Saturday 1st August, 1998. We left the ”Suanthip Vana Resort” at 09.00 hrs after thanking the Manager and all his staff for their wonderful hospitality to us. We walked down the very steep slope from the hotel entrance, to highway 118 below, and continued walking towards Chiang Rai. Our walk today continued through the hills with lovely scenery and lots of fresh, clean air. We asked several times during our drink stops about accomodation, but nobody knew anything! At dusk, after walking 21 kms, we spotted “Thong Kwaw Bungalows” at Ban San Champa, with a restaurant and a very nice family who owned them. We took a bungalow each for 200 baht. The place was very busy later in the evening, but we had to sleep!

Sunday 2nd August, 1998. We started walking at 10.30 hrs as it rained overnight and was still raining at 09.30 hrs. The road was again in the hills with many sharp bends. We sometimes had to walk in the drainage ditches on these bends to avoid the traffic. We met the Police and asked them about accomodation and they gave us coffee. At 18.00 hrs at Sop Huai we saw “Chuong Doi Inn” bungalows with blue roofs on a hillside. The owner wanted 300 baht but we got 2 bungalows for 200 baht each. They were not very clean, damp and no running water, but we had no choice and the owners were very friendly:

http://www.escati.com/maps/northwest.jpg

Monday 3rd August, 1998. We left at 08.00 hrs after eggs and coffee with our great hosts. We left the hills behind and were walking on the flat land and then joined highway 1 heading to Chiang Rai. It started raining hard 6 kms from town so we took a micro-bus to Chiang Rai as we would walk this road later from Chiang Rai to Phayao, so it wasn’t cheating! It rained for 24 hours. We found “Ruentip Hotel’ 2 kms from town, which we had seen advertised all along highway 118 and got a room there for 350 baht. We decided to stay 2 nights and find other accomodation in town, tomorrow. We sent our clothes to the hotel laundry, as it was cheap and we ate in the hotel restaurant, ‘The Sperm Pub’:

http://www.chiangmai-chiangrai.com/1_chiangrai.html

Yours truly,

Escati Tiger Team Walking For Thailand