Sunday in Chiang Mai


Advertisement
Thailand's flag
Asia » Thailand » North-West Thailand » Chiang Mai
May 21st 2006
Published: June 26th 2006
Edit Blog Post

Up early, had breakfast at Grace. Their muesli/fruit/yoghurt is great, though the coffee needs improvement. Got a tuk-tuk out to Wat Suan Dork, and the driver waited for us and then took us to Wat Umong. Wat Suan Dork was pretty cool, the chedi was so bright you needed sunglasses to look at it. Next to the wat were the tombs of certain old royals of Chiang Mai. From there we headed to Wat Umong, which was kind of out in the woods. Was built for a brilliant monk who had taken to wandering off into the forest. They built these tunnels full of murals to keep him interested so he wouldn’t keep wandering off. After Wat Umong we headed back into town and got lunch at The Writers Club & Wine Bar. Then we walked around the Sunday Market for a while, made a couple small purchases. Brought our loot back to Tri Gong and had a beer at Guest House New Zealand. At some point we managed to see Wat Phan Thao. We were getting hungry, so we got a tuk-tuk out to Nimanhemin (or as I like to call it, Nieman Marcus) Road and found some really nice (i.e. expensive) boutiques and galleries. Stopped at Fine Thanks cuz we thought they’d have the food we were looking for, but was a no go…No restaurants (we found out later that we didn’t walk far enough), so we got another tuk-tuk to take us to Chiang Mai German Microbrewery, but he broke down, so the driver hailed another driver to take us the rest of the way. It was raining fiercely by now, so the driver gave us his mobile number for later, since cabs aren’t common out there. Interestingly enough, there was no German food here. But then again there isn’t German food at a German brewery we go to in Bangkok...who knows? When it was time to leave, it was pouring like mad….finally got a hold of the driver and he showed up a while later—luckily the tut-tuk had plasic sheets that rolled down to minimize outside spray. They work well enough until one well-placed car splash sent water up into the interior of the tuk-tuk, dousing everyone from head to toe. The driver was swearing and we were trying to spit out the puddle-water that was sprayed into our mouths. You’ll be glad to know, we did not succumb to any subsequent intestinal distress, which either means the street water in Chaing Mai is pristine or we have iron stomachs.


Additional photos below
Photos: 34, Displayed: 23


Advertisement



27th June 2006

Chiang Mai looks beautiful! I'm so happy you survived the water attack with little incident.

Tot: 0.227s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 9; qc: 81; dbt: 0.0894s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.2mb