Chiang Mai


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October 9th 2013
Published: October 9th 2013
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Like most journeys in Thailand there eventful and our one to Chiang Mai was no exception we got to the station where we booked our ticket with plenty of time to spare so dropped off our bags at the office and went to get some food, walked in to a little cafe sat down and had the weirdest and scariest waiter/person iv ever met, he was very camp, with his face painted white?, big bulging eyes, and kept screaming in the highest pitch kap koon kaaaaa(Thank you) while trying to get his head as close to your face as possible, he looked like a deranged clown a very friendly one, it's properly the most scared iv been on our whole trip.After this we grabbed our bags and got a taxi with two lovely guys from holland to our coach, the taxi driver took a liking to grant and spoke to him the whole way in a Sean Connelly accent he was a big James Bond fan. Our coach to Chiang Mai was about 9 hours and we slept most of it we arrived at 6.30am only to be told that the hostel didn't open till 7 so we sat on the curb, after a while monks started walking down the road with large bowels in there hands now , I've seen this before in Laos and all I could remember was that locals put food in the bowl's so after much talk between me and grant, do we give them food/ should we talk to them / do we even have food etc , I found a banana cake in my bag and kinda gave the monk a smile he stopped and I put it in the pot and then he went in to a full on chant /song, we really want to learn a bit more about monks and Buddhism so we feel a little less like lemons when we find ourselves in situations like this again.

Our first day in Chiang Mia we just chilled and walked around, it's Thailand's second biggest city but it really doesn't feel like it, it so chilled in comparison, we are staying in the old town which is surrounded by a moat and parts of the old city wall with lots of little alley ways and temples everywhere. That night we headed to the night bazaar which is on every night in the newer part of town, I was a little disappointed it was a massive market but just selling the same old tourist tat lots of fake bags and sunglasses. On our second day in Chiang Mai we booked a full day cooking course with basil cooking school, they picked us up at 9 and took us to a local food market where they showed us around and pointed out some of the more unusual ingredients. We then headed to the kitchen their was only us and an American couple on the course so was really nice in total we cooked 6 dishes , a noodle dish, a soup, a curry, a starter (spring rolls), a stir fry and a desert,after you make each dish you get to sit down and eat it yumm, as well as the dishes they taught us how to make Thai green curry paste and coconut milk from scratch. It was a lot to take in but we picked it up quickly and was so much fun the time flew by, now we both can't wait to try our new skills out when we get back home. After a day of cooking that evening I'd found something a little different for us to do, I'd read online that there where these monk talks and meditation evenings you could go to so off we went, it's not really grants cup of tea meditation but we have both decided to try things out side our comfort zones, the chat took place in the grounds of the silver temple which is beautiful, made of hand crafted silver you can also see local craftsman working on the silver. We where shown in and taken over to a table where a monk was sitting with two men from Brunei we sat down was given some water and just began chatting it was a little awkward to begin with as I wasn't sure what to ask the guys from Brunei had no trouble in this department and at one point was quite convinced that all monks learn kong fu, after our monk explained it a few times to him it turns out only Chinese monks learn kong fu (note to self don't mess with Chinese monks).we stayed and chatted for a few hours and learned a lot about Buddhism after a new monk took us all in to a room and taught us how to meditate which was really cool and not many people can say they where taught meditation by a monk in a temple it was a pretty one off experience. On our last day in Chiang Mai we hit up all the temples in side the city walls we went to the main which is also a monk university, which was huge and also had a massive ancient sculpture in the centre ,and a cool garden with little saying pinned to all the trees, after browsing around to city we headed to the Saturday night market which turned out to be really good and way larger then we expected, it was full of handy crafts, paintings, jewellery, textiles and stationary it was really worth a visit I managed to pick up quite a few bargains. our time in Chiang Mai has been great and where now off to Pai which we have heard is a little hippy town about a 3 hours drive away.


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the silver templethe silver temple
the silver temple

where we had our monk chat


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