On the road to Pai, after eaten a little bit more than we needed in a restaurant a few kilometers from Chiang Mai, inevitably and without warning we feel the immediate need to ask our driver to leave us on the roadside.
Position
The travelers shelter is on the road from Chiang Mai to Pai. The road has 30 km of the terrible serpentine that will put a strain on your stomach.
The place is not visible by passing cars, only with the help of our map we were able to get there.
There is no guardian and no fence to climb over, so this time the exploration was easy.
History
This abandoned place is called in Thai “ศาลา” / Sa-La /, which means shelter. People usually build Sa La along the road to allow travelers to have a place to rest and regain their energy.
Unfortunately we have not been able to collect anything related to the past days of this shelter as there was no one nearby.
Description
We fall to the ground like two salami, without energy and with the world that keeps on going around us.
Five minutes stop, then cross the road and take the first road that happens to shoot. 20 meters and here we are. Nobody welcomed us, here were just we and our infinite stomach ache.
Only after a few moments, giving time to our body to recover, we realize that we have bumped into something abandoned.
We fastly return back to life and immediately we take photographs of this beautiful place.
There are two porches under which several stone benches are located. Above our heads some wooden tables show the list of donors who supported the construction of this Sa La, with the quantity in Baht (the Thai currency).
Almost positioned in the middle we see a kind of altar surrounded by vegetation. We make our way between weed to see that under this “altar” there are still some glowing embers.
“Did they come here recently to do a barbecue?” we ask to ourselves.
A little further there are some toilets, also surrounded by plants. In some of them we can not even open the door, as the climbers have completely wrapped the entrance.
Let’s sit on the stone benches, place our mattresses on top of them, ready to take a nap.
In the end, whether abandoned or not, this shelter served to help two hopeless travelers like us.
