Got up early this morning as the tour bus was supposed to be at the lobby for 8:30am….I signed up for the Jungle Safari Zip Line Trek which has about 5km of zip lines strung in the jungle canopy…It’s 9:oo am, still no show on the tour bus…I talked to the girl I booked the tour from (hotel lobby) and she says the van went to the wrong hotel and will be here in 10 mins…back to waiting I go….9:30 am and still no signs of a van, just a bunch of taxi drivers looking for a fare, back to the lobby and now the manager is involved (at least I think he was since he was dressed differently) and he ends up calling the tour company and hands me the phone….what am I supposed to do?? I only know two words in Thai and the girl on the other end knows about the same amount of English. Anyhow, after babbling into this cell phone (and obviously getting no where), I handed the phone to the girl who booked for me in the first place…well, I don’t know any Thai, but from what I could gather, their conversation probably would of made a trucker blush, there was all sorts of yelling and screaming and in the end, the explanation to me was that they didn’t understand the schedule…seems like a little BS to me, so I just told them to cancel the whole dam thing…in the end, I’m booked with a different tour company for tomorrow to do zip lining as well…we’ll see what happens….funny enough, the outfit that I am booked with tomorrow just happens to be the more expensive one as well…hmmm, all part of their master plan??? Probably not, just my conspiracy paranoia acting up…

So now that the zip line tour is kyboshed for today, what to to??? Well, it just so happens that I was talking with one of the hotel employees about Muang On Caves…It is located about 35 km outdie of Chiang Mai and contains several fossilized animals including a full dinosaur skeleton, it was also the favorite meditation place for a very well repected monk from 80 years ago “Pra Khru Ba See Wichai”….his remains are even enshrined at the entrance….After negotitiating a tuk tuk to take me out there, off I went….

45 minutes later (tuk tuks aren’t very fast) I’m standing at the base of the stair case that leads up to the cave entrance, my immediate thoughts were “Grouse Grind” for those that don’t know, the “Grind” is a bit of landmark in Vancouver. It is essentialy a hike up the side of Grouse Mountain in Vancouver that resembles a staircase and lasts for about 2.9 km and is commonly refered to as “mother natures stairclimber”….So, off I went and the further I got, the more I felt I was on the Grind, huffing and puffing with every step!!! Fortunately the cave entrance was no where near 2.9 km so I reached the entrance in no time….

 

It’s a little earry when you first enter as you have to descend down a steep long stairwell that is pretty much like climbing down a ladder into this dark cavern,but once your eyes get accustomed to the darkness, everything is well lit with flourescent tubes strung along the walls…

Once down into the depths of the caves, you will find a myraid of little shrines that are dimmly lit, some ancient writings on the walls, a huge lying buddah, a big fossilized dinosaur skeleton and of course this huge 30 foot staligmite that has been turned into a shrine….

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When exiting the caves (same as the entrance), there are two options, continue down the stairs and back to the parking lot, or option two, continue up the stairs to the top of the mountain…..option two is where the climb really reminded me of the grouse grind!!! Basically a staircase up the side of a mountain. I took option two and had my workout for the day….

It took about 40 minutes to get to the top which had great views below to the villages and (you guessed it!!) a couple of shrines….unfortunately, unlike the Grind, there was no bar up top to have a drink and no tram to take you down to the bottom, so I had to do it the old fashioned way, a bottle of water and taking the stairs down….

Tommorrow, I’m gonna try the zip line thing again then leave Chiang Mai on saturday….We’ll see how it goes….