Chilling in Chiang Mai (Day 115 - 120 by Chris)

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Saturday 9th January 2016

Today officially marks our half way point of travelling. I think I might have said this in a previous blog, so if I did ignore it, today is actually the real half way point!! Being dropped off by Jeff (Gemma's dad) at Heathrow seems like a long time ago and we cant believe how many places we've seen. What is scary and exciting is knowing that we have the same amount of time to go before we head home. Our planned route today is Koh Tao - Koh Samui via ferry and then a flight from Koh Samui - Bangkok and then a connecting flight from Bangkok - Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. This journey would take over 12 hours, but with only 4 hours of actual travel, the rest of the time would be spent sitting and waiting - not too bad!

We started the morning at 7am where we took our time packing the final few things and leaving the hotel at 8:10. We walked 100 metres down the hill to the pier where we checked in for our ferry ride on the Seatran ferry which brought us here a few days before. We grabbed a water from the 7 Eleven and boarded the ferry. Gemma spent the next 2 hours in a slumber and I watched some more Mr Bean on the TV before arriving at Koh Samui at 10:15am. We then had to take a taxi to Koh Samui airport which was only a 5 minute drive away and after checking in, 3 hours before our flight, we sat drinking complimentary coffee and eating complimentary cakes at the boarding gate of the most beautiful airport in the world. Koh Samui airport is open plan. There are no walls anywhere and all around us were beautiful trees and plants. We were so close to the runway that you could almost see the faces of passengers peering out of the window as they came in to land.

We boarded the flight and after 50 mins we had arrived in Bangkok airport. We now had a 3 hour layover until our next flight to Chiang Mai. We treated ourselves to a subway meal deal and then headed to the boarding gate. We had 2 hours of waiting ahead of us and were the first people in the boarding gate. A Bangkok Airways worker came up to us and said it'd be ok to stay in the Bangkok Airways lounge where we could get free food and drink and WiFi too. That is where we stayed until it came time to board.

The flight wasn't the smoothest which I put down to the plane being very small and not flying very high at all. The whole flight offered views of the towns down below and before we knew it the hour had passed and we were coming in to land. We located our luggage and got a taxi to our new guesthouse, Siriwan Guesthouse. We arrived at about 9pm and met the owner, a lovely lady called Nina who we had had a few email exchanges with over the past few days (explanation to follow) and she showed us to our room. We had a small room but it was very clean and the door locked, air con worked and the bathroom was a reasonable size, so no complaints. We then popped over the road to the 7 Eleven to get a few snacks and watched some more Sopranos before hitting the hay.

Sunday 10th January 2016

We woke up cold!! This was odd and very surprising as only yesterday we were waking up roasting. Chiang Mai is based in northern Thailand but its not because of that reason it felt a little colder, it's also in quite a mountainous area so during the night and early in the morning the temperature drops. It was actually about 12 degrees when we woke, but as soon as the sun started to climb so did the temperature. By 11am the temperature was in the high twenties.

We popped into a cafe next to our hotel for a banana pancake and a coffee before starting the day of exploring. Before we did that though we had to ask Nina for directions to the post office to collect a parcel. This is why we had been in email contact with her and why we are spending a while in Chiang Mai. The parcel consists of 10 bottles of P20 suncream. Why, you may wonder have we had this delivered here? Firstly suncream is VERY expensive here. You pay roughly £10 for a small 200ml bottle of Nivea which seems to be the number one brand in Asia and, as we found out, is absolute rubbish. We brought some P20 with us which we got through, but its such a good cream as one application lasts all day, its also impossible to buy over here. Its for that reason we ordered a parcel full (I should be getting a fee for this P20 plug here!). We were expecting it to arrive a few days later than it did so it was a nice surprise to be able to collect it now. We jumped into a taxi and headed for the post office and it was closed!!The good thing was that the post office was located in the middle of the town so there were a few things we could see here.

