Lampang, Thailand

I took an unexpected trip to the city/region of Lampang. I was invited by a Thai girl (Bo) I had met and figured why not. It’s not on the path of most tourists and until coming to the mall now I had only seen 4 white people. It is now up to 7. I took the bus from Chiang Mai here the other day and it was a chill and cheap ride. On the first day I just hung out for a while until my “tour guide” was done with class and able t show me around. I went to the hostel and then went out to eat and explore the night market. Later on we went out with her friends and I was treated to a night of drinking. Altitude is killing me here! I could barely get a buzz and I drank more than any of them. They just kept filling my glass almost nonstop!

The second day was when the adventure began. I got to spend the entire day out in the Lampang region. I was picked up at 9 and we drove for about 45 mins to an hour to get out to the mountains. 

We went to this secluded river area that has newly been opened for “business”. I am assuming I am one of the few white people that has been there with it being more new and how everyone there was excited to talk to me and learn where I was from. For about $3 I was able to go down the river on a bamboo/oil barrel tour raft for about 30 minutes in which we explored a small cave and a large rock formation/ wall with names and graffiti all over it. I’m very curious as to how some of these got there since it was at an incline and I can’t imagine how to climb up there myself. After that Bo and I got to go around on a kayak and explore the river on our own, swim and just float around for about 2 hours. This was all within the $3 spent. It was a real fun time and I was able to help her swim for the first time and somewhat teach her how to. It definitely helped that life jackets were provided. After all of these we were both very tired and hot. The hike back up to her scooter wasn’t too bad but was still tiring in the heat.

This time I drove for a little and got my first taste of driving a scooter. It was too bad but I did almost kill us on one turn! After this I went a little longer until she took back over since we got back to the highway. We went to get some food and ended up eating at a golf course. It was really nice and it overlook a HUGE construction/mining or something site. After we ate we just laid around in the grass for a while trying to finally gain some energy once again. There was a grass sledding hill which was very different and very interesting! I went down a few times and ended up getting as few grass burns. Over all it was pretty fun but I’d rather do it with snow. After this more exploration began once again.  We drove up the mountain until we reached the top. There was a large botanical garden with tons of local plants and trees. Within the middle was a 5 story observation tower which I eagerly climbed up. Here was a very beautiful view and you could see around for miles. The mountains looked beautiful! After walking around the gardens and enjoying the views we decided to go down to one of the bodies of water we saw and I drove down the mountain. This was a little scary and I didn’t even accelerate the entire time.

The water was alright but we didn’t stay long. It was getting late and we were tired so we decided to finally heads back to the city. The drive back was even longer since we had continued to go deeper into the mountains. My ass was so sore from sitting on the back of the scooter for such a long time. Once back we were both exhausted once I was dropped off I just laid around my hostel room and watched all my American tv shows I’ve been missing (Archer, The Flash, Gotham and Game of Thrones!!). It was nice to catch up and take advantage of the goods wifi connection.

It’s now day three in Lampang and I believe that after a movie this afternoon (hopefully there are subtitles or I won’t be going) I will be heading back to Chiang Mai for a few days until I head off to Pai. Lampang has been a great time and like I mentioned before it was really nice to get off the common tourist path. It’s good to be flexible when traveling and not stick directly to plans. If I had then I wouldn’t have been able to experience some more authentic Thailand and get to meet some very nice new people. So, anyone that’s planning on traveling soon keep that in mind!