Cracking serious wood ...

If you've ever lusted after a huge piece of wooden Thai furniture, or gushed over an ornate wooden carving, chances are it came from the Hang Dong or Ban Tawai area of Chiang Mai province. The region is rich in traditional artisans, helping Thailand to its position as the 17th largest exporter of creative products in the world.

And few have been as influential as Khun Areesak (Pop's) business ...

On the main road from Chiang Mai to Hang Dong, you can't miss the Thai Plit Pan Carving Factory, with its massively wide wooden frontage with artifacts spilling out all over the place. This was started by Pop's father, Khun Somrot, 45 years ago.

'When he started, everyone was just carving animals,' says the congenial slender all-in-Johnny-Cash-black Pop, who happily shows me around the several floors of the main shop, and then takes me out the back, up the garden path to a series of old out-buildings and warehouses full of rotting wood, artifacts-to-be, and nearly finished products. It's a timber version of Steptoe and Son.

The rotting wood, as it turns out, is like gold dust. 'Old teak trees, about 400 years old,' says the gracefully middle-aged Pop, tapping a pile of old lumber. 'Old wood is better because it doesn't crack.'

Sculptures, statutes, folding panels, and furniture all magically take form under the chisels, saws and planes of his craftsmen. The intricacy is bewildering -- some details in a wooden mural no bigger than toothpicks -- in tableaux that take literally years to create. A team of around 50 craftsmen and women turn teak into treasures, some of them specialising solely in village dioramas, others mythical naga serpent figures.

But his pieces-de-resistance are tables. Imagine BHP Billiton or some other large conglomeration that has need for a boardroom table to fit hundreds of directors around. Pop makes them BIG. Half a forest goes into some of these. One is on display for 800,000 baht; that's about 25,000 bucks, jing jing. 

'We have sold many pieces for over 1 million baht,' declares Pop proudly. 'And we once shipped an 11-metre table to Norway.' They've clearly come a long way since his dad decided there was more to Thai craftsmanship than chipping away at little sculptures of elephants.

One of the tables on display is a hollowed out teak trunk, full of fantasmagorical fish and mermaids and crabs and all things maritime carved into its interior. The top is glass. The idea is that the table will be filled with water and become a giant fish tank-cum-conference table. Talk about a present for someone who has everything!

Upstairs, as I try out a really comfy chair, I spy Pop's mum doing the ironing in a back room. And his father, who still despite his advanced years, works the shop floor keeping an eye on Pop. Then he introduces me to his daughter, a student at Chiang Mai university, who also puts in time at the family business.

But the problem I have is that as much as I like these tables, I don't think my landlord would take kindly to me bashing out one of the walls in order to make it fit the lounge room. There again I could always put the table out in the garden. After all, this wood's been sitting around in the sun and rain for 400 years already ...

Ban Tawai -- Up in Smoke (but no Cheech and Chong)

The Oh-So-English pepperleaf vine-clad walls of Kao Mai Lanna are just the first of many wonderful surprises that unravel in this historic resort. You'll also stumble on old cane factory grinders along the corridors and, if you look carefully at the light fittings, you'll notice they're old wooden pounders. Ever been to an old gold mining town? Well, this place is like a small town industrial museum.

This is the rustic, bucolic and olde worlde feeling that emanates from the 70-year-old buildings. Not that it's always been a hotel. In fact the rooms -- odd vertical stacks in neat soldierly rows -- used to be tobacco curing barns when tobacco farming was a really big in this area. Or 'tabasco' as the manager repeatedly calls it.

With an amazing visionary leap, the Thai owner saw potential to turn these dilapidated brick barns into cute modern boutique high-ceilinged accommodations, decked out with wonderful teak wooden antiques. The owner loves anything to do with wood, indeed hordes it like gold. Out the back are hundreds of ox cart wheels, and dozens of old wooden ox carts from all over the world. Plus carved canoes. Piles and piles of wooden stuff. Much of it comes from the nearby woodcraft village of Ban Tawai -- one of the reasons one would stay here, about 45 minutes south of Chiang Mai on the way to Doi Inthanon -- and some of it from more distant Burma.

