Hai Ya, Chiang Mai!

I'm just going to come right out and say it - Chiang Mai is my favourite place on our travels so far. It's cooler in both senses than the previous places we'd visited in Thailand and just has a really laid back vibe.

After a mammoth 23 hours of travelling on trains, we arrived into Chiang Mai at 7:30pm and were excited to be able to use Grab again! Although when we checked, there wasn’t one available for a while so we ended up in the back of a red taxi (read red pickup truck with an open back) with eight others. Luckily our hostel wasn’t too far away.

We were staying at Family Home hostel just south of the old city walls and it was the nicest place we’ve stayed so far. We had a private double room with en suite, the hostel was clean, had great WiFi, free breakfast and was run by Joe and his lovely family. Joe was really helpful organising trips for us and the whole place was just really chilled and friendly.

Chiang Mai is over 1,000 years old and the old town all fits inside a large square, bordered by a canal, some ruins of old city walls and a ring road that is pretty tricky to cross! Having arrived on Sunday, we were advised to head to the Sunday Market for dinner. This was pretty overwhelming after such a long time travelling as it was incredibly busy, but we managed to find the food section past all the fabric stalls and had some street food.

On the way home we noticed a small restaurant called UGO selling craft beer so decided to pop in for a well earned drink. What we didn’t realise until the waitress showed us was that there was a massive bar behind the restaurant, with a much larger selection of beers and free pool and fussball tables. We had a couple of games of pool and a few drinks before heading back to the hostel for the best night’s sleep I’d had travelling!

The next day, we had a lazy morning getting our bearings and working out our plan for the next few days. James needed to get his next rabies jab so we headed over to the hospital, walking through the centre of the old town as we went. The hospital was immaculate, very new and modern, but it did mean we had to queue so were there for about 45 minutes. We grabbed a spot of lunch in a nearby mall (including a delicious jam doughnut!) before hiring a red taxi driver to take us up to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep.

This temple, or Wat (cue lots of jokes about What Wat etc.), is outside of the city on a mountainside, up a very windy road - not ideal when you can’t see out the front too easily! The temple is said to contain relics of Buddha and the location was chosen by an elephant, who was sent into the forest carrying these remains and dropped dead on the spot where the temple is built.

The temple is at the top of 290 steps and is part of a wider complex that also offers fantastic views out over Chiang Mai. There were also loads of monks around taking selfies!

Stupidly, I hadn’t considered the dress code before we left so turned up in shorts and a strap top meaning I wasn’t allowed into the main complex. However with five minutes to spare before we had to head back to our driver, I found some clothes for hire so quickly dashed round. The buildings were stunning, very opulent and gold!

Unfortunately, we returned to the city during rush hour, which meant we were stuck in quite a bit of traffic. After the fresh air of the temple, the pollution in the town was really noticeable and by the time we got dropped off, both James and I were feeling pretty ill! So we popped into a bar for a cold drink to recover.

Following our cooking class on Ko Lanta, we were keen to try an authentic Khao Soi so Joe recommended Huen Phen in the centre of the old town. We had to queue but the food was tasty so we didn’t mind. It was also nice to wander back through the streets at night when it was cooler and quieter.

Chiang Mai is predominantly used as a base by tourists to go on excursions. Following some advice we received from a guy on our snorkelling trip, we chose to spend the day at Dragon Flight, ziplining through the forest an hour or so out of the city.

When we arrived, we were greeted by our guide who was quite frankly terrifying and just a little bit annoying! He had an army sergeant attitude and was intent on getting us round as quickly as possible. I guess in a way it was a tactic to make sure we didn’t have time to get scared but I was less than impressed when it was my turn to go on the first zipline and instead of answering my question about where I needed to hold onto, he just pushed me off the platform!

Our work away day to Go Ape a couple of years ago definitely helped and I was pleased to find that I didn’t feel scared on any of the ziplines. The only time I got nervous was on the first abseiling, where I definitely screamed as I jumped off the platform. Many of the ziplines were pretty short and over before you realised you were on them , but there were a few that were hundreds of metres long which were great as they gave you a chance to see the scenery as you were flying through the treetops.

