Tues 25th Dec – Thaton - Mae Salong

Christmas day.
It was a beautiful morning and I had breakfast in the restaurant in the orange grove beside the river. So lovely in fact that I decided to stay another night and explore here a little.

I noticed an enormous white Buddha on the hillside above the river which looked rally impressive shining in the sun.

However I decided to leave that till later and took a local bus to a the net town 46km away Mae Salong. The journey was through some beautiful mountain scenery wit Orange groves, tea plantations, palm trees, banana pants and quiet roads.

On the way a guy got on who was dressed in what I think is one of mountain tribe traditional costumes. I’m sure he wasn’t dressed like this for the tourists, his clothes were too worn and dirty. We were pretty much face to face and I could see him looking at me and thinking what is this strange creature and my look surely told the same story. Anyway few miles down the road he pulled out and ancient filthy mobile phone and started to check for any texts. Perhaps he was trying to show me he wasn’t that primitive after all.

The bus stopped 16km from Mae Salong and I was told that I would need to get another bus the rest of the way, also I would have only half an hour there before the last bus back to Thaton. It turned out that half an hour was enough for me. Mae Salong is a stopping off point for many of the tours. It has an interesting Wat and the streets are lined with people dressed in mountain Tribe clothes selling souvenirs. Its in a lovely position in the mountains but for me the best thing was the scenery on the way there.

When I got back I met an Italian guy called Alberto. We decided to meet later for dinner. Christmas dinner in fact.

I phoned Sally who wasn’t feeling very well. A very bad cold by the sounds of things. It was nice to here her voice again that is what I could hear of it.

After a Christmas dinner of Chicken and cashew nuts Chinese style we headed out on the town to find out we were the only ones about. We did find a couple of French people and an English guy is a guest house bar however. The French were only really interested in talking to themselves and the English guy ended up getting into an argument with the owner when she wanted to close at 10:30. I left before things got to hot. The next day she told me that she called the police to get rid of him. She told me he was luck because she had a gun in her car. Which was a surprise.