Advertisement
Published: August 17th 2013
Edit Blog Post
Last night after dinner by the river Ping, we went to the night market. There was lots of stuff on offer aimed at tourists, including a group of lady boys in bright colored feathery costumes! We explained to the kids that those ladies were not ladies, but I'm not sure they believed us. And frankly I'm not surprised!
We had time this morning, Saturday, for a little more walking around Chiang Mai. We took one of the local taxis into town. They're red pickup trucks with a topper over the back and two benches inside. I can't recall the Thai name but it means two rows. They pick up other people along the way who are going in roughly the same direction. So riding in the taxi becomes a social occasion where you may or may not take a direct route to your destination. But you get there eventually for a negotiated price of about 75c a person. On our way back towards the hotel we stopped for some "fish therapy" for the kids. You put your feet in fish tanks full of small fish who eat away at dead skin on your feet. The idea is to soften your
1958 Mercedes
No seat belts, but he has a pith helmet in case of emergency! feet, but I think you'd have to be there a really long time for those tiny fish to have any impact. So really it was just a bit of a laugh and the kids had their feet tickled by fish!
After that we were back to the hotel for lunch and a final swim. Lunch took an amusing turn when our drinks order got confused with that of another guest and the kids ended up with vodka cranberries instead of Shirley Temple kiddie cocktails. We wouldn't have noticed as the colors of the drinks were what we expected. Ben did comment that it didn't taste quite right, and thankfully the waitress noticed the error and came over full of apologies before the kids had drunk much. Could have been messy!
The last treat that the Ping Nakara hotel had in store was that our ride back to the airport was in their 1958 Mercedes. The driver in the pith helmet added to the colonial feel and I loved it.
As I write, we're sitting in Chiang Mai airport awaiting our plane to Singapore, looking out over the mountains to the west of Chiang Mai.
So....time for
final thoughts on Chiang Mai. This has been a really fun few days, with the elephant farm as the highlight. Our hotel was lovely. A very relaxed place with attentive, but not intrusive staff. The town itself is pleasant but other than lots of temples, it doesn't have many tourist attractions. The surrounding hills are beautiful and I think you'd have a very incomplete view of the area unless you visited them. I certainly preferred this town to Bangkok, and am glad we came as it significantly improved my opinion of Thailand. I'd recommend anyone visit this place, if only for the elephant farm in the hills.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.346s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 45; dbt: 0.1356s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb