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Published: August 13th 2012
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Chiang Mai We have always wanted to go to Chiang Mai and with the reputation of being a town to visit for treks, and a weekend retreat for locals, we were surprised to find it had a real arty feel to it with lots of coffee cafes and a quaint Old Town. We stayed a 20 minute walk out of town in Nimman which is a trendy area, a locals weekend retreat, so we grabbed a soft opening at a chic boutique hotel.
“Old Town” is an area in Chiang Mai which was built over 700 years ago and is walled square surrounded by a moat and the remnants of an old rusty coloured brick wall, used to protect the city over the centuries from envading armies. Old Town is filled with Buddist WATs (temples), orange cloacked monk’s and a myraid of small lanes filled with guest houses, cafes and shops. If you were up early enough you would spot the monks walking up the streets with their silver bowls clutched to their chests waiting to be filled with food provided by the worshippers. There are some really cool little alleyways with guest houses and restaurants around the old
town and it is where a lot of backpackers and tourists stay.
Shops – well they have a Saturday walking street, Sunday walking street, Sunday night market and every night bizarre. Honestly so many stalls. Sunday night market was so packed but great to see some different things for a change at a market. The every night bizarre was a huge warehouse like an airline hanger filled with more stalls of the same stuff again for tourists, we walked in and walked straight back out – we never want to see another stall!
Tourists go to Chiang Mai to do the treks or spend time with elephants. Well my definition of trekking is a walk through a park and spending a day mopping an elephant’s bum, cleaning its house and shovelling it’s pooh – no, it wasn’t happening. But in saying that trip advisor reviews report an amazing day that people will remember forever. It can cost from NZ$120-250 per day. We met a couple who have moved to Chiang Mai from Canada and after they spent the day with an elephant now spend every second Saturday helping at an elephant shelter, they love it! We did the
elephant rides 6 years ago in Phuket and although we enjoyed it, we had no desire to do it again.
So we spent 3 days at a chic new hotel, walking around the Old Town, visiting markets, passing trillions of WATS, and spending time in our trendy suberb. Fabulous eats - a Roti shop at the end of our street e.g. banana/chocolate or ham/cheese – never again will a toasted sandwich be made with bread in our house! We also found Jeffers (food chain)– for NZ$7 you could get a tenderloin fillet steak, a chicken breast, salad & potato croquettes – what a bargain – first beef in 3 months.
We took a tour up the into the hills to visit a Hill Tribe village and a famous WAT, Phra Thart Doi Suthep. I enjoy visiting villages and seeing how they live, so this was the main driver for the tour, but this Hill Tribe visit was very disappointing. You got to walk through the village but both sides of the track were lined with stalls/shops; there was no insight whatsoever into how they lived. Stalls were cheaper here, and some actually sold their own products, but it
felt like a shopping trip and not visiting a Hill Tribe village. So we slipped off the track and had a nosey around - tin shacks, dirt floors, damp, open drains. They were not Thai descendants, they were Chinese refugees who were placed there 50 years ago. So I would not recommend the Hill Tribe visit. The WAT, it was very nice, beautiful golden statues and white temples but filled with hundreds of tourists. One of the reasons we wanted to go to this WAT was you could get a 360 degree view of Chiang Mai, which was actually a 45 degree view of clouds. For NZ$20 each it filled in an afternoon.
We head out of the city for 3 nights and stayed at a place alongside the Ping River where we sat on our comfy deck, read and bicycled to the local market (20 limes for $1). We ate some great food, tried a Burma curry and were pampered by the fantastic staff as we had the resort to ourselves. It was really quiet and relaxing and we watched the workers on the other side of the river building the owner of CHANG Beer a weekend house.
There were some pretty impressive houses on the riverside we spotted on the ride there mixed with some traditional wooden houses on stilts with the odd tin shack, but most were the concrete square houses with a porch style now popping up over Thailand replacing the tin and bamboo shacks.
We paid 700B (NZ$28) for a taxi to get there and it took like 40 minutes, the resort got us a taxi back for 400B which took 20 minutes. He must have taken us the long way so we felt we were getting our monies worth. One reviewer of the resort on Agoda said:
“But contrary to what you find on the www, the hotel is a big 20 minutes from chiang mai on the motorbike, so you take more risks when returning at night and drunk”. We found the food really cheap in Chiang Mai, we picked up a meal at number 1 in Tripadvisor for less than NZ$3. One night, out for a few beers in Nimman and just about to return our frozen beer, when we noticed a Thai couple shaking the beer bottle into a glass, wow this is how it’s supposed to
be served. The glasses and bottle were obviously kept in the freezer so when you poured the beer it immediately turned to icy sludge. We note a lot in Asia the locals seem to ice with their beer, not something we like as it goes flat straight away, but this frozen beer was still fizzy when it thawed and so cold!
We flew to Bangkok.
Accommodation: Nimman Mai Design Hotel – soft opening which meant very cheap whilst being finished on the outside, brand new, we paid NZ$40 for a great room down a small alleyway with a 2 minute walk to restaurants, bars and shops. Very chic boutique hotel. Only 20 minute walk to Old Town with only one busy road to dart across at your own peril.
http://nimmanmaihotel.com/ Riverside Resort – NZ$67 very large deluxe room on riverside, lovely deck to relax with fan to keep mozzies away, great restaurant, salt water swimming pool and kayaks. Empty kitchen area with big fridge with ice maker, great for those homemade cocktails. Grotty bathroom though. No TV which was a shame as opening of Olympics was on. The staff were so amazing, they really cared and
looked after you and when we left they gave us a gift (china elephant candle holder). So if you want to do absolutely nothing in quiet surroundings then this is a great place.
http://www.baannamping.com/
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