Blogs from Chiang Mai, North-West Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 21

Days 1 - 3 Wednesday - Friday January 13 -15- The journey begins…on Wednesday at 6:30am when the Monterey Airbus picked us up at home for our connection in Monterey and the big bus leaving at 7:00 that will take us to SFO for our Korean Air 11:25am flight to Seoul, South Korea. Traffic was bad but we did finally arrive in time. As we approached the Priority check-in desk, a nice man walked up to tell us that our flight would be about 45 minutes late departing due to snow in Seoul. We found the lounge and hung out for a while. We finally took off about an hour and fifteen late. We were concerned that we would miss our connection to Chiang Mai. It was a great flight and the crew was splendid. We ... read more

Having left the comfort of Megan and James' we headed into the chaos that was Bangkok to get our bus up to Chiang Mai, where we would be spending Christmas. We were told to be at the travel agents for 7 pm to catch the bus. After two weeks in Thailand we should have realised this was 7pm 'Thai Time' and spent an hour waiting for people and wondering around. By the time we actually got onto the bus it was more like 8 and we set off for our 9 hr journey over night. Again this was 9hrs in 'Thai Time' and the journey was near enough 13 hours door to door. It wasn't too bad though. Our long bus journeys in Australia had prepared us and the Thai buses are actually pretty comfy with ... read more

Today we explored chiang mai!we walked for miles and went to a couple of other temples which were really pretty (wat chedi luang& wat phan Tao). As a reward for all my walking-Ryan agreed to get a foot massage with me!!!!i had a lovely Thai lady while Ryan had a very angry Thai woman who spent most of the time trying to crack his feet and punch his legs!he claims he really enjoyed it!my massage was a bit softer and the woman give up trying to crack my toes when I give her the look of death! We had some a sandwich, chips and a drink in an Irish pub and then went to the lanna folkline museum, which explained some of the Northern Thai religious believes. The evening was spent at a night market having ... read more

New Year's Eve didn't start too well with me getting a horrendous stomach bug but managed to get the flight to chiang mai, we are staying in the chiang mai night bazaar boutique hotel. Such a good location right on the markets-the hotel itself is pretty nice-old fashioned Thai hotel with staff willingly taking our luggage to our room-Ryan tipped the guy 40p-he seemed delighted!lol New Year's Eve celebrations were amazing, the sky was filled with lanterns (we lit off 2 of them) and fireworks at 12am were unbelievable. I have never witnessed a firework display quite like it, every part of the sky was covered with fireworks and lanterns at one point! The atmosphere was great too-there doesn't seem to be a rule about drinking in public so everyone had their 40p Chang beer (apart ... read more

Geo: 18.8, 98.98Today we visited the Doi Suthep temple up on a hill, about 16km from the city center. It's the most important tempel in Northern Thailand. The reason why they built it up here is pretty funny. A holy shrine needed a new home so it was put on a white elephant, also considered holy here in Thailand. He climbed up the mountain, when he reached the place were the tempel is now, he turned around 3 times, trumpeted 3 times, knelt down and died.We took a shared songthaew, a taxibus that sits 10 up there, formed a group at the temple close to our hotel. We were also so smart to enter the main platform through the back door, making it easier to find our shoes later on. The temple is beautiful and they ... read more