Mae Hong Son by Motorbike part 4 (final part): Buffaloes & Tigers

Last day (day 5, Friday 21 May): After spending a pleasant night in Pai we made our way back to Chiang Mai. We stopped off at Tham Pla (fish cave) where they have lots of these blue carp-type fish. It was very well maintained, neat and tidy (rather unusual for Thailand) and there was a cool blue-headed lizard on a tree. And I found some really good-quality Engrish - enjoy!


There wasn't much else on the road between Pai & Chiang Mai, mostly winding highway through pine forests (yes, pine). Lots of CHM-Pai buses on this road. Here are some random pictures of me on the bike.
Just outside of town, Daeng pulled over and said "now we're gonna eat larb!" Larb is a spicy minced meat dish typical of northern Thailand and Laos. This little roadside outfit specialised in buffalo larb - turns out they eat buffalo too!!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Clockwise from bottom: sticky rice, spicy buffalo larb, extremely spicy buffalo soup, cold mashed fish with crunchy things (possibly pork crackling?) basket of assorted herbs & veges

I like the sticky rice - you break off a bit, mash it into a ball and dip it in your sauce. The sauce, however, was a whole different ball game. The buffalo larb was very spicy but manageable; with rice and assorted herbs (basket of random green things) it was quite nice but the soup was completely untoucheable. I felt i had to try everything so I did, and ate quite a bit of the larb. But I paid for it alright, my stomach was making funny rumblings all afternoon and felt like death the next morning :(

Last stop on the way back to town was the Tiger Kingdom. This is MUCH better than the Tiger Temple by Bangkok, the tigers look really healthy and are quite frisky, there is no chance that they're drugged. It's not cheap to go in but totally worth it - I got to cuddle the 3 month old tiger cubs!!! They sleep 18 hours a day when they're that young, the handlers said I could pat them and cuddle them, he took a few photos of me with them :) A great end to the trip!

(the tiger has a weird face because he's sleeping)

that's my Lawa bracelet with the silver dots

I'm now back in Chiang Mai. I'm here for about a week before I head up to Laos. First thing on the agenda: a long massage!! Riding a bike for 5 days straight was getting a bit painful towards the end :P Also on the list: cooking course, shopping at the night bazaar and just checking out the town. Stay tuned for the next episode!

Leave a comment - it's nice to hear from you :)

Love
May Lee