Chiang Mai-what a place!

A rough start to the travel to Chiang Mai, little did we realise that wouldn’t be the biggest night behind us…

Thankfully Chiang Mai saw us going to some incredible places.

A Quiet Start

After arriving early evening in Chiang Mai we collectively decided for an early/easy night after the previous nights’ drinks. The hotel that we were staying at was picked by our friends because the buffets served there was great value. So, that was dinner sorted that night. Easy!

A Tour of Chiang Mai

The second day of our Chiang Mai stay had a full day tour organised, taking us around the surrounding area of Chiang Mai to see some of the well known sights.

Mae Khachun Hot Springs

First up on the list was our trip to the Mae Khachun hot springs where we got to see the springs themselves and to grab breakfast, including a much needed coffee or two. There were locals here selling eggs that you could boil in the hot sprints. We weren’t sure if this was a genuine offer or a bit of a gimmick, but didn’t want to be stuck with any eggs on a bus that we were going to be in for hours, so gave that a miss!

We left empty handed from the souvenirs on sale, but with a warm caffine hit, so things were looking up after an early start. One of the group bought some candied snacks which were delicious and kept us going on some of the longer parts of the bus tour.

There wasn’t a lot to see and do in the area as the places where you could sit and dip your feet into the water weren’t open, or had closed down since our friends were here last.

Wat Rang Khun Temple

The next stop was the famous Wat Rang Khun Temple, or White Temple. This stunning temple has been a labour of love from Chalermchai Kositpipat who was an artist who got world-fame for some of his work before returning to Thailand to work on renovating this temple into this sparkling art piece. The main temple has been completed and some of the surrounding buildings, but the area is not complete. Our guide joked about it having a grand opening in 2070, though I’m not sure how much of a joke that actually is, the place is massive!

We got shown around the garden area outside the main temple and across the sculptures adorning the white bridge. Due to the queues of people jostling for photos and to have a look, we weren’t able to hang around the bridge to admire it, but the guide pointed out the main parts to have a look at as we were ushered over the bridge with its grasping hands trying to drag us down to hell!

Inside the main temple, the walls were covered in a mural that had a surprisingly (to me) modern twist to it including images of the Mandalorian, Yoda, Avengers, and many other pop culture figures or scenes from the last 20+ years. Not quite what I expected inside a Buddist temple! The artist clearly knew what he was doing though as everything was tied together will with the more traditional images of people ascending and descending to/from the heavens on chariot-like vehicles.

Out the back of the temple we had a bit more time to be able to admire the decoration that covered the temple, lots of small mosaics of glass and mirror, giving the temple its shimmering and shiny appearance. Stunning!

Wat Chedi Luang Temple

After moving on from the White Temple, we headed north to Wat Chedi Luang temple, nestled in the old city remains. Parts of the area and temple were crumbling, but the temple still looked like it was in use with lots of incense, donation boxes and some monks praying.

The temple housed a large pagoda (Wat means pagoda) to the side of the prayer hall. The old red colour of the buildings and crumblings walls was completely different to the pristene and shiny White Temple that we had just been to but just as nice.

We got taken around the grounds by our guide and shown different parts of it along with some stories.

Lunchtime!

After Wat chedi Luang we headed off to a nearby restaurant for lunch. When we got there, we found that the table had been laid and all of the food was ready for us. The food was delicious and included:

• Spring rolls
• Cashew chicken
• Chicken curry (I think it was satay or something similar)
• Thai green curry
• Spicy omelette

This was washed down with a tall Chang to complete a most excellent lunch!

The Golden Triangle

Feeling full and happy, we headed up North again to catch a motorised longboat up to travel around the Golden triangle. This area is the meeting point between three different countries: Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar. The name of the area was given as it was one of the main market regions for drugs, and thus lots of gold! More on this below in the section below.

The boat trip was really interesting, we didn’t realise the extent of the area, it was massive! There were also a few casinos lining the shores of each country and these are apparently frequented by many in the region.

There wasn’t a huge amount else to see, I think it would have been good to do The House of Opium first to learn about the area before getting to see it.

The House of Opium

This museum was a great look at the history of the area, what opium is and, interestingly, how it is grown! It showed some of the artefacts of the time and had different dioramas showing scenes for each of the main parts of the museum: Conflict, farms, fields, harvesting, etc.

Our guide gave us some additional info as well as he took us through the museum but walking around and seeing the different weights, pipes, scales and other items from the time was interesting to see. Not often a museum would show so much.

The history of the area was pretty horrific, from both local and international interest in the drug trade as well as the local territorial disputes.

The Long Trip Home

We’d been on the tour for a while by this point but we were unfortunately at the furthest point to Chiang Mai and had a long trip home to get through. Everyone was tired by this point, which helped to make the trip drag out even longer!

It wasn’t too bad though and we got to stop in at a Doi Chaang coffee house around the halfway point for a drink and afternoon tea.

By the time we got back we all went to the hotel buffet for dinner then up to our rooms.

