A little quiet time

 I feel the need to dive headlong into the softness and beauty of flowers for a little while - care to join me?

~ Thanks for your company ~ 

A little adventure

Have been busy working in the garden since coming back home, in between the bursts of rain.
Looking at the news each night, I'm very mindful of the flooding rains that a lot of Aussies are having to cope with - once again.  It must be horrendous to see your home go under water like that.
I hope our blogger-friends in the tornado areas overseas are all safe and sound too.

Have nearly had a catch-up with everyones' blogs... a few days offline and I'm amazed at how many posts have been published since I last went blog-visiting.  I can't keep up anymore so I guess I'll just have to be considered an occasional dropper-in!

In the post before Froggie decided to wreak havoc on my packet of green tea, I'd shown some pics of our visit to Mae Fah Luang Gardens in the hills of Doi Tung.  The following pics were taken in the afternoon of that same day.
Our intention was to drive across to Mae Sai and then home, however, we ended up taking the wrong turn and went a bit further North which took us, unknowingly for a while, along the Burma Border.

The scenery was great, but we kind of felt we weren't on the right road.

Yes, this stop confirmed it! We definitely hadn't intended to venture this far.

We decided to have a bit of a look around - but didn't want to linger.
There were a few well maintained military bunkers there...

... as well as this impressive collection of roosters - definitely
another photo opportunity.

I thought this picnic table setting had just the best view!

We knew we shouldn't linger at that outpost, so made tracks pretty quickly.

Our initial thoughts were proved correct a little further down the road.
I quickly snuk in a photo of this fully armed military guard as we approached the checkpoint.
Our car was searched, we were questioned and then were told in no uncertain terms to keep
driving and not to stop until we reached Mae Sai.
No arguments from us!

There are several military reasons we weren't allowed to stop along this road, one being that drugrunners  illegally cross the border from Burma and so the military keep a close eye on this road.  As can be seen, there's plenty of cover for such activities.
The other reason is possible border conflict, but that, apparently, was a lesser risk.
We obeyed our orders - no way would we stop the car.

Beautiful views on the Thai side of the border too.

On our way down to Mae Sai we passed  two hilltribe villages.  I'd missed taking photos but caught a glimpse of them on video.  We quite enjoyed our little adventure!