Chiang Mai is Thailand's second largest city, although it's not huge. It has a small square wall in the centre which marks the old town and we were staying just inside of the wall. The rest of the city sits outside and takes up a much larger area. Within the wall are lots of temples, knows as 'Wat' in Thailand. We decided to take a look at a few, but being a little overwhelmed by the number of temples we have seen so far on our trip we didn't perhaps give them the attention we might have done had we come here on holiday. We started off by looking for Wat Chedi Luang which like most temples in Thailand is a Buddhist temple. We accidentally though walked into a smaller Wat just next door. We had a walk around the small garden which had many fake, plastic cherry blossom trees and a wooden platform just underneath. There was a queue of Chinese tourists waiting for a photo there. I suppose the Thai's know what tourists like and the Chinese love a wooden platform as a stage.

We then left and turned the corner into the proper Wat Chedi Luang. I wish I could give you more information but there wasn't much written about the Wat to explain - it was just another temple. It had the odd monk wandering around, a few golden Buddhas and a relaxing feel to the place. We took shade under a tree and watched as many tourists stopped for a picture in front of the big dome/pyramid thing that was in the middle. It was a nice spot to drink some water and take in the relaxed feel of the town.

Chiang Mai is a much slower pace to the rest of Thailand, well in the middle of the old town anyway. The streets can be quite busy closer to the busy roads, but there are lots of little residential side streets known as 'Soi's' and its when walking down them that you really sense the relaxing feel to the city. We enjoyed walking through these Soi's and getting a chance to glimpse the locals in their gardens.

We finished the sightseeing with a visit to another temple, this one called Wat Phra Singh which is a relatively new temple being built by the current king's father in 1935 (thanks Wikipedia) which is information we didn't have when we walked around it. It was a nice visit though and this place was a little larger in terms of grounds than the others we had seen today. This is also an active temple and there are living quarters for the monks just behind the main Wat.

After enough temples, we headed back to the hotel and booked ourselves a cooking class for the day after tomorrow and also tried to book to see some elephants. This unfortunately was a failure. There are plenty of elephant sanctuaries/parks to see the elephants around Chiang Mai, however some of these (perhaps 99%) are quite cruel places. I came to Chaing Mai 10 years ago and went to the first and cheapest elephant park we could find. After that day though I vowed never to do one again. Being naive I didn't see the problem with riding an elephant but since learnt that they are not built for transportation. Despite being massive, their backs are relatively weak and carrying people plus huge metal seats can cause them serious damage. I was also disgusted with the way the guy 'driving' the elephant treated the animal. He had a hammer which he used to bash the elephants head with if it didn't obey his commands and on the other side of the hammer there was a hook which would be dug into the ears to pull them which ever direction he wanted it to go. For those reasons we only wanted to visit somewhere that you could see elephants and not actually ride them. There is a company called Elephant Nature Park which offers just this, however it is the most popular and unfortunately we hadn't thought ahead and they had no slots available during our stay.

Quite disappointed about not forward planning properly and missing out on the elephant sanctuary we popped out for dinner. We manged to find somewhere that offered some Chinese food for £4 in total. We had some Chinese steamed buns and some rice and noodles before heading back to sleep.

Monday 11th January 2016

We had a lie in today and finally left the room about 11am. Gemma had found somewhere for breakfast on trip advisor so we walked 10 minutes to get there. It was closed! We then stumbled onto a place called 'Salad Concept' which as you might guess specialises in salads. Gemma had a couple of chicken salad wraps and I ate an omelette with a humongous salad which was fresh, healthy, filling and lovely!

After brunch we mad our way to the post office to pick up our parcel of suncream as the post office was closed the previous day. We handed over the receipt that the post man left a the hotel and was handed the box. As we turned to leave a confused looking girl walked passed us. She then headed over to Gemma, they both squealed and hugged each other. I stepped back a little, totally confused, and it turns out it was someone Gemma works with and sits a few rows behind in the office. What a small world! We stood and chatted about travel so far and where were are all heading to next. We said goodbye and we made our way back to the hotel. As we past reception we were given a letter which was a letter from my mother! As you may recall, in Bangkok we lost our currency cash card. Well, we ordered another one each to be sent to my mam's house. She kindly posted them to us in Chiang Mai and these are what we were given by reception. In all, a very successful morning - thanks mam!!

