15-May-2004 -- I was asked to plan a trip for a weekend, travelling through some areas in the northern part of Thailand that we had never previously been to. After buying a map and checking the “ free “ confluence points around Chiang Mai I came up with a route that could possibly take in 3 new ones time permitting. We hired a car that could comfortably hold 4 people and an 11 month old baby we finally left from Chiang Mai at 9.30am on Saturday morning and headed towards 18N 99E, approximately 86kms from the house.

We took the main high way south towards Lamphun, eventually travelling along road 1184 until we reached Thung Hua Chang. At this point we were approximately 4.5 kms away and at the police station we turned west along another blacktop heading towards Baan Mae Toei. This took us to within 900m of the confluence so we parked the car on the side of the road and 3 of us began following a small track.

After 300m the track appeared to heading in the wrong direction so we took off in between some Lum Yai trees and came to a cleared field 230m from the point. From here we thought we had the confluence done and dusted but 60m away the field gave way to thick brush, thorn bushes and a dryish river bed.

Ten minutes later we had found the point after going down the bank, across the river bed and back up the other side………. on to the edge of another cleared area. Having marked the confluence and taken the photo’s we found another track only 100m away which led us to the original path we had started to follow. Hind-sight is a wonderful thing. Arriving back at the truck we went back to Baan Mae Toei for lunch and to check the route for our next point 18N 100E.

Thanks to Steve Price ( a long suffering Sunderland supporter )for the use of his Garmin. It is getting some mileage now.