The journey North continues to one of our favorite cities

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Our journey up North continues and after a 6 hour bus from Sukhothai we arrived into one of our favourite cities, Chiang Mai. We got a shared taxi into the old city and found a guesthouse we had stayed in before so checked in and had some very untraditional Thai food in the shape of pie and mash in an Irish pub round the corner – we love Thai food but now and again you need some proper carbs and Western fare in you! We relaxed for the afternoon before checking out the Sunday Walking Street Market in the evening which was great; a few roads are closed to cars and there are lots of food, clothes and home-ware stalls set up along the streets which you can spend hours browsing through. There are also some gorgeous Wats and Temples which you can see and they are lit up at night making them look extra special. Later that night we had a few drinks and played cards in the garden of a local bar but it started to get a bit cold so we called it a night around 1am after a great first day back in Chiang Mai.

The next day we were really excited as we had booked onto a cooking course! We were picked up along with a few other travellers and taken to the school where we chose what we wanted to cook that day – we each chose to make different dishes as we would be eating everything after, so we chose a curry paste, a curry, an appetizer (hot and spicy soup for Scott, Chicken Satay for me) and a rice/noodles dish, before going to the local market so buy some of the fresh ingredients. The market was great and had a huge selection of colourful veg and fresh herbs and spices, as well as trays full of hot chillis, a staple in Thai food. We wondered around for a while taking it all in before we headed back to the school to start our lesson. There was around 12 people cooking and each person had their own cooking station, ingredients and wok and we had to chop all our ingredients and make the curry pastes from scratch so it was very hands on which we enjoyed. Everyone was separated with a teacher depending on what they were cooking, so everyone making green curry was together, everyone making pad thai was together etc, and this worked well as each dish you made meant you interacted with different people and a different teacher. We then all came together at the end to eat what we had made, and it was delicious! The school was very professional and we got a good deal at 600 Baht each for the half day course (about £12) – there are lots of schools to choose from here but we highly recommend Asia Kitchen, they were great and we had a really fun day. As we had eaten a lot of Thai food that day we didn’t fancy it in the evening, so just had a simple pasta at a really nice Italian restaurant before getting an early night.

When we were in Chiang Mai before we had visited Tiger Kingdom, a tiger sanctuary just outside of the city which hand rears tigers from birth and to date has about 15 tigers from cubs to adults in its grounds, and we had loved interacting with these amazing animals so decided to go and visit again. Many people who haven’t been to this Tiger Kingdom assume the tigers are drugged, but after a third visit we still firmly believe they are not! Tigers are nocturnal animals, so naturally are sleepy in the day, especially in temperatures of 30 degrees +. Add to this that every tiger in Tiger Kingdom was born in captivity in the park and has been nurtured by humans their whole life, so they are more than used to people, plus they get fed tonnes of meat every day whenever they want so don’t need to hunt, and it makes for very relaxed tigers which you can interact with. Saying that we have seen the bigger ones prowling in their enclosures and roaring, as well as the little ones playing with each other like any cubs would, so they don’t just sleep all the time. You can chose to go in the enclosures with small, medium or big tigers and the prices vary depending on which size you chose - we chose to go in with the smallest tigers who were cubs aged 3-6 months and the most fun, not to mention so cute. These ones were a bit bigger than the ones we had been in with before and some of them were extremely playful, with each other and people –we saw one of them rip a guy’s shirt and another let out a surprisingly loud roar – who says these animals are drugged! Luckily we got to sit with one of the smaller ones who was so cuddly we wanted to take him home with us, but we settled on stroking him and just watching him, then played with a few of the others – they are really amazing animals and after 15 minutes we still didn’t want to leave. We walked around the park after and saw some of the bigger tigers, but we didn’t fancy getting in with them, they are still wild animals and have that instinct in them so we played it safe and stuck with the smaller ones. We also saw some tiny baby cubs no more than a month old in incubator type cribs which you couldn’t touch or go close to but they were adorable and in a few weeks will be strong enough to go in the enclosures, so some lucky people will get to play with them. We loved our time here again so much that we have enquired to volunteer for a couple of weeks and are waiting to hear back – watch this space!

On the way back we got dropped off at the foot of Doi Suthep, a mountain with an important Wat at the top, which we wanted to climb and see. We had a bit to eat in a small cafe then took a shared taxi/songthaew up to the top of the mountain which went round some really windy roads but the scenery was nice. Once there we ascended the 300+ marble steps (we are out of practice and were aching by the end!) to the very top and were greeted with the stunning Buddhist Temple/Wat which was very decorative in what looked like gold but is actually copper. There was also pagoda's, shrines and Buddha statues within the site so we stayed for a while looking around before admiring the views over the city from the other side of the temple and heading back down after another good day.

We had decided to move on tomorrow so for our last night in CM we treated ourselves and went back to one of our favourite restaurants, The Riverside, for dinner. Last time we were here and we had a higher budget we went most nights but as it’s not so cheap we hadn’t been this time, so we really enjoyed our meal and a few drinks whilst a Thai rock band were playing. It wasn’t as lively as we hoped so after a while we headed back to the old city and went to a bar for a while where we bumped into a guy we met weeks ago in Koh Chang – a few drinks later we were all on the dance floor throwing some shapes and we didn’t head home until about 2am.

The last week in Central/Northern Thailand has been really enjoyable and much as we love the beaches we have loved exploring the lesser known places and seeing some culture. We were going to spend a bit longer in Chiang Mai as we love it and every time we go back it feels like home, and there are still parts we haven’t been to and activities we haven’t done, but we have been hearing such great things about a small town a bit more North-West of Chiang Mai, so after 3 days we made plans to leave for Pai, another new destination in Thailand for us.....

S&V's Travel Info & Tips:

General Info: Approx 48 Baht to £1.

Transportation: Again we took a local bus from Sukhothai to Chiang Mai - you just turn up at the bus station. It took 6 hours and cost 240 Baht each. A shared tuk tuk from CM bus station to the old city cost 30 Baht each. We walked around CM mostly or got Tuk-Tuks - to go to the Tiger Kingdom, around 20km out of town, have the tuk wait for us and bring us back 2 hours later to CM cost 200 Baht.

Food: The stalls along the walking street market are yummy and cheap, and there are a few small Thai places we liked off the main streets, but a lot of places seemed very Westernised. The Riverside is good for a treat, and Paradise Pizza has good slices of pizza for 50 Baht if you need a cheese feast. U.N Irish pub also does a mean pie and mash!

Accomodation: We were lazy and went back to a guesthouse we had stayed at 2 years ago, MD House, but rooms (whilst nice) were over-priced at 700 Baht a night, although that included breakfast and wi-fi. The location is also very good, within the old cty walls and 3 minutes from the walking market.

Other observations:

x) Lots of Western men (young and old) with Thai women (?) in the bars at night which we still find a little strange.

xx) We had wanted to spend a day with elephants at one of the parks around CM but the reputable ones were fully booked for days and as we didn't want to go with one that maybe wasn't so natural or treated the elephants as well we left it, so book in advance if you have one in mind.

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Comments

[Amy]

Hugs from Home xxx
Loving your piccies guys...they are so fab!!! Love the latest blog entry...please bring a baby tiger home with you...they are toooo cute!!! :) Love & Hugs xxxxxx