We headed out in the late afternoon to an area which we had been told was quite like Shoreditch in east London. Its meant to be quite trendy and the place where ex-pats and the young and cool Thai's hang out, so we thought we'd take a gander. We arrived by taxi after a short 10 minute ride and spent the next couple of hours walking up and down Nimmanahaeminda Road (I know! Imagine how I felt trying to say that to the taxi driver!). It was true that it did have a 'Shoreditch' feel to it as there were shops targeting that sort of age group and Gemma fell in love with some of the clothes in the shops and we quite enjoyed just walking around seeing a different, modern side to Chiang Mai. We stopped for a coffee before heading across the road to a shopping mall called Maya. We again looked in some shops and then decided to go to the cinema. We bought 2 tickets to see The Big Short (watch it, its good!) costing a total of £5. We then headed into a Japanese restaurant for dinner which with the style, smell and taste, transported us back to Japan which is never a bad place to be. After dinner and with 45 mins before the film started we went to the arcade section to shoot something. We were mesmerised by some teenage girls playing a game at an unbelievable speed. Its essentially a screen with lots of flashing lights which you hit as they appear on the screen to the beat of the song playing. They saw us watching and asked if we wanted a go. They were playing at the top level of 10 and we started at level 1 which was very slow, but still too fast for us. They filmed us and we're pretty sure that the video will look like a slo mo video. We then went to the cinema to watch the movie. As the adverts started before the film began we got ourselves comfortable with our box of popcorn each and then an announcement came on asking us to stand for the Kings song. We then stood for the next minute whilst images of the king hugging kids and dogs appeared on screen with a song playing over the top. The Thais either genuinely love their king or they are being brainwashed with a ridiculous amount of propaganda. Shocked, we sat to watch the movie before heading home to sleep.

Tuesday 12th January 2016

We woke at 7:30 and left the room by 8:30am walking around the corner to 'Zabb E Lee' cooking class. We had booked onto a half day cooking class which started at 9am costing us only £17 each and would last until 2pm. During this time we would be able to eat everything we cooked, so considering we'd be eating quite a lot of food inclusive in the price, we thought we had a pretty good deal.

We met the rest of our group consisting of 9 people, 1 South Korean girl, 1 German guy, 3 Brazilians and a couple who might have been from Austria??? We also met Ann who was the owner of the school and would be taking the class today. The first stop was a market to buy the ingredients for cooking. We arrived with about 5 other groups from different schools at a market where we were shown all the vegetables and spices and unfortunately also saw a man bashing in the heads of about 10 fish before gutting them.

After we had bought the ingredients we headed back to the cooking school. We were shown the different options that we could choose from to cook. We were allowed to cook an appetiser, stir fry, curry and soup. Gemma and I decided to do different dishes to extend our culinary knowledge. From the appetiser section Gemma chose fresh spring rolls and I chose Papaya salad. From the stir fry section Gemma chose Pad Thai and I chose chicken with cashew nuts. From the curry section Gemma chose green curry and I chose Massaman curry and finally, from the soup section Gemma chose chicken coconut soup (Tom Kha Kai) and I chose hot and sour prawn soup (Tom Yum Kung).

We spent the next couple of hours chopping, frying, laughing and eating. I recorded most of the cooking on our Go Pro so that we can look back and remember what to do. It was a really fun day and the food turned out really well, with the exception of Gemma's spring rolls which looked more like a burrito, but tasted really nice. We had a good laugh along the way and Ann was a character and was very funny. We left the cooking school at 2pm with a book full of all the recipes of the dishes we made, so if you are lucky we can possibly cook you some when we return. It will provided Gemma with some practice for her spring rolls at least.

