Using what you have for what you need

It is always fun to see how people innovate using what they have. On our trek, Asa would make so many amazing things out of bamboo. 

Such a long list of what can be made out of bamboo in the jungle without having to process it at all. 

Our guide, Asa, would sharpen his knife on a flat sandstone rock. 

Once his knife was sharp enough, he would chop off some old dried up bamboo to use to build a fire. He did this by cutting off peices, slamming it against the rock and splitting it. 

Then he made a "pot" by placing it in the fire full of water and a "lid" with banana leaves so that we could drink tea from leaves he gathered along our hike out if bamboo mugs he made. That's not all be cause then he made us bamboo spoons to eat our fried rice that was "packaged" in a banana leaf. 

Besides our immediate uses for bamboo many of the hill tribes used it for the side walls of their homes and used large leaves for the roofs. 

We learned that the large leaves must be replaced every 2 years to keep the water out. 

Another fun detail of the home in the Karen village was that it was off the ground. Drop some food in the floor? No problem, just sweep it through the crack in the floor and the chickens will eat it up. We had fun exploring which friends of ours might do well with that kind of cleaning style. 

Out of the jungle, there are other neat uses f things. A big issue are flies near food. Today we walked by some food stalls where we saw pompoms spinning over what appears like the motor of a fan suspended over the food. Great idea!! 

One thing I do want to take home is a cool tool used for shredding green papaya. Hopefully I find the store that sells that utensil :)

Maybe it will happen tonight as we are off to go to a cooking class. 

This just in- a special post

This is a notable post to mark Suzanne's adventures in street food. 

All great things and then.... Some insects

Props to Suzanne for adventurous eating. Apparently, the crickets taste the best. 

Hot springs and bicycles

Our original plan was to cycle to the hot springs today.  Then we met Sebastian from argentina who told us that Pai was the place to try a motorbike. I wasn't convinced as i have heard of too many injuries from motorcycles. That is, until we went to get one and all the motorcycles were rented out and we were back to our original plan. Ha!

Maybe another time :)

Back to plan A- we had an awesome ride,  soaked In some hot springs, and even watched people make hard boiled eggs in the upper pools (HOt!)

Tomorrow we head to the hills for a guided hike. 

Now we hope to enjoy find a massage place, have a beer and find some good food. 

Morning jog to pai

We had a great rest of the day exploring pai. It was nice to walk to the temple and see the sunset on our walk back into town. We stopped for a massage on the way back. Then, as we strolled back to the hotel for the night, we found that our street turned into a night market with many options of small portion sized thai food along the way. We ate our dinner picking up a $1 pad Thai, then a papaya salad, some quail eggs and some not so sweet sticky rice. 

With grand thoughts of going out to hear some music, we went back "home" to change and ended up heading right to bed. 

Up early, another morning run- off to the Buddha on the hill just past the temple. It was early enough that the low fog was still there helping create a nice quiet setting. With only one other person at the temple, the yogi in me surfaced and I was able to do some yoga before jogging back to town. What a perfect setting for a little morning adventure. 

Chiang Mai-pai

Awake early and unable to sleep, I rolled out of bed early for a run around the perimeter of the old city of Chiang Mai. 

Traffic was light and it was easy to navigate around the canal that surrounds the old city. Oncei returned we all had to get ready for our venture to pai. 

Pai is a touristy "backpacker" town ~3hours by bus from Chiang Mai. It was an adventurous van ride passing as our driver passed people on the windy two lane road through the hills. My eyes were glued to the road to avoid getting car sick and I felt as if I was in a video game. 

We arrived safely and quickly found a lovely place to stay. See the entrance below. 

Made it to chiang Mai.

Just a few photos from the night market. 

Day 2-it's tuk tuk time

This our first Full day on the road. I think we all got enough sleep on our lumpy beds and were ready to roll. 

Our goal today was toget out f the center of town. We ended up checking out some ruins called wiang kum kam that were discovered in the mid 80s. It was an area that had been flooded for many years causing people to leave the settlement. It had been redeveloped  and people had been living in top of the ruins. Our tuk tuk ride out there was just as interesting as the ruins.  We got back to Chiang Mai and were happy to explore one of the temples and then find some awesome Thai food. 

We found some stores, some snacks and made our way back to the hotel.