We have been in northern Thailand for the past week and stayed in Chiang Mai. It's set out a little bit like York with the old walls surrounding the city as well as a moat. We really liked it up there as it was much quieter than Bangkok but there was still stuff going on.
On the first night we walked to the Night Bazar, a massive market, it was really touristy and the prices had been whacked up accordingly. So we just wondered around examining the same tat over and over but we expected that before we set off.
Thankfully there were a couple of other markets on Saturday and Sunday where we got some more nice street food, the usual pad thai noodles, corn on the cob and then fried quails eggs (which are really popular) and chiang mai sausages. On the subject of food, we found a great little cafe/restaurant called Mr. Kai's. it was so cheap and the cook was ace. We went a few times and tried spicy seafood with flat noodles and thai basil, Tom yam goong soup (very spicy noodle soup with shrimp) savoury curry ( full of spices and kaffir lime leaves) and chicken and ginger stir fry. A big glass bottle of coke washed it all down for 15 baht! And the mains were between 45 and 50 baht, so we both ate for about £1.50 each.
On Tuesday we went up the mountains visited the zoo, Doi Suthep Temple and a waterfall.
The zoo was okay most of the animals had reasonable enclosures and we saw an animal called a binturong which we never heard of. He or she was a lazy beast that swung its arms below the branch it was lying on.
The temple was up 300 and something steps that we climbed in 38*c heat - not fun! But the view over Chiang Mai was more impressive than the temple.
On the way back down the mountain we stopped off and went to a waterfall, there wasn't loads of water but we climbed through some jungle on an old path to where the locals had gathered at two pools to swim in which was cool.
Wednesday was the best day! We went to an elephant park and learned to be mahouts. The elephants had been rescued from various places including illegal logging companies and parks that train elephants to do tricks like play football etc. they also had some blind elephants that obviously nobody wanted. In the morning we greeted the elephants and fed them bananas. Then some of them went for a walk in the forest whilst we learnt how to get on the elephants safely and ask them to go left, right, forward, stop and lie down. James was made to go up first and get on the biggest elephant!
Lunch was served at 1 at the camp, we had sweet and sour chicken, veg soup, chicken wings, eggs and a cabbage dish that was yum.
Afterwards each couple were introduced to their elephant and got on them bareback for a walk through the jungle. It was ok if you were travelling uphill bit coming down was a bit trickier. Once we had returned to the camp we took the elephants for a swim and a wash in the river and gave them all a good scrub.
We really enjoyed it but the next day we were very saddle sore!!
We left ChiangMai on the 16th and took the sleeper train back to Bangkok which for some unknown reason took 16hours instead of 13! We had booked a slightly nicer hotel in Bangkok as our birthday treat with easy access to the AirPort. It has a swimming pool and hot tub on the top floor with amazing views all over the city.
Next stop Australia
G'day mate!
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