The 20-acre gardens, lush with buffalo grass, burgeon naturally in the fertile climate, and the centrepiece is a massive sprawling rain tree underneath which is a romantic love swing.

Beyond is the pool, yoga sala, and spa area. The yoga-mistress puts us through our paces in an open-sided pavilion, where I was willing the air to move enough to flutter the silken drapes. Her brand of yoga is particularly physical and I drip litres of sweat on the beautiful wooden floor. She smiles sweet sympathy but doesn't let up.

Thankfully, a massage is close at hand in a comfortable and airy building off to one side. The windows open to natural vistas of grass and trees; the room drenched in natural light. It is perfectly quiet, bar the faint hum of the air-conditioner.

The not-so-sprightly dear that tends to me has strength in her hands that Bruce Lee would envy, and over the next, well, it felt like hours,  rubbed and stroked oil over me to build up my complacency, then suddenly switched to Thai-style massage and had me in all manner of ungainly pretzel holds. 

At one point I had my right foot jammed in my left ear, my left arm wrapped around my neck, and my right arm reaching back under -- or over in this case as I was in a headstand at the time -- my groin and linking up with my other hand. Jing jing!

'That was a real Thai massage,' enthused my companion afterwards. Yeah, I'll say.

There is something utterly charming and authentic about Kao Mai Lanna. A down-to-earth northern-style hospitality that's not drilled to anodyne perfection, but it comes from within. (Or, in the case of some of our dishes at the restaurant, sometimes it doesn't come at all.)

But as you walk arm-in-arm back to your room, and see that love swing, and the beautifully spotlit barns beyond the pool, it's something of a cure-all.

Winter in Thailand, part 2.

There's no length I won't go to to get to the bottom of a story for you, dear readers. Or the top in this case.

After my last blog on Winter in Thailand, I decided to duck down -- OK up -- to Doi Inthanonon, a couple of hours' drive or ride on Route 108 south of Chiang Mai. You can make a day trip of this by stopping off at some of the craft villages en route, such as the woodworking village of Ban Tawai.

Picture a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. From the main road turn-off, the Doi (nothern Thai word for mountain) is about 47 kilometres. Soon, the wind was crisper. The tree type became conifers, or pine trees, and the air immediately cooler. Was I in Europe somewhere?

As we climbed nearer the summit, two gorgeous gold and granite stupas came into view, situated on the highest points of the mountain "according to air density". Check these out for the amazing views of the valley, as well as the intricate mosaics and stunning gardens. Make an offering to Budda while you're there with lotus flowers for sale.

Just a few kilometres later a blue sign announced we'd arrived: The Highest Spot in Thailand. A quick photo op at the sign, and then it was on with an extra shirt. Twelve degrees celsius! Song taew vans shuttled visitors to the top, a convoy of silver tourist mini-vans, and to my delight a group of motorbikers on Harleys and BMWs, all the way from Phuket and Bangkok, came throbbing along too.

Everyone was in scarves and woollen caps, rubbing their hands against the cold (anything less than 34 degrees is considered freezing to Thais!). Then more photos from the car park, overlooking a cloud forest far far below.

Savouring a hot mocha I chatted with a park ranger. He confirmed it has never snowed on Doi Inthanon, but ice crystals form on the leaves at this times of year. At the end of December the mercury plunges to MINUS 3 degrees celsius at night.

So there you have it. No White Christmas likely this year, but if you want to experience a Thailand winter, this is one of the places to put on your itinerary. I'll blog soon on other popular winter destinations which are currently enjoying high season: Pai in north-western Thailand, and Khao Yai in central Thailand.

Today it's off to do the canopy zip-lines at Jungle Flight, and I'll write up a comparison between this and Flight of the Gibbon, another zip line rated as Thailand's top attraction.

But first, a boiling hot mug of something ...