A Chill Day

Starting the day with a very chill morning and a swim in the outdoor pool was great! After drying off, some of us headed off to find a laundry whilst taking a walk through some markets close by to the hotel. Got some small things to try (including some DELICIOUS fried chicken) and headed back to the hotel.

Along the way we found a shop that was selling cases of Chang beer for incredibly cheap! So, we bought 2 and also some chilled ones for having that afternoon. When we went back to the laundry shop later that afternoon (which was about a block away), they’d heard that we bought so much and were laughing about it with us. No idea how news like that travelled so fast but it was pretty funny.

Later on in the evening, after a few of the Changs and a swim, we went out for a walk along Loi Kroh Road, stopping at a few bars along the way. There was a huge selection of places, ranging from busy and noisy to cosy and quiet. We ended up at a rooftop bar having a few drinks there before deciding to grab some dinner.

I stopped at a street vendor for some grilled chicken skewers (YUM!) and, by the time we tried to meet up with the rest of the group, they’d disappeared. Since none of us had phones, we decided to just find somewhere to eat ourselves.

We found a place that did Thai curries called Saraji Kushikatsu and got a red and yellow curry between us with some appetisers. These were delicious and had a great spice to them. Very happy!

Market Day

Following another chilled morning starting with the hotel buffet breakfast, we chilled by the pool for a while with a couple of drinks. Since it was a Sunday, we decided to go to the famous Chiang Mai Sunday markets for dinner and a bit of a shopping trip.

Getting there we found MASSES of people, some chilling out front, some selling things, and some waiting to get in. The area itself is a big walled part of the city with gates at each of the cardinal points from the center.

We started off and, almost immediately, got distracted by the first food stall area. Out of the huge amount of options in this first area, we tried hand-made samosa’s where you could pick your filling, fresh papaya salad with tiny crabs on top, different meat skewers, and pad thai omelettes!

We wandered this market for hours, buying some souvenirs, looking at all the stalls, and trying more food. There was supposed to be scorpion skewers somewhere but, by the time we reached the spot, it looked like they had been packed up.

Another Chill Day!

After another large buffet breakfast at the hotel, including more spicy noodles, we had another relaxing morning lounging around the hotel.

The hotel happy hour menu got some us out of us today as we went through a few of the options, including a Long Island Iced Tea that only had a sneeze of coke in it! Yikes.

Needless to say, not a lot of adventuring was going to be done today so we ended up taking a full hotel chill day before out final tour the next day. Luckily we did as tomorrow was going to be full on.

Animal Tours

Tiger Kingdom

Our final full day in Chiang Mai started off with a trip to Tiger Kingdom to see some tigers up close and personal. All of us were very concious of making sure we didn’t go anywhere with a bad reputation for animal handling, both for tigers and elephants. From what we could tell, Tiger Kingdom seemed to be very focused on looking after these giants and helping with conservation efforts as well.

You can get in to the enclosures with the tigers, something we never thought possible, and this included the ‘Old Town’ tigers, tigers that had been there for years and were 10+ years old.

We got to feed some of the cubs and get to watch them play, as well as seeing the staff playing with the tigers and their toys. It was pretty incredible and most of the tigers looked healthy and happy. Hopefully we picked a good place!

Smile Elephant Sanctuary

The afternoon we headed to Smile Elephant Sanctuary, one of the tours we were all really looking forward to.

Again, like the tigers, we looked for the most ethical and conservation focused places, and this place seemed to tick all the boxes. It was less a tour and show of elephants, focusing more on getting the tourists to help with the care of the elephants themselves, learning what goes into it.

The Smile Elephant Sanctuary bought the two older elephants from a local and has looked after them since. Upon arrival we got given some traditional clothes and got given some gloves and a hat. The gloves were to help protect our hands as we got straight in to feeding the elephants some pre-cut sugar cane.

Once they’d finished eating we got lathered up in mosquito spray and took them for a walk across the road and up a hill through the jungle. What a surreal experience taking a pair of elephants for a walk! They were coaxed along by the small, elephant snack-sized, bits of sugar cane that we all carried along in bags up the hill.

Once we had all recovered back at the sanctuary, we had a talk from one of the staff telling us about what they ate and all about some ‘medicine balls’ that they make up for the elephants, including tamarind which Asian elephants prefer ¹. After making up some of the sticky rice medicine balls, we fed these to the elephants as well before we all went down to the river to give them a scrub! What a great experience.

We finished off the tour with dinner at the Smile Kitchen, not too far away from where the sanctuary was. This was some delicious banana leaf-wrapped pad thai, spring rolls and vegetables. Great finish to a great tour.

A Farewell to Chiang Mai

We (S&S) had been dutifully working through our share of the Chang stores throughout the week but, after settling down for the night, were called up to one of the others rooms to help finish off everyone else’s, plus some other spirits we had leftover as well.

Not exactly the most relaxed ends to our Chiang Mai trip but it was certainly great fun!