The night’s stay at the Mae Salong Flower Hill Resort came with breakfast included. So, we went over to the dining room to give the buffet a try. The breakfast buffet was completely forgettable. However, the view from the terrace almost made up for it.

Doi Mae Salong house with a view.

After checking out, we drove back into Santikhiri. As we rounded the corner into town, the morning light glowed off Wat Santikhiri high above the town.

Wat Santikhiri dominates the town below.

As cool as seeing that was, we actually drove back to visit a special part of the town itself; the War Veteran’s Village (excerpted from Wikipedia: There is a Chinese community in northern Thailand, in a town called Mae Salong near Myanmar. After the defeat and exile of the Kuomintang from Mainland China by forces led by Mao Zedong, several Kuomintang army divisions in the Yunnan province fled into neighboring Myanmar. After being expelled from that country, the Mainland Chinese veterans fought Thai communists on behalf of the Thai government and were granted citizenship. Mae Salong was established by veterans of the Kuomintang army 93rd Division. Many of Thai-born Chinese generations have relocated to Taiwan, though their fathers and grandfathers, refuse because of an owed apology from the KMT for refusing them in the 1950s and 1960s. They have since made a retirement home-styled town, called “the home to the glorious people” (榮民之家)).

Gate to the War Veteran’s Village, Santikhiri.

Before we hit the highway again, we stopped for our mandatory morning i-coffee… and were treated to more spectacular scenery.

Smoky haze over Santikhiri.

You may have noticed that many of the viewscape images have had a smoky haze (at least to some degree). This haze is not mist, fog, or low cloud. This smokiness is exactly that; smoke from literally thousands of brush/field fires throughout the farming areas of Thailand. This is an annual event, with the farmers first setting the fires in late February and continuing through to May or June. The fires are set to clear brush, prepare the fields, and to promote the growth of mushroom crops in some areas. Unfortunately, the by-product of this is an asthmatic’s worse nightmare – about four months of the year where fine to medium-sized particulate matter fills the air 24/7. When you add in all the diesel exhaust and the burnt two-cycle motor oil to the equation; these months are not the best time to visit Thailand (from Bangkok to the northern frontier) for anyone who has a compromised respiratory status or smoke sensitivities. The upside though, are truly memorable sunsets and African-like sunrises.

Ahead of us were several hours of driving; as we descended from the hills we noticed the haze getting thicker. The other thing that was noticeable as we headed south from the Thai-Myanmar frontier was the sheer number of joint Thai police-army check-points on the highway. According to Lek, they were on the look-out for people entering Thailand from Burma without proper documentation. We went through a check-point seemingly almost every 30 minutes.

By around lunchtime we arrived at our destination for the day; the lake-side town of Pha Yao (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phayao). We stopped for a quick bite and then found a quaint little guesthouse only a block off the lake-front. It was clean, had air-conditioning and a fan, featured it’s own ensuite, and had private 24/7 access. The only downside was that the bed was “firm” enough to be almost considered fossilized. But at 500 Baht or about $16 for the night (less than half the cost of either of the two Chinese-style resorts), it was exactly what we were looking to find.

Our Pha Yao guesthouse – we were in the little addition behind the black truck.

We spent the next few hours chillin’ out… or rather, I spent my time catching up on this blog and Eron was planning the next legs of our trip. It wasn’t a siesta but it was nice quiet-time in our air-conditioned room; outside it was in the mid-30’s Celsius and high on the ol’ “muggo-meter”. The other thing was, the haze had gotten quite bad; to the point where my eyes were getting scratchy and irritated.

Later in the afternoon, Lek came to fetch us; it was time to go see Wat Tilok Aram or the “Sunken Temple” on Pha Yao Lake (http://visitphayao.com/en/district/muang). This Wat is on a small island and can only be reached via small boats.

Boats to Wat Tilok Aram; the Wat is just off-shore.

Remember what I said about the haze doing beautiful things with the light…

Hazy sun over Pha Yao Lake.

A few minutes of travel on the boat and we would arrive at Wat Tilok Aram. The boat-ride was quite serene and contemplative as there was no whine of a motor; just the rhythmic lapping of the ferryman’s paddle in counterpoint to the hypnotically repetitive sound of gongs radiating outward from the island. Between the heat, the gentle motion of the boat, and the preternatural combination of transcendental sounds… one could almost feel a sense of enlightenment… a lightening of one’s soul. In fact, the only noises that kept jarring me back from the edge of a near-mystical experience were the loud, nasally tones of a couple of middle-aged French tourists who apparently didn’t know when to shut the focque up. I keep telling Eron I was just one boat-ride from self-actualization when it was hi-jacked by Marie and Gagnon of the good-ship Ignorance.

Wat Tilok Aram, Pha Yao Lake.

Buddha at Wat Tilok Aram.

Paying respect at the Shrine.

Far shore of Pha Yao Lake.

Then it was time for the ferryman to take us back to shore.

Ferryman taking us back to shore.

The northern shore of the lake is backed by mountains but you can’t see them at all through the haze.

Sun setting over Pha Yao Lake.

Later, as we walked the lake-front strip in search of a restaurant for dinner, we came across this on the front of the “White Bar”.

Sign on the front of the White Bar.

I guess the trouble only really comes once he becomes your only friend….