After filling our bellies we walked the 100 metres back to the hotel where we had an admin afternoon. By that I mean I spent the next 2 hours saving pictures and updating blogs and Gemma slept. Later in the evening we went to Nimmanahaeminda Road again and popped into a wine bar which had outside seating. We sat and watched a young Thai band playing some classic songs whist we drank our (cold) carafe of shiraz. It was nice and relaxing sipping wine, listening to good music and nibbling on some peanuts and chillis. After it got dark though and the temperature started to drop we flagged down a tuk tuk and headed back home. We had a bit of a disagreement with the driver when we got out as he wanted more money than we agreed. After we sorted that out we popped into the 7 Eleven for some food and retired to the room for the evening before falling into a deep sleep.

Wednesday 13th January 2016

We treated ourselves to a lie in this morning and woke up and headed out for brunch. We popped into the Salad Concept again and had a huge plate of fresh salad which although being very refreshing didn't fill me up as much as it did Gemma. Still a great place though and a very reasonable price for the amount you get.

After eating we headed to the post office so that Gemma could post her granddad a post card and then we went to the barbers so that I could sort out my mullet. The one I wanted to visit, which was run by an English fella was closed so I had to risk using the Thai barbers next door. My main worry was trying to explain what I wanted exactly as I'm never satisfied with any haircut I get. The barbers was very cheap only costing £3 for a wash, cut and another wash. The end result was good in my opinion and I can safely say that I am a good 8 weeks away from another mullet. Gemma spent her time whilst I had my hair cut playing with the resident chiwawa, which had huge bulging eyes and was as small as a mouse - but she loved it with all her heart as it was happy to sit on her feet and lick her toes. Brave dog!

Now about 3pm we decided we'd head to a cat cafe that we'd read about. It was a tuk tuk ride to Nimmanahaeminda Road again and then a short walk to locate the cafe. The cafe is called Catmosphere and is basically a cafe selling teas and coffees, but also houses 22 cats of different breads. Before entering you have to wash your hands and then sanitize them to protect the cats from any infections. When inside we were ushered to some small cushion seats on the floor and waited until a cat decided to come over to us. We ordered drinks and watched in envy as some of the other customers had cats sat on their laps and we had none. When our drinks arrived so did a brown cat with leopard type spots who was very happy to sit in a cardboard box whilst having his chin rubbed. He wasn't very happy when you stopped. We spent the next hour talking to some of the other customers and playing with the cats. Gemma fell in love with a cat called cooper which she referred to as grumpy cat on account of his permanent sad face. He was recovering from cat flu and had to wear a jumper which probably added to his grumpiness. All he wanted was a cuddle and Gemma was happy to oblige.

After the cafe closed at 6:30pm we walked down the road to the shopping mall where we had dinner previously. We headed into a Japanese restaurant called Fuji and had some raman noodle soup and gyozas again reminding us of Japan. After a good amount of food we headed back to the hotel.

Thursday 14th January 2016

To mark our final day in Chiang Mai and our last day in Thailand we took it easy. We knew that the next few weeks would be back to 'travelling' like we'd done previously visiting new places every other day and spending most of the day wearing holes in our shoes. For that reason, we decided to take it easy and catch some extra sleep in the morning and spend the day watching some movies. We did pop out to get breakfast at a place called 'Into the woods' which was a cafe with a fairy tale theme and some nice coffee and omelette.

In the evening we headed to the Chinese restaurant we ate at a few nights previously and feasted on some noodles and steamed buns. After our fill we headed into a jazz bar which our hotel owner recommended. We were glad we did as we had a great time drinking some beers and watching some very talented kids in their late teens/early twenties playing some jazz music to the enjoyment of us and the other 70 people that were squeezed into the small venue. After a few hours and once the music had stopped we headed back to the hotel to sleep.

This brings our 4 weeks in Thailand to a close and a great 4 weeks its been. Its been a real mix of places with some crazy traffic in Bangkok to beautiful beaches and jungle of the islands and a relaxed atmosphere of Chaing Mai.

Next stop - Laos!!

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