29-01-2020
10am start today as we headed off into the mountains to Pua. What we estimated to be a few hours drive ended up as 5 hours.
Some of the scenery, particularly the last hour was stunning despite the smoke that hangs heavily over this corner of Thailand. Arrived at our hotel which has a stunning view over the agricultural area. The building is very new and clean. Downsides, hardest bed I think I can remember. Owner organised 2 under lays to soften bed. Thank you.
Dinner was found during our evening walk around Pua markets.
30-01-2020
Breakfast today was included in hotel price. Breakfast more suitable to Thai travellers with no fruit, juice, milk or usual omelette etc. rice porridge and other traditional breakfast items. Our trip plan today was to head east to the ancient salt well, before heading north to a Thai, Laos boarder. Then we would head west and south back to Pua.
Pua is about 300m above sea level so we were surprised to find ourselves at 1715m in the mountains not long after leaving Pua. Our next spot was the salt well where villages have produced 60kg of salt per day from the extremely saline supplied well. Heading north from here we eventually came to the head waters of the great Nan River. We then followed along the edge of this river to the Thai Laos border which was surprisingly quiet. We assume as they no longer issue visas for most foreigners. This area was also the location of a war in the 1970s against the communists. After a stop for lunch we headed west and south back to Pua, taking time to see a temple and a couple of markets. After getting back to our hotel we walked off to get dinner.
31-01-2020
This morning is all about Thai hospitality. The owners realised the we didn’t eat much breakfast yesterday and before we knew it had raced off to get eggs and hot sausages for us. Wow we were just blown away by their efforts. Thank you Pua Panorama Resort. We decided today was a lazy day so Alison headed off for the hairdresser and we both just relaxed enjoying the view for the day. The evening we visited the markets where Pua was kicking its heals up for the night. Great energy!
01-02-2020
This morning we left Pua for Nan. It not a long trip so we took our time. Our wonderful hosts made us a special breakfast again this morning and waved us off.
Going the back roads we arrived in Nan about 1:30. We stopped at a couple of temples along the way, spending time at one temple chatting with it’s head monk.
We also took the rural roads to see the roads less travelled. We booked into our hotel and went off to explore Nan on foot. We managed to visit a few temples and markets. We noticed a night food market was being set up new 1 temple so we headed to Amazon coffee to wait. It was wonderful and we had a lovely evening eating and listening to music.
