Doi Chiang Dao

Doi Chiang Dao
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We walked to the bus station from our guest house in chiangmai, the journey to chiang dao took about an hour and a half. We came to Chiang Dao because it is quite a famous bird watching spot. The Giant Nuthatch and Hume's pheasant are supposed to be seen here quite regularly, unfortunately we saw neither though we did disturb a pheasant on one of the trails but it was gone before we could properly see it :(. On our first day in Chiang Dao we visited the caves we were told we could go without a guide but we would probably not get far. the cave complex was enormous we were not allowed to use our torches for some reason, though the guide carried a gas lamp which just added to the experience. we climbed through tiny passages on hands and knees which led to massive caverns that appeared larger than a football stadium, we were glad we took the guide, at the bottom of one cavern their was a huge pit that neither of us saw until we were on the edge, the guide said it dropped for 20 meters before hitting the water. the next day we did a long nature trail which at one point we were beginning to think it was going all the way to the top of the mountain it was so steep (emily was cursing at Ian every other step) most of the birds we saw at chiang dao we had already seen at Doi inthernon  though we did manage to add a few sunbirds, grey headed parrot bill and orange-bellied leaf bird. We hired a motor bike for three days to get around one day we just drove around the endless sea of rice paddies getting a little lost. (Ian is much better on the bike now though still leaves most the driving to emily). after a few days here we went back to Chiangmai in time to see the kings birthday celerbrations on the 5th of december.

we climbed through tiny passages on hands and knees