By the end of the two hours, the army sergeant had calmed down a bit and actually it was quite enjoyable. We also got a lovely buffet lunch and a free t-shirt as a souvenir.

We arrived back into Chiang Mai mid-afternoon so wandered round some of the Wats in the old city. Wat Chedi Luang is the main Wat in the city and consists of various buildings in one complex. The first building had a number of monks chanting and praying in front of a large gold Buddha statue. The main structure behind is said to house relics of Buddha, the top of which collapsed during an earthquake in 1545 and so looks quite ruinous. It’s important to wear shoes that are easy to slip on and off when visiting temples as you need to take your shoes off to enter most of the buildings.

We also visited Wat Phan Tao and the Three Kings statue before heading to The House By Ginger for dinner. We’d seen good reviews for this place on TripAdvisor and the fact that it had ginger in the name appealed to James, and it did not disappoint, although it was definitely the most fancy place we’ve eaten on our travels.

That evening, Joe had organised for everyone in the hostel to go for some drinks so we walked up to Babylon Bar on the east side of the square. Most of our fellow hostelers were in their early 20s so suggested playing a drinking game called Ring of Fire which I haven’t played for about ten years. Luckily we survived and didn’t get too drunk! We left everyone else to their drinking and headed back to the hostel as we were up early the next day for our trip to the elephant sanctuary.

Into the Wild is an elephant sanctuary about an hour and a half outside of Chiang Mai, with four elephants ranging from two years to 40 years old. We shared a bus with two guys from our hostel, two gay guys on honeymoon and a Canadian woman and her daughter. All were really nice and we had a good chat all the way up to the sanctuary.

Once we turned off the main road, the dirt track down to the elephants was hair-raising to say the least! We were jostled all over the shop and had to hold onto metal bars on the ceiling to stay in our seats!

We finally made it down safely to the elephants, where we got to know them by feeding them sack loads of bananas. Asian elephants are smaller than African ones so they weren’t too intimidating after a while and they were so gentle. They’re also surprisingly hairy to touch!

We then took them for a walk through the forest. For such large animals, they’re incredible climbers. We did have to be careful of falling trees though as they can just knock them out of the way in some cases! We also saw some horrendously large spiders!

Back at the camp, we had some lunch and then took to the mud to give the elephants a bath. This was good fun, followed by a swim in the river to wash the mud off. We used a vine as a loofah, which you first smash up and then when you add water it starts foaming, which was bizarre to see!

Not being a massive animal fan, I was a bit nervous when we first arrived but by the end of the day, I definitely had a new found respect for these incredible animals.

That evening, we headed back to the craft beer restaurant for some lovely dinner and a couple of games of table football and pool. On the way home we tried out some electric scooters that you can hire a bit like Boris Bikes in the UK. Despite being convinced I wouldn’t be able to stay upright, they were actually pretty stable and not as hard as they looked!

Our last day in Thailand for a few weeks (we’ll be coming back through Bangkok between Myanmar and Nepal) was spent on a minibus to Chiang Khong, via Chiang Rai. We had a brief lunch stop in between Khun Chae and Doi Luang National Parks before heading to the White Temple in Chiang Rai.

This is definitely a site to behold. It’s actually not a temple at all but an art gallery established by a Thai artist. All the white buildings represent the mind and how it should be pure, while the gold buildings (like the toilets, which were the fanciest toilets I’ve ever seen!) were to show that the body is attached to material things. Inside the temple was a mural which had images of things like the Twin Towers and petrol pumps, as well as other things like Hello Kitty, Picachu and Harry Potter. All a bit weird!

We hopped back in the minibus to our final stop, Chiang Khong, on the Thai border. We spent the afternoon and evening playing cards and chatting with the other people on our trip, most of whom were British.

The hostel was pretty basic, and didn’t actually have a mattress, just a hard surface covered in a sheet, which was interesting to sleep on! We were woken up pretty early by roosters outside before heading to the border to cross into Laos.