Northern Thailand

The Libra Guest House was a great place! Cheap, Clean, Friendly, Helpful, and in a good location!

I got there at 4AM because I took the night bus from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. I then hopped on a tuk tuk to get me to my lodgings. The driver seemed to know exactly where the Libra was. Apparently, it's well known.

So I woke a man up who was sleeping in the common area, and he kindly gave me the keys to a room and quoted me 180Baht a night. I ended up not having to pay for that first night (4AM-10AM). Plus, they only charged me 150Baht.

I also went on the 3 days 2 nights trekking trip that Libra Guest House hosted. It was really fun and quite an adventure for me. 1800Baht was a good bargain.

The sisters who took care of the business were also very helpful with traveling information. They helped me with how to get to Mae sa Long and what to see in Chiang Mai.

This was a place filled with friendly travelers. I had a great time bonding w/ my trekking buddies.

All in all, I'm very glad I heard about this place online.

As I walked around Chiang Mai, I saw numerous noodle shops. So, every morning, I tried different types.

First morning, I had the wide noodle strips with beef. I think it normally comes w/ the innards of beef, but I told the store owner, no intestines or tripe for me.

Second day, I had rice noodles. That was quite yummy with meat balls. The soup base was also beef.

First place was 30 baht, and the second was 25 baht.

Then after seeing all the wats in Chiang Mai, and after walking around for 3 hrs under the hot sun, I walked to a random place for fried rice. It was exactly what I needed: Not too oily, not hot and it had cucumbers on the side for the daily veggie intake.

Yummy! All 3 places were modest shops with no interior decoration whatsoever. But the food was cheap, and it was good!

It was a three nights/two days trek. The group consisted of four 21-year-old male Danes, two 30-ish Aussie guys, one female Brit, one male Brit, one male Irish, one female Belgian, and one New Yorker (me)!

We started in Chiang Mai, drove northward, and arrived three hours later. We then walked 1.5 hours to a waterfall to have our lunch (fried rice). The walk included steep uphill climbs and flat narrow strips within the bamboo forest, crossing streams or rivers using bamboo or wooden planks. We walked another 2.5 hours to get to our Lisu village. We spent our first night there. We, the girls, walked around the village first, while the boys just went to play soccer at the school playground. The soccer field was a very simple modest one. The goals consisted of crude poles. After soccer game, the guys went to take a shower in the freezing cold river.

We used clean wipes the first night to clean ourselves. We had chicken green curry, and a sweet and sour chicken dish, with some kind of clear soup. It was so cold at night that everything tasted so good. We were famished and cleaned the whole table. Afterwards, we participated in a small night market where the tribal children came to us with merchandise they made. We were sort of pressured into buying stuff. Later that night, we gathered around the campfire and the children sang to us. It was really nice. After the concert ended, the fellowship continued. We just chatted about random things and bonded.

The second day, we crossed the river where the boys washed themselves yesterday and continued with our trek. We walked another two hours to the rafting place. We had lunch there: instant noodles with veggies added, and rye bread. In the afternoon, we rafted for three hours to the next village. We had a raft competition between the three rafts. The Danes won, the young, fit, and competitive Danes!

We all washed (yes, the girls, too) in the river. And then headed up to the Lahu village, which was a more wealthy village with a paved road.

Dinner was red and green curries, and soup. We had another campfire and chatted some more. Friends we had made in Chiang Mai, who had a private tour group of four, came to visit! They lived in a hut about 10 minutes away. It was a pure coincidence seeing them.

The next morning, we went on an elephant ride. It was scary because there was a lack of elephants, so some of us had to sit on the head of the elephant where the mahout usually sits.

An hour later, we went back to the minibus and then headed to the Chiang Dao Cave! We went to a cave exploration for an hour and then had lunch. It was scary and stuffy in the cave. We saw a huge spider and lots of cool rock formations. It would have been nice if we had a guide who explained to us what the formations were. Then it was the three-hour ride home.