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On the 20th January we flew out to Chiang mai, very nice fligh with Thai airways for about 3 hours although the tiny little sandwich we were given on board was a little odd - i think it was spinach, spam and tuna. I ate it anyway as i was hungry.
After landing we got into a taxi and headed to a hostel that was recommended in the lonelyplanet book. We knew it was a risk to take having not booked anything but hey that's what travelling is all about right?! So we give the driver the address and the hostel name is called Nice Place 2 or something like that. Well, it looked ok from the outside, had a little pool and was away from the main road. They had availability and we looked at a room and then our hearts sank a little...It wasn't great. So off we trot with our luggage trying to read our guide books and find another place.
I need to also point out that its chinese new year at this time and hotels/gueshouses/hostels are getting booked up fast!
So off we go, walking about in the heat with all our luggage. We find some more places but they are all full or really skanky. After the 10th attempt we managed to get something at Chaingmai Bow House (part of SK House). The room isn't great but at this point it was the best we could do. We take it. At 500baht a night it's expensive for what it is and there is no wi-fi. Brilliant. Anyway, we dump our stuff and go for a wander around the place, have some food in a place called Veggies Kitchen (i had the yellow curry - delicious!) and appreciate the relaxed atmosphere of Chiang Mai.
We end up getting to the night market and it is huge! Really huge. it goes on for miles. Buy a few bits and pieces, haggle for them of course :) and then head back to our guesthouse and go out for some drinks in a place called Thai 1 On. It's about 20 steps from out guesthouse and it's a great little bar. We meet Tim, the owner, and Ach, who runs around the place taking orders and having a laugh with everyone. So the drinks are flowing, and luckily they are strong too :) until it's closing time booo :( however the party didn't stop there. We are invited to another bar called Smile Bar which is about a 5 min drive away along with a few other party goers who don't want to go home yet. So we all pile into Tim's pickup truck and I get into the back - no seats, just open space, along with 5 other people. Its quite amusing, i feel like a local already haha :)
Smile bar is nice. its very local and has pool tables but a great atmosphere as the staff are lovely. I get challenged to play pool by one of the local girls so of course i accept. I am a little tipsy at this point so playing pool is probably not going to work in my favour but i ended up beating her..TWICE! i must play better when i'm a drunk or she was just unfortunate at her game haha. It's now 4:30am and we are both knackered so we head off back to our guesthouse, with people in the bar very kindly making sure we head in the right direction, and get some shut eye. Only to realise we actually have to be up in 5hrs as we have to let the lady on reception know if we want to stay another night. They have this policy of not being able to block book, you have to do it on day by day basis and have to let them know by 11:00am. oh Joy!
21 Jan 2012
Marie is a bit hungover, actually she is lot hungover haha. I'm just tired. But we wake up in time to book the room again for another night. Although god knows why as the beds are rock solid! Not very comfy. We go for breafast and have a look around again to see if we can find some other places to stay but again everything is booked. More and more backpackers are arriving and walking around doing exactly the same as us. It's a fight to get to the hostels/guesthouses as early as possible before someone else gets there! We fail misserably and decide enough is enough. We go to get some food and then hire a moped for tomorrow to go sightseeing, they only have one so Marie is driver and i'm the passenger...its going to be a fun experience with the way they drive around here haha.
We then go for a massage, it's a hard life hey :) I opt for a Thai massage, why?! and Marie has an oil massage. It's actually ok but we could have fallen asleep quite easily. The Thai ladies even said to me "you can sleep" with a warming smile on their face. Yeh right, not easy to do when receiving a thai massage as they stretch you this way and that way. But it felt good anyway so i can't complain and it costs us pennies! Easily have a massage a day :)
The day has almost gone from doing nothing! But its dinner time now and food was needed. We find this lovely place called Prego's which is Thai and Italian food. Very cute and small and delicious food. Defo coming back here :)
22 Jan 2012
Up early for delivery of the moped. Got the bike, helmet and keys and we were ready. Bit of a stress over getting started on it but we got there eventually. Poor Marie was driver so it was a bit hard to keep steady on it. We go for breakfast and then head off on our adventure up the mountains. We have a map, we try to follow it and somehow end up going in one big massive circle around the old city. And the reason we know this is because we pass a guy who we saw near our guesthouse on his moped. Brilliant. So we ask for directions. People here don't really know how to give directions - they say left but point to the right with their hands. The names on the maps and the roads are not spelt the same so when asking for a road name on the map we get looked at oddly and told "don't undersand". I show the map and they still don't know where the road is. So it's all going well so far :) Eventually we find our way by looking at 3 different maps which are all detailed differently.
