Who knew you could be freezing in Thailand?

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We rolled into Mae Hung Son around noon, after a 5 hour public bus ride from Pai. Daniel slept most of the way while I enjoyed a little Jack Johnson, The Beautiful Girls and Bedouin Soundclash as we took steep turns and barreled our way down mountain roads.

A small city with not to many attractions, Mae Hung Son doesn't get the tourist pollution of Bangkok or Chiang Mai. With an amazing Pagoda on a hill over looking the city, a great little man made lake with a night market surrounding it and hill tribes just a short motor bike out tour away...we made the most of our time in this quiet city. With only a $3 Notre Dame sweatshirt that I bought in Pai...this little town in the mountains tought me that Thailand can easily be freezing at night.

Its such an experience to be gunning your bike up mountain passes only to shift it into neutral at the top so you can coast down the other side, all the while still passing mini buses and cars on breakneck corners

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After lunch we rented a single scooter and headed to a long neck village 25k outside the city. After a few close calls, an exciting dirt road (only cause we had two big guys on a tiny scooter) we made it to the village. An incredibly intriguing people, we spent a few hours taking pictures and walking through their small slice of Thailand. On our way back a stopped at the Pagoda on the top of the hill over looking the city to catch a sunset. After taking a few pictures with some monks we ran into a girl from Eugene, Oregon (Emily) who was coincidentally staying at our guest house. We all grabbed a bite to eat, talked into the early morning hours about politics, religion, the US and how great it is to be Canadian ;)

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The next morning we convinced her to join us on an all day adventure, back towards Pai on scooters, to check out Thailand's biggest cave system and what an adventure it turned out to be.

Starting of on the right foot, Daniel managed to run straight into a wall 3 feet in front of him while trying to turn around to help Emily start her bike. Being that it was right in front of the place we rented the bikes from....I couldn't help but laugh at him for a good hour or so. After 2 hours of driving up and down mountain passes at breakneck speeds, we found the cave (of course after we over shot it by 20k). Part hiking/bamboo rafting we made our way though these massive caves that at one time in habited people a couple thousand years ago. On the way back I managed to get separated from the group and coincidentally was out of gas for the last half of the trip back to Mae Hung Son. Its such an experience to be gunning your bike up mountain passes only to shift it into neutral at the top so you can coast down the other side, all the while still passing mini buses and cars on breakneck corners. Getting a sport bike when I get back home....highly likely!!!

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After reuniting back at the guest house, we grabbed some Thai fondu (an interesting experience), said our goodbyes and went to sleep semi early. With a 5 hr mini bus ride back to Chiang Mai at 7am followed by a 11 hr bus ride to bangkok the same day...we knew we where in for one hell of a 24 hour period.