Our three days in Chiang Mai were action-packed and went by
way too fast. But we’re in the
airport getting ready for Phuket.
I arrived early on Monday and Ken was waiting for me at the
airport. He had a miraculous
amount of energy after over a day of traveling and adjusting to the time
difference. We dropped our stuff
off at the hostel and rented a motorbike right there. Fortunately, Ken was raised in a family of motorcyclists
(his dad raced them in the 1970s and Ken’s had his license for 7 years) and was
ready to take on the roads (not as crazy as India but still pretty lawless and
it required driving on the left).
So with just a basic map in a brochure and an idea from Ken’s cab
driver, we took off up the mountain for some exploring. Thank God Ken can read maps and has
excellent navigation abilities because I had no idea where we were most of the
time, but he figured out the city almost immediately.
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| Level 1 waterfall (Mon Tha Than) on Doi Suthep mountain |
The Doi Suthep mountain itself is a national park and we wound through
jungle-y greenery on switchbacks.
Our first stop was a waterfall, supposedly the mountain’s best. We did some trekking and found the
first two “levels” of the nine level waterfall. We found a happy Thai family playing at the bottom but were
disappointed to find out that the upper seven levels were blocked off for the
day.
We continued our happy trails
up the mountain to one of Chiang Mai’s most famous Buddhist temples, Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. It was a giant, golden gleaming pagoda
that I remember seeing from the air. Supposedly the temple was built around a holy relic of an elephant bone that had magical powers- it glowed, could disappear, could move and replicate itself. The temple itself was kind of a tourist trap, with donation boxes every two feet but still beautiful and cool to see. From there, we
continued onward and upward on our tired little scooter to a palace at the
top. The actual palace was closed
for construction but the surrounding grounds were breath taking and probably
the real highlight of the place.
There were extensive rose gardens, bamboo gardens, fountains, a
greenhouse and even several intricately carved tree trunks. Satisfied with hitting all the major
mountain attractions, we rolled down the hill for a beer at an adorable bar
downtown. We walked around some of
the local markets and grabbed a bite to eat before heading back to the hostel
to crash for a couple hours before the night market.
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| Wat Phra That Doi Suthep |
The night market in Chiang Mai is supposed to be Thailand’s
largest and it pleasantly surprised me.
In Taiwan, the night market was chaotic and filled with repetitive piles
of mass-produced cheap things and smelled of stinky tofu. This one had stalls with a wide variety
of quality crafted goods from carved soaps to incense to wall hangings to
paintings to jewelry to children’s toys… really, anything you can imagine. There were “fish foot massages” where
you could put your feet in aquariums of fish who would eat the dead flesh of
your feet (thanks but no thanks!) and scantily-clad drag queens advertising
their 9:30 Cabaret show. We met a
couchsurfer on our last day who told us about the Sunday market, an even more
extensive market that attracts many locals in addition to tourists. It’s unfortunate that we missed it but
we’ll put it on the list for next time… if we return, I’d love to make it to
Pai and climb Jeng’s favorite waterfall a couple hours away.
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| Chang Rai hot spring |
The second day, Ken and I went on a Golden Triangle tour to
the Laos-Mynamar-Thailand border, the hotspot of opium trade back in the
day. En route, we stopped at the
Chang Rai hot spring. The water
was so hot, you could boil eggs and we could barely submerge our feet without
grimacing. After that was Chang
Rai’s famous (new and unconventional) white temple "Wat Rong Khun" and golden toilet. The white temple looked like an ice palace (in Alanna’s
words) and was designed to elicit the journey to heaven. You crossed the moat past some
intimidating guards and the inside portrayed a colorful collection of people
floating around Nirvana.
Apparently, there are no white people in heaven. But the toilet was pretty entertaining
too- you had to exchange your shoes for slippers to use it. Some of the washrooms I’ve encountered
have been pretty sketchy but Thailand’s best toilet did not disappoint!
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| Chang Rai White Temple |
We went on a boat ride at the Golden Triangle itself and
learned a bit about the history of illicit drug dealing and modern day attempts
to attract tourists with casinos.
They dropped us off in Laos for some incredibly entertaining
shopping. Inside whisky bottles,
there were snakes eating snakes and snakes eating scorpions- it makes the worm
in Mexican tequila seem tame! They
had some other interesting alcoholic beverages without amphibians inside but
the snake-brand rum promised “sexual enhancement” with a hand written note next
to it “great gift for mom!”.
Somehow, I don’t think I’ll be purchasing that for mother’s day anytime
soon. That was a fun stop. We later went to the Northern-most of
tip of Thailand, two feet from the Mynamar border but you need to pay a fine
and get your passport stamped to step into Mynamar so we didn’t do that. We headed back to Chiang Mai but
somehow retained energy for another late night adventure. We headed downtown for dinner and had a
very… memorable… tuk tuk ride back to the hostel. After eating, we found a empty tuk tuk and attempted to
locate the driver. It turns out he
was behind us, polishing off his third 750 mL Leo beer. When I handed him the business card
with the address of the hotel, he was squinting, holding it up to the light and
asking us to read it to him.
Awesome, we thought. A
blind, drunken tuk tuk driver.
Fortunately he could read it with his glasses on but it was too late to
escape, despite our best efforts.
We piled into the tuk tuk with a prayer in your hearts and a terrified
smile pasted on our faces as we sped through the city streets as he blasted
Thai music or enthusiastically enquired about our honeymoon (Don’t worry I didn’t
actually get married in Thailand).
I have to get the pictures of our final photoshoot once we made it to
the hostel but he insisted on taking a photo with me and he had a huge Chesire
Cat grin on his face for sure.
Ok, it’s almost time to board for Phuket- I think I’ll save
Chiang Mai day 3 for another post.
Pai-kawn!
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