Chiang Dao (Northern Thailand Part One)

February 16, 2026|Rick Juliusson

After a week of bliss bubble yoga retreat, we’re on the road again. With no-one doing all our cooking, planning, exercise enforcement and entertainment, it’s back to navigating and discovering the wonders of Northern Thailand on our own (with two dear friends from Vancouver). First stop - Chiang Dao, a winding 45 miles (90 minutes) north (and up) from Chiang Mai.

Showing no creativity whatsoever, in our single day we take in the same big-three Chiang Do sights that all travellers do. Thankfully, there’s a good reason everyone does them - they’re awesome! (Note: with a second day we would have enjoyed a long mountainous hike in the Pha Daeng National Park.)

Mountain Temple

We begin by climbing 510 steps through beautiful hillside jungle to the Wat Tham Pha Plong. Set in a cave, this temple was originally the meditation spot of a young monk who came here for a decades-long silent retreat in the mountains, as Thai monks do. Now more built out and blessed by the Queen, we smattering of tourists are welcome to carry water and supplies up those 510 steps for the monks who still live in worshipful harmony in their monastic life (check out their daily schedule, starting at 3am, in the photos below).

Helping us up those steps (did I mention 510 of them?) were words of wisdom, such as:

Abandon anger - don’t raise it. Having anger in our hearts is like raising a tiger as a pet. One day it will bite us and everyone else.
Mental impurities didn’t come in and cling to the heart. It’s the heart that went out to cling to them!

Cave Temple

Next stop is the Divine Wat Tham Cave Temple. The outside has the glittery carnival feel of Myanmar’s temples, with opportunities to trade money for blessings at various deity statues, sacred fish-feeding, candles, lanterns and food, plus other distinctive temples. Inside, we are guided through low narrow passageways into high caverns by the light of a dubiously-flickering kerosene lantern. She shares the usual cave banter about formations that look like fish or tea kettles, and lightly warns us of the danger of wrong turns: “Down there, slip, long slip, aaahhhh!”

Cave entrance

Hot Springs

Our gracious driver returns (for $30 he’s ours for the day, but not monogamous) to scoot us to the hot springs. Instead of the $2 private springs that evidently are rather restrictive, we choose the publicly-built and -maintained pools with direct access to the river for cooling down. Ten concrete tubs of various temperatures serve several Thai families and some other foreigners. One family takes it upon themselves to drain, clean, and refill a tub using the bubbling-hot water that feeds through blue tubes into each tub from the fenced-off spring directly above us.