Yesterday we spent the day in transit heading from the Pencave Homestay near the small town of Soppong (or as Thai’s call it Pang Map Tha- not sure why it has two Thai names) to Chiang Rai.  Unlike timely Evan, I am behind as I had promised to write a post about our lovely accommodation near Soppong.

We spent two nights at the Pencave Homestay.  It is one of only a few accommodation options in the small village of Tham Lod, next to Thailand’s largest cave.  The owner, Pen, is the grand-daughter of the man who founded the village.  She is married to Yann, a French man and their homestay is set in an idyllic location in the Northern Thai jungle/mountains.  It was pretty neat to stay somewhere that has only developed as a village in the last 50 years or so.  

Pen offers four simple bungalows surrounding the main building on their property.  The bungalow we stayed in was originally her grandfather’s whole house but they renovated it to include a bathroom! If you are okay with a few ants, roosters crowing through the very early morning hours and some awesomely big (but harmless) spiders hanging about, then the setting makes up for everything else.  This was the first place in Thailand that we felt away from the tourist track and also close to the beautiful nature that abounds in this part of the world.  

In the mornings the jungle hills were shrouded in mist that would burn off by about 9 am revealing views of the nearby mountain ridges.  One morning Denise and I watched this happen from the rooftop terrace of the main building/restaurant.  It was spectacular.   

Pen had encouraged us to do a day hike with a guide to a nearby Shan (hill tribe) village but after speaking to others who had made the trek we decided it would be too much to ask of Denise.  We stuck to some hiking trails around the cave and while we didn’t take in the hill tribe culture this trip, we still saw some incredible bamboo and teak rainforest, witnessed swarms of swift birds gathering to fly into the cave at night and spotted many colourful butterflies on our walks.

Later in the afternoon we called the rooftop terrace home.  The kids did a little school work and Dan and I took advantage of some rattan chairs that were ergonomically designed for pure relaxation.  Perhaps the best part of the two day experience was the delicious food on offer.  Dan and I sampled most of the Northern Thai dishes on the menu and the kids willingly tried some fried rice and noodle dishes along with the best chicken nuggets we have found so far on this trip.  Pen also made fruit shakes with the mangos and passion fruit grown on her property, and ice cream from the coffee they roast, the sesame they grow and strawberries farmed nearby.  It was sort of a hipster, eat local experience in the most unlikely location.  

The only downside was on our final night, Pen and Yann had to make a trip into Chiang Mai so we were on our own with another man from Denmark on their property.  Very weirdly, for our remote location, a music festival or some unusual sounding Thai music started up around 11 pm and went until 2 am.  Pen’s dogs chose to sleep on our porch and got to barking as dogs do when they hear sounds at night and then the roosters got going around 3 am.  It left Dan and I relatively sleepless but that wasn’t the worst scenario for an 8 hour travel day as we had many hours to sleep in the mini-van and bus across Northern Thailand.  So to stick true to Evan’s rating system, I will ignore those circumstances and give Pencave Homestay a 9 out of 10 because really good food can make up for just about anything!