Ban Tham Lod Northern Thailand

My favourite place we visited in Thailand was  small villiage up in the North west of the country called Bam Tham Lod. We headed up North after our week in Bangers (aussie slang for Bangkok!) on a mission to find a less-inhabited and less-touristy part of the country.

We spent four nights in Chang Mai, and although it is somewhat smaller than Bangkok it is still Thailand's second largest city and very polluted and Touristy.
Chang Mai has an old district where most of the Tourism is centered. The old district is the part of the original city that was surrounded by a wall and moat. The moat is still in exsistance and ruins of the old wall are still around the city.

Room at Diva guesthouse is Chang Mai

It is a nice city but like many places we visited I felt that I wished I had seen it all thirty years earlier before it became so built up and touristy. But then I can also say that about places where I have lived in Australia! When I first moved to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland 30 years ago it still had the feel of a small beach-side town. Byron Bay 30 years ago was beautiful. I rememberstaying with my parents in a small fibro beach bungalow...where the gaint, modern Byron Hotel now stands...

We left Chang Mai (by mini bus, one of the most winding roads combined with a wanna-be formular 1 racing car driver) and 4 hours later arrived at a town called Pai. Pai apparently is the layed back hippy town of Thailand. To me it just seemed like another touristy town; the difference being that all the markets and activities are aimed at the "hippy" tourists pocket...but it was senically a beautiful area.
While we were here we rented our first motor scooters. We were staying a bit out of town and thought it would be good for getting around.

Tama, Tui and Peace on their scooter

I'm in love with Scooters! If I lived in a town or a slightly less hilly area (and didn't have so many kids to cart around) I would definitly buy a Scooter. They are so cheap to run and fun to ride.


After a couple of days we were ready to head more off the beaten path on our quest to actually expeience Thailand away from the touristy built-up areas.
I had read an article in the Bangkok Post that mentioned a small guest house in a small villiage owned by an ex-pat Australian and since the main activities in the area seemed to be rockclimbing, white water rafting and caving I had no trouble convincing Peace that we go there.

Tui on the banks of the Lod River near Ban Tham Lod

Cave Lod Guest House

Walking to the cave

This guest house know as Cave Lodge
Best place we went to in Thailand!
On a river in a secluded villiage. There's so much to say about it but I can't say it all.
The owner of the Cave Lodge John is absolutely amazing, inspirational man.
The location is beautiful.

While we were there we went caving and on Zans 17th Birthday went rafting down the Lod river through a 400m long cave.
Then John, the lodge owner arranged this beautiful birthday cake for Zan.

The tiny, muddy tunnel we crawled through to get inside the cave. It then opened up into a room about 10meters high and went back into the mountain for 8km!

Going into the cave

Inside Tham Lod (Cave Lod)

coming out of the cave

Tui and I with our River guide

A tissue, a Tissu

Yesterday it was Rain's birthday. We went out to lunch in Byron Bay.

I can't believe how quickly twelve years have passed and how big my beautiful daughter is now.

Eleven years ago, on her first birthday all she wanted was a box of tissues. She sat there and pulled every tissue out of the box and amused herself for ages.

This year she wanted a Tissu. Aerial silk, or ribbons are her favourite par of circus classes. o after researching the types of fabric I bought her the material, and Peace being an abseiler/ rockclimbing instructor bought all the safety rigging.

Happy Birthday Tui

Happy Birthday Boy

Yesterday my beautiful boy turned seven. We all went to this maze. It was heaps of fun.

We all got a little lost...

But finally made it to the viewing tower in the middle.

When we got home T spotted this Koala up in the tree beside our house.

Not only did he get this awesome box to play with...

but inside it was a brand new mountain bike!

Mr T declared that it was the best day ever!

From the Archives

It's Rain's birthday over the weekend. Tonight she is having a slumber party so I'm surrounded by lots of gigglkeing right now;)

And since my camera is dead I thought I'd post this photo of her 2nd birthday party.

We were travelling in our bus at the time and had a little party with some friends at the park in Port Douglas in Far north Queensland.

Interesting photo too because it's one of the only photo's of me around over the last twenty years in which I have a significant amout of hair on my head.

Courtesy of a tree lopping company that were pruning trees back from the power lines in our street, we now have two huge piles of woodchip to use as mulch on all the gardens. It's also been fun for the kids to ride their bikes over and dig in.

Mr T excitedly came in to me saying he had an awesome idea. He had noticed that when he dug down into the pile that it was really hot, so he wanted to try to cook some potatoes wrapped in aluminium foil like you cook them in the fire.

digging his cooking hole.

Unfortunately they didn't cook but I think that was mainly because he had to dig them up every half hour to check them:)

Rain, hanging out doing a bit of reading up the ladder...

This week it was my mums birthday and we had a lovely family lunch.

Happy Day Cake

It was little Tui's second birthday yesterday. She has sort of worked out what it's all about because it was her brothers birthday last week. She kept saying Tama Happy Day, me happy day.
And of course she wanted a happy day cake and some candles to blow out...over and over and over again!

More happy Birthdays

Spent a beautiful day at the beach today. It was Mr T's actual birthday today and we had a nice quiet day, just the family hanging out, playing together.

Adventure Party

Yesterday we had a party for Mr T who truns six tomorrow. We went down to the camp where P works and the kids had a go of some of the activities.

First they tried archery.

Then the mid ropes course which was heaps of fun.

Tui and I looked on from our perch in the tree.

Mr T monkeyed his way up the rockclimb.

This was a favourite, the super-surfer...

Zan made it to the top and managed to balance on the surf board.

And the yoyo looked like so much fun, Mr T called out, "I'm flying at last!"...

And lastly we sat by the lake while the kids had a canoe.

Zan's Birthday again!!!

I can't believe another year has passed so soon. Zan celebrated his 15th birthday last week. We went tenpin bowling. The kid.s really loved it especially the littlies who had never been before.
Mr T and Tui pretended to drive these racing cars. I didn't want to spoil their fun and tell them that you could put money in them and play a racing game ;)

Zan was disappointed with his game at first but soon found his mojo...

Afterwards we went to The Noosa National Park for a picnic at the beach. It was a perfect Spring day.

Tui immediately stripped off and jumped into the closest rockpool.

While the older ones were catching a few waves ou the back Tui and Mr T had so much fun building sand castles, digging holes and splashing each other and us!!!

Mr T was fascinated by these sea anenomies that close on your finger when you touch them.

Happy Birthday Zan!!!