June 6,

I woke up at 0350! Could not get back to sleep until around 0540. But my knees felt better. We got up and about 0700, having our Javas and breakfast leftovers of tomatoes & cucumber with sesame dressing; I had egg sandwich, Jeff had a PB&J. All the while we were packing up our stuff. Just before 1000, Jeff went out and returned Baloo. He then caught a Grab scooter ride to the airport to get our rental car. I finished up the packing while he was gone. When he returned, we loaded up, checking out by 1045 – which just involved turning the key back to the mailbox slot and texting our host.😂

We have a silver Toyota Yaris. It’s a roomy, four door and will be great for car venturing for a month. By 1100 we hit the road. We don’t really have far to go so we made a big detour before our final destination. Jeff has not driven a car since… Sri Lanka! That was back in July almost a year ago!! He had plotted a course to Queen Sirikit Botanical Gardens (QSBG). It is north of Chiang Mai and a bit west. It’s not too far as the crow flies, or in distance – only 31 km; but in a car… We go up & down mountains, through passes, winding on a very curved highway. We arrived just before noon, so basically an hour to go 31 km!

We paid the entrance fee for two foreigners and our car – total of 400 THB, which was $12.42. The map showed a big spread out garden with a loop road and parking all along at stops. We came to the first area – the Canopy Walk. We park and checked it out. It’s a very high, elevated and “see-through” mesh grate walkway over some jungle canopy. The entrance was just showing our already paid ticket! That was cool, especially if I could not handle it. The first steps were great though, so continued dealing with through my fear factor. The metal mesh is solid enough that I don’t really see though it unless I purposefully tried… and I had no desire to do that. There were so many birds calls or trills, and the trees are so tall and majestic. When we arrived at the end of the walk, it was an awesome vista of an overall valley. We also were rewarded with an extra special sighting of a beautiful bright red breasted bird perched some distance away on a top tree limb! We returned back to our car and moved on.

The next section was the Plant Conservatories. It included several covered walk-through greenhouse buildings. So we parked and walked about the buildings – there were like nine different ones. The first one was of Carnivorous plants, with all kinds of Pitcher plants and a few very small Venus flytraps. The next building one of note was of a few different peoples that make up some of the Thai populace. As we entered, there was a tree fruited out with grapefruit-sized, brilliant orange-red globes. A sign said the fruit is “Gac – The Wonder Fruit”. It is supposed to be edible – with “20 times Vitamin C found in an orange”, and good – “not only good for your health, but also for your skin”. Then the placard went into making it into soap. I would have liked to have tried in. Anyway, the rest of the building had displays of five tribes of Thai peoples: the Tai- that make up the majority of Northern Thailand population and are from the Lanna Kingdom; the Karen- who were described as “deeply connected with nature” and they do rice farming rotational systems; and lastly, I'll mention the Hmong- being the second largest ethnic group in Thailand and know for their “’ethnobotanical’ knowledge”.

We moved on through the remaining buildings, some were: Bromeliads, Water Lilies, then Aquatic plants, and Arid plants. But the biggest and best building was the Jungle, a multistory structure. It was a walk through a jungle-setting, along a ramp that descended or ascended whichever way you chose, winding around the perimeter – a multistory waterfall being a key, central piece. After we walked around, we came to the bottom and meandered on a trail that circled back through. There were many different plants and blooms of all colors. There was the classic and large Fan Palm, each leaf is longer than Jeff is tall. The coolest bloom was called a Beehive Ginger – so hard to describe, will post a picture of it.

Now we left the Conservatories area in our car, choosing the Natural Science Museum. We went in, but it was underwhelming, even though, I did learn that Thailand has ten types of forests. Also I learned the USA as a country, has the most diversified forest types due to its many geographical regions from Hawaii to Alaska, but it did not say how many the US has. We exited the museum and ate some cheese and crackers for a light lunch snack in our car. We were going to have some chocolate too, but it was too “melty”. Finished, we went to our last stop in the QSBG, the Mae Sa Noi Waterfalls. The falls were impressive for the sheer volume and spread of cascades, not for height. It was great. The waterfall site is also a camping area, that would be interesting and fun.

Now, we left the gardens (at 1430), and drove pretty much to our destination, following highway 118 to 120. We crossed from Chiang Mai Province to Chiang Rai, into Lampang then to Phayao Province. We stopped at 1630, at Kwan Phayao for an overlook Phayao town and its lake. Then we drove on into town and found our hotel, ABIZZ. We checked in and unloaded our stuff. We are here four nights and have a great lake view toward sunset from our room.

We were organized enough and went out for supper… because, starving😮! We found a restaurant called So Good. It was also right on the Lake Phayao so we watched sunset unfold during our meal. We had a Pad Krapow, which is stir-fried pork, and holy basil with rice; and a Steamed, whole Red Snapper in soy sauce with sauteed veggies. I had a lemon smoothie and Jeff had a large Chang Beer. The Snapper was a long 45 minute cook time, but we were fine with this as the Pad Krapow came out in 15 minutes. I felt like royalty as the wait staff tended to our every need, including refilling our water and ice. Sometimes it’s about the little stuff. But our food was… well – So Good!😋😋  This restaurant we felt was aptly named.😅 We enjoyed the whole ambiance: the glorious food, unfolding sunset, and even live Thai music. We finished paying 761 THB or $23.22.

Then we stopped at a 7Eleven and got a few items and returned to our hotel. Great day.