We rented a car in Chiang Rai through Avis for 6 days total. Pickup was at the airport and went relatively smoothly. In order to get to the Avis counter, you have to enter the airport which requires going through security. Fortunately, security wasn’t that intense, and we could keep our bottled water! We had reserved the car on the Avis website two days earlier, but when we arrived, it appeared that they couldn’t find our reservation (or something else was going on that was lost in translation). It ended up not being an issue, as they had a car for us, and it ended up being cheaper that what we had reserved it for (3,800 Baht vs. 5,000 Baht). Now all that was left to do was for Patrick to drive us the 4 hours to our first hotel (NantraKiri), located just outside the town of Pua in the Nan Province. I will note that it is only about 120 miles to the hotel, but it did in fact take the entire 4 hours to get there. Patrick did a superb job driving even though everything was opposite (driver’s seat on the right of the car, driving on the left side of the road). The only thing that took a bit to get used to was hitting the turning indicator on the right side instead of the windshield wipers on the left! The drive to Pua was beautiful and not very busy. The last two hours of the drive were spent on very windy roads, and I had not taken any motion sickness pills, but I made it through.
The NantraKiri resort offers amazing mountain views and beautiful grounds! Being higher up in the hills/mountains, the temperatures were also a bit cooler than what we had experienced in the cities for the last couple weeks. Everyone who worked there was very nice and accommodating, although there was definitely a lot lost in translation. We ate dinner at the hotel both nights and ended up with surprises for both meals! The google translate app did pretty well, but we failed to successfully convey what we wanted. We didn’t mind though as we like everything! It’s easier when we eat at markets where we can just point to what we want. That night there were two small earthquakes about two hours apart, both in the 5.5-5.9 range. A little unnerving, but the staff said that they get a lot of those – I guess the center of the quakes are in nearby Laos.
Hotel grounds were well lit at night 
Our bungalow (one with the doors open)
Since the grounds at the hotel were so wonderful, we relaxed both mornings at the hotel and enjoyed the free breakfast. Two men at the hotel (they may have been the owners) gave us a tourist map of the nearby area. It was in Thai, but they took the time to write every place using the English alphabet (which helped us plug them in to googlemaps). We spent a few hours exploring the nearby area. A couple of the sights were waterfalls; at first these appeared to be man-made dams, but if you walk/hike up a short distance, there are small waterfalls. These were a little underwhelming since we had just toured amazing natural landscapes in the US over the last 3 months, but regardless, it was good to get out and walk. We also saw several temples (Phuket Temple, Rong Ngae Temple, and Beng Sakat Temple). We stopped at a small coffee shop on the way back to the hotel. The shop had a nice view overlooking the rice paddies and national forest in the distance. Near the hotel we saw signs for a mushroom farm (Huanam Mushroom Farm), and we couldn’t resist! We tried a mixed mushroom and rice dish – the spiciest dish we’ve had yet in Thailand! It also looked like you could stay at the farm, which looked lovely, but we couldn’t find this on Agoda or similar websites. Afterwards, we enjoyed the sunset from our mountain view suite and ate dinner at the hotel. An amazing two nights near Pua!
The next morning, we sadly said goodbye to the NantraKiri resort around 11:30 am and drove to Nan, where we had planned to stay for the next two nights at the Nan Sripanna hotel. The hotel is about a 10-minute drive outside the center city of Nan. With a car, this was no problem as parking in Nan was easily found on the street. Nan Sripanna is very peaceful, with views overlooking the local rice paddies. We have a back deck with a table/chairs, which is great for enjoying a morning coffee or afternoon beer. The bed is one of the more comfortable that we’ve experienced in Thailand and the rooms are large and clean. That being said, we do feel that we overpaid for this stay – at $65/night, this is by far our most expensive hotel (maybe again, because it’s the weekend?). If we were to do it over, we would have selected a cheaper hotel.
Entrance to Nan Sripanna 
View from our room at Nan Sripanna
We had about a day and a half in Nan, which was plenty of time to explore the small town. Our first stop was the tourist office in Nan to pick up a map of the town, which had a summary of the many sites in English! Over our day and a half, we visited Wat Phumin (houses famous murals, including the famous “Love Whisperer” or Pu Maan Ya Maan), Wat Phra That Chang Kham, Nan National Museum, and Wat Phra That Khao Noi (up on the hill with great views of the city center). The Nan National Museum is a modest museum, but there are many signs and information in English, so we enjoyed our short visit. Entrance into the Nan National Museum was 50 Baht/person and the other temples were free entry. Outside the Nan National Museum, there is a famous row of Frangipani trees and we of course took the obligatory picture (as were many other tourists). We visited Wat Phra That Khao Noi at sunset, but this would probably be better at sunrise (if you are looking for that experience) since the large Buddha faces east, looking over the city. Both of our days in Nan were capped off with a visit to the night market on Phankong Road. There are many food and souvenir options at the market, plus tables are set up on the ground so you can enjoy your food while listening to live entertainment in the courtyard area outside Wat Phumin (Kwaung Mueang). As far as our food selection goes, we enjoyed sticky rice, ribs, salt-crusted tilapia, dumpling soup, khao lam (sticky rice in bamboo), coconut ice cream, and chocolates. The first night, our entertainment including breakdancing, singer/guitarist, and at one point some sort of organized line dance that many joined in on! The second night, a father and daughter singing/guitar combo regaled us with their music. The daughter must have been under 10 years old – their performance was very enjoyable! We would highly recommend a visit to the night market in Nan!
For our final night on our road trip, we planned a stop in Phayao. The city sits on one of the largest freshwater lakes in Thailand. We arrived in the early afternoon (staying at Nan Sripanna until check-out time), dropped off our stuff, and set out to walk along the large lake. Our hotel (The Cozy Nest) was only a block from the lake front, which was very convenient. The riverfront area is very nice and pedestrian/bicycle friendly. Many fishermen had their rods set up along the banks, sometimes just consisting of fishing line tied to a stick. Others were gathered to enjoy a meal or a few drinks on the grass areas. We walked for a couple hours, stopping for a cup of coffee at one of the cafes along the way. The sunset was beautiful, setting behind the mountains across the lake. By this time, we were hungry, so we tried to find the night market. After a few wrong turns, we stumbled upon it (thankfully the town isn’t that big). Most people were taking food to go, and we didn’t see anywhere to sit nearby, so we decided to find a restaurant instead. We picked one at random along the lakefront near our hotel, and the food was decent enough. After dinner, we relaxed with a movie back at the hotel room. The Cozy Nest was a good hotel pick – clean, large rooms, and a very friendly staff. We even accidentally broke a glass, and they sent someone up to the room to clean it up (as with most Thailand hotels, we did have to pay for the broken glass, but that was no problem for us). Breakfast the next morning was tasty, and more importantly, included with our stay. Around mid-morning, we made the drive back to Chiang Rai to check out a few more sights there and return the car (see Chiang Rai blog post for more information). Thankfully this 1.75-hour drive was relatively straight, so no carsickness for me today!
Overall, we were very pleased with our road trip through the Nan and Phayao Provinces! We were able to get off the beaten track a bit and felt more independent having the car!