We head up the mountain towards Doi Sutep and Di Pui. Along the way we pass a waterfall so have a look aound there. Then carry on up to Doi Sutep which is a temple. Now for a temple you'd expect it to be sacred but this place has touts, food stalls and clothes stall all at the front of it and going up the stairs. Touist hot spot that's for sure as the taxis are there to sell you other tours to go on too. Very sacred hey?! So we go up the cable car to get to the temple, lots of stairs to walk up otherwise! Have a look around, take lots of pics and sit in on a prayer where the monk is blessing people to have success for everything - i'll have a bot of that thanks. So i sit there, get holy water splashed on me and then get the monk to tie a white thread around my wrist. I've done something cultural :)
Time to head up to Doi Pui which is further up the moutain. It's more of a tribe village than anything else but it also has a waterfall and opium plants. All very nice and village like. The opium plants are fenced off, surprise surprise, and the waterfall is cute. We then see 2 thai guys hidden down a little valley so i have look to see what they are doing. At first i thought they were killing chickens but actually they were prepping the chickens for fighting. Not overly exciting but still watched for a 5-10mins.
That's our sight seeing done so we head back, down the mountain. The mopeds don't have brilliant brakes so we have to go slowly to be safe. If we fall off that bike we will have to pay a fortune so slow and careful it is. We get lost getting back haha. But not too badly and we manage to get back to our guesthouse. The moped experience is amusing. A few near misses and some yelps to the near misses but we survive. My bum and thighs were killing from sitting on the back of bike so i was glad it was all over at the end of the day. I think Marie was glad too that it was all over being the driver. We go for drinks in the bar, they were needed :)
We then head out in the evening to the sunday market and also look for accommodation again! still nothing. The sunday market is good but we aren't in the mood to shop too much so we have foot massages in the street. Yes they do the massages in the open street. All set up with the chairs and footstalls ready for everyone. Great fun, if a bit painful!
23rd Jan 2012
Up early ready to give the bike back and packed as we couldn't stay at the Bow Chiangmai any longer as the beds are soooo uncomfortable! we have a quick look around the area to see if there are any vacancys but nothing. Today was spent walking about everywhere finding accommodation, we spent about 5 hours looking!! On the internet, by foot, by tuk tuk. It was a bloody headache!
Eventually we get something at a place called Top North Hotel, 900baht a night for a twin room, expensive, but the beds were comfy. They could only guarantee one night but we were very forceful in saying we wanted 3 nights. they gave in luckily and gave us 3 nights. This place has a pool too so that was a bonus :) they also have a massage place so yes you guessed it, we had another massage! it was needed after trekking about with our luggage trying to find accommodation! Early to bed tonight.
24 Jan 2012
A full day of stuff planned today - elephant trek and tiger kingdom.
8:30am start and our tuk tuk friend turns up on time to pick us up and take us out. We head off to Maesa Elephant camp where the elephants put on a show and we get to go on an elephant trek too. We turn up at 9:30am, get our tickets and are then told we can't do the trek until 1pm. Such a pain! we don't want to only see the show to then wait. So we decide that we can see the show, maybe then go see the tigers and then come back for the trek. So in we go, we see the elephants being bathed and then head in to see the show. It starts 30 minutes late and i'm baking in the sun! Finally the elephants are ready. The elephants play football, play darts, do little tricks and then paint pictures. Amazing stuff. I did wonder if they are treated well but you never really know. I didn't see any cruelty going on but these are wild animals so really shouldn't be doing things like this, and i guess we shouldn't have paid to go and see them but they were cute. We had our photos taken with them and they played tricks on audience members - i had a hat put on me and then patted on the head by the elephants trunk :)
Our tuk tuk man takes us to see other sights but we don't really have enough time to do them. The botanical gardens apparently takes 2 hours to go around, we only had an hour, and the to see the longneck hilltribes costs 500baht which i thougt was a waste of money really. In the end we go for food, head back to the elephant camp and go see the baby elephants and feed them :) bananas and sugar cane is what they like so i fed the baby elephant who was 5 months old and his mother. Greedy though, the mother kept wanting more and extending her trunk out to me for more food haha. I didn't have anything else so i waved bye and we heading off on our trek. Nice 30 mins trek around the camp on a seat on the elephant. My one was a bit naughty and kept stopping and wanting to go in a different direction haha. It was lovely though.
