Advertisement
Published: August 22nd 2009
Edit Blog Post
Chiang Mai was our final stop in Thailand and it was one pretty nice city. To get to Chaing Mai we had to take an overnight train from Bangkok. The train wasn't too bad they had beds and it wasn't too hot, but we defiantly didn't get a great nights sleep but it was much better than a bus. When we arrived in Chaing Mai it was 5 a.m and we were exhausted. We made one stop over in a place called Ayutthaya on the way to Chiang Mai, I think at one time Ayutthaya was the capital of Thailand but they we attacked at some point and a lot of the monuments were smashed and burned. The city had some the best and oldest buildings to see. The one day we spent in Ayutthya we rented bikes and rode around to all of the sights.
We thought we would have more time to spend in Chiang Mai but because our visa was almost up we only got to spend four days there. In those four day we did a lot though. Chiang Mai has a lot of temples and when I say a lot there is something like 300
in a very small area. Jenna and I rented a motorbike on the first day and rode that around to see a few of the temples. The first temple we saw was the furthest away from the town and it was up on a small mountain. It was nice driving up to that one because the road was quiet and not very crowded. When we were driving up the mountain Jenna and thought that the road reminded us of highway 6 that goes up toward Central City. Along the way there were some nice view points that we stopped off at to have a look.
When we arrived at the temple it was on top of a very long stair case with two long dragons along each railing. After a long walk up the stairs we arrived in the temple and it was one of the most beautiful we have seen. There we statues and buildings that were all very brightly colored and there were monks everywhere talking and working. One nice thing about this temple is it had a beautiful view of the city. It was about a 5 or 6 mile drive to get up to it
but it was worth it.
While we were in Chiang Mai we also went to a huge night market and we saw a Thai boxing match. The night market was the biggest one we have seen yet. Basically its like a flea market, lots of small shops with tons of souvenirs. This night market was the one we had heard a lot about and we were waiting for it to buy all the things we had seen everywhere else. It was pretty nice, everything we bought we had to haggle on but now we are very use to this. The market was officially called the night bizarre and it went from about 5p.m - midnight. Shopping for things is not my favorite but it was OK because there was so much to look at and the people selling there crafts were very friendly. On another night in Chiang Mai we finally got to see a Thai boxing match. Thai boxing is like kick boxing except they can also throw each other on the ground. It was pretty awesome and it was only $5. The fight was not a large title fight or anything but it was still exciting. We
saw two knock outs which was cool. One plus of going to a smaller fight was that you get great seats, we sat about ten feet from the ring and it was amazing.
Our largest highlight of traveling to Chiang Mai was defiantly the trekking. We did two days of trekking and spent one night in a small village. We hiked for about 2 hours to get up to the village which was on the top of a small mountain. The walk was beautiful and really hot. We walked though basically a rain forest that had rivers and trees and tall grass everywhere. The hike was a little difficult because we have been so lazy recently. Our night in the village was... a night in a village. They didn't have hot water or nice bathrooms, and we had to sleep in a large room with about twelve other people, all of which spoke French, I don't know how that happened. The "beds" weren't terrible and they actually reminded us of sleeping in a Korean hotel. The next day we walked down the mountain to a camp and from there we got to ride elephants for about an hour and
then we went white water rafting on a surprisingly ruff river. The elephant ride was fun and it was pretty scary. We rode on the top of an elephant on a metal bench thing that was pretty uncomfortable. We weren't to worried about the seat because we were to busy sliding from side to side with every step the elephant took. The trail they take the elephants on was pretty treacherous. We were thinking it was going to be a ride around on a flat rode but no, these things can walk everywhere. We had a guide riding on top of our elephants head but some of the other elephants didn't have guides, or the guide was walking next to them. This was funny because some of the elephants without guides would just stop and tear branches off trees or eat grass and the people riding the elephant would just have to wait until it was done. After the elephant riding we did two kinds of rafting first was the traditional rubber raft after that we rode a bamboo raft. Jenna and I both thought that the rapids on this river were going to be no big deal but they
defiantly were. We almost fell out of the boat after the first rapid it was pretty ruff. After that we braced ourselves for the rapids to be a little stronger and it was fine. Now I'm not sure if our river guide was an actual river guide because we got stuck on four different rocks in the middle of rapids which was pretty scary. The bamboo raft was a different story we got to steer the raft and the guide just yelled directions from the safety of his rubber raft which we used for the first part of the trip. The bamboo raft was fun except for some reason i got chosen to steer. Usually steering is easy like a car right well with a bamboo raft you have a bamboo pole and you stick that in the river bed and push. After we had just paddled down the river I was exhausted but I had to do it and I have to say we didn't hit any rocks on my watch.
While in Chiang Mai we did a lot including a cooking school. This doesn't sound so fun but it actually was. We were picked up at about
9 to be taken to the school, after that we were taken to a local market and we learned about the ingredients we would use. After the market we went back to the school and we got to try some of the local fruit which was really good, the only one I can remember the name of is dragon fruit but we tried about five. The class lasted most of the day and we learned how to cook six dishes each. We cooked chicken cashew, spring rolls, green and panang curry, pad thai, chicken in cocnut milk and a couple of others. By the end of the day we were so full we had to take some food home in a bag, because after each dish you cook you sat down with everyone and ate it... Man we were full.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.069s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 13; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0236s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Todd & Peggy
non-member comment
Very Cool
You kids never cease to amaze me. I would love to see and do half the things you two have seen and done. Please have a safe return.