearest option; it was nice, but not really what we
wanted. It was in the middle of town, but Soppong is where you go to
see the jungle. We wanted to check out at least one other place before
committing. We debated getting two motorbike taxis to ferry us to the
next place, but decided we could handle the 1.5km walk out of town.
The first room we saw at Rim Doi was really nice, but it cost 700
baht, which was way over priced, and the 250 baht rooms were just
trash - don't ever stay at Rim Doi in Soppong.
So now we are 1.5 km out of town and have the choice to go back and
get two motor bike taxis, one for each of us, at 70 baht apiece or
find a real taxi for 300 baht or just walk the next 7.5 km. We do the
very logical thing and decide to walk. They want 300 baht for a taxi -
they're crazy! That's like a whole $10 for a 15 min taxi ride. We
really should have been hitchhiking instead of just walking because
that's the thing to do if you want to get around on the cheap here in
Thailand, but we weren't. It was an enjoyable walk though - at least
the shady parts.
At one point Robert quietly called out from behind, "hey jenn?" I
turned around to see that he had a pack of young thai boys following
him - one grinning and in lockstep with Robert. This boy was very
chatty, in Thai and some simple English phrases. I used every bit of
Thai I could muster: Hello. How are you? Where are you going? We also
exchanged names in English. His was Vichai, according to my ear. He
also mimed that he liked how much taller Robert was than him. Then I
asked him the word for beard, in Thai, but I immediately forgot it.
Robert is getting very hairy at this point, so I was trying to imply
that Robert was both taller and hairier, but the details were lost
between languages. They followed us until the river swimming and
fishing hole. Shortly after, a man in a military uniform gave us a
ride the rest of the way. Thank you very much, my friend!
Once at Cave Lodge, we knew that this was the place for us (mainly
because there was no way we were going to get a ride back into town
now). We chose the expensive room, 500 baht as a posed to the 400 baht
one, because it didn't have holes in the walls. Unlike in Pai, where
if you mention that you want to do some independent trekking, they
look at you like you are stealing money from them, this place gives
you a map of the area when you check in! Magical. They do ask,
however, to let them know where you are going before you leave and to
take three sources of light and friends if you plan to go into a cave.
I enjoyed both the trust and the safety consciousness. And the hand
drawn map of the area is quite interesting!
Cave Lodge, at last
Soppong is where many treks booked in Chiang Mai or Pai come to hike,
so it makes it a very good place for people who want to do an
independent trek to come and check out, cut out the middleman. After
checking in, we had some lunch (at 16:15) and noticed our new friend
Jackie, who beat us here despite leaving at the same time (she by
motorbike taxi, us by foot). After food and a laugh with Jackie, at
our expense, we decided to walk down to Tham Lod, the big cave around
here, to see the 30,000 swifts and bats change place in the cave, bats
out, swifts in. We of course watched where the river entered the cave
and all the action is where the river leaves the cave, but we still
did see a fair number of swifts swirl and disappear into the cave.
As darkness fell, we used our headlamps to navigate the riverside
trail leading back to Cave Lodge. Dinner was in order since the
kitchen closed at 19:30, pad Thai and noodle soup. We ate and then
Jackie came by to chat, which was welcome for both of us, starved for
good conversation. The community of people at this guest house seems
more real and interesting than at some other places we have stayed. As
everyone else decided to go back into town to check out the winter
festival, we called it an evening and went to shower and to bed. We
had a big day of jungle hiking and the alarm was set for a very early
hour, 7:00am.
One amusing note about the shower. During the cold season (now), the
guesthouse makes a big fire and heats a lot of water for everyone to
shower in the evenings. You turn the tap on and let the cold water in
the pipe run out, then the water gets increasingly warm to hot even.
It's much better than cold water, because in the mountains here, it
does get pretty chilly (in the fifties just before dawn according to
the reliable alarm clock thermometer).
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