Next stop was tiger kingdom. here you get to cuddle up to the tigers - big, medium, small and smallest. Marie is a little scared but i'm well excited :) we opt to see the big, small and smallest. We see the small and smallest first. No flash allowed on the camera and we aren't allowed to go near their head, they are wild animals too and will bite - there is a warning sign up to say they could bite if the policy isn't followed! In we go and half of them are sleeping and a few others are wondering about. Marie's camera dies but she tries again to take a picture but forgets to take the flash off!! blimey the panic of the tiger keepers when the flash went off, Marie had to apologise loads but then all was ok. I sit down on a plank and one of the small ones runs across behind me and across my legs :) although you're not meant to stroke their head i couldn't help but want to hold it like a cat so baby tiger walked through my arms and i did stroke his head. He didn't even flinch, just carried on on his jolly way :) Soooooo adorable!
Next we go see the big tiger. much scarier! Again they are all sleepy and not doing much but we get to have our pictures taken and are told don't touch near the front of the tiger. I get told off for wandering off to see another tiger that looks awake and the keeper looking after us has a small panic attack haha! In a jokey way though. He tells me "mam, please don't walk off, you cause me heart attack!" hahahaaa. I tell him it's fine, i was going about 5 steps away. He tells me to calm down and breathe! Joker. We have a laugh with the keepers as they joke about with the tigers and try to scare us! But it's all over too quickly as our allocated time is up. so we leave and off to see the newborns. No one can hold them as they hidden away. but we watch from an open window to see them being bottle fed, omg they are soooo cute! I try to take pics and then the lady offers to take my camera inside and take the pics for me. tooooo yummy.
Our day is nearly over so we head back to the guesthouse, get ready and go out to eat at a place called Riverside. Lovely place, views over the river and live music. 2 old guys are there first with their acoustic guitars and then a band comes one after singing covers of english and american songs. Great vibe in there but expensive.
25 Jan 2012
Chilled day today. I have a Thai cookery class this afternoon for a few hours at the Chaigmai Thai Cuisine Cookery School. I get picked up at 1pm and meet a couple on the bus from Canada called Josh and Charlene. Lovely couple who are travelling for 6 weeks. We turn up at the school and a few other people are there too. All english, young backpackers and one french guy. I cook Pad Thai, Chicken in coconut milk, massaman curry and banana fritters. All very delicious but i was stuff eating all that! We get given a cook book to take away with us that has all the receipes in so when i get back to the UK i promise i will try to cook up a Thai feast :)
The rest of the day was spent chilling around the pool and we go out to Thai 1 On for some drinks and chats. Feeling the effects of the alcohol from last night today so it's a chilled day today :)
Bye for now from Chiangmai. We should be moving onto Laos soon so another update, hopefully, from there soon!
xx
- comments
sarita OMG - it will take me a year to read your blog!!!! I will do it in bite sized chunks!! Will be interesting to see how long these detailed messages last!! x x
Ellie I feel a Thai CDWM is needed when you return! x
Hannah Love it, sounds like you are having a fab time, keeping enjoying yourself. xx
mandippy Yeh sorry it's a bit detailed but thought I'd get it all written down so I don't forget init :) the entries will prob get shorter lol, but hopefully not :) Defo on for a Thai cdwm speth :) you guys will need to get practising! Thanks Han :) hope you are well!? Xx
Robin Sounds like you are having a great time Mandip. I was the Business Development Manager for Thailand for NatWest, based in Singapore in the 80's so your account brought back a lot of fond memories. Look forward to hearing more. Best wishes Robin
Neg & Neha Sounds like your having a really fun time..... I'm not jealous....well maybe just a bit. Keep safe XX xxx
Denise Wow Mandip sounds like you're having a fab time... I'm rather envious.... I've just come back from Kenya - brilliant place - you need to add that to your list :-) Take care xx
Natalie Garner Hi Mandip, Glad to see you arrived safely and your enjoying your travels.. your stories so far are brilliant, ive had some giggles at what your getting up to! Hope your all thinking of us while your enjoying yourself :P take care hun xx