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Published: February 15th 2009
Wow, what a time we've had in Chiang Mai...our new favourite place in Thailand! Since we last posted we've done things we didn't think we'd ever get to do and met so many nice people along the way, it's been fantastic!
Chiang Mai is around 700 km north of Bangkok, not far from the Myanmar (Burma) boarder and is seen fondly by the Thai's as their northern capital. Although a city with almost 205,000 residents, Chaing Mai feels like a small town, especially as our base was in the old town, a square mile, surrounded by a moat and city walls. Its got a similar feal to York in the UK, which was a welcome change from Bangkok!
Apparently there are over 300 temples in Chiang Mai which we can believe! Rather than a day spent sightseeing with Lonely Planet and map in hand, we managed to see our fill by simply wandering around, there was something to see on every street corner...so much so in fact that after a few days we didn't even look up when walking awsome temples we'd wowed at earlier haha!
After the first 3 days in the Queen Vic we moved accomodation
to Julies Guesthouse (as recommended by the LP) and were we glad we did! For 300 bhat (7 pound) we had a cosy little room, in the best place we've stayed yet. Julies is really everything you imagine and hope for from a backpackers guesthouse. There were around 40 rooms with a couple of garden and roof terraces, built around a large open air bar/cafe/cinema/meeting place. The food was great and cheap and they acctually had an honesty bar, you just help yourselves and keep your own tab book to settle at the end of your stay...quality! The staff were great and full of advice when it came to organising the many different activities available in this part of Thailand..cheers guys!
One night we went to watch the Thai Boxing. Sitting 5 or 6 rows back (to avoid the blood) we watched around 8 of the 12 fights. The matches were 6 rounds each but the first few rounds were more dancing around and hugging whilst kneeing each other before going for it in the last two. To be honest we were a bit dissapointed, there were no knock outs (and no blood) but it was still worth seeing.
The next day we went on cooking class where we were picked up and taken to the local market with a group of around 8 and learnt about the various ingredients for the day. The course was held on a farm closeby where the lesson continued into the veg and herb gardens. After picking 6 dishes each to learn we started in the kitchen and were well impressedwith the results which we of course got to each for lunch! But we opted to "takeaway" the afternoon sessions food..we were SO full! Our teacher was a real comedian and helped make the whole day even better than we expected, www.thaifarmcooking.com, we'd highly recommend this if anyones looking!
Then we spent a couple of days chilling at a really nice local pool, modestly called "The real centre of the universe!" as Maja had a cold to get over before the trek (which we've just found out is Brhoncitus by the way!).
Trekking is why most people come up to Chiang Mai and are we glad we did! One word...AMAZING! We had a really great group made of 6 Brits, 3 Germans, a Canadian, an Austrian and of course a
Our campfire
Apparently we were the 1st to ask for this...!Swede, and two guides. Day one started at the elephant camp around 2 hours North of Chiang Mai. Steve wasn't really looking forward to this after his horse riding experience a couple of weeks ago but in the end he really enjoyed it! We were both pleased to see the elephants looking happy and well after hearing about some bad camps. We bought a pile of sugar cane jumped aboard and the elephant walked about 5 steps per serving until we quickley ran out haha! 2 babies tagged along and were playing in the river and mischeivously getting int he way of the line, it was really funny.
The trek itself was really tough but so worth it. After a 2-3 hours the mountain got really steep and we were all blowing a bit (ok a lot) but then when we leveled off and took in the views it was absouloutly beautiful..even more so perhaps because we'd sweated it upthere on our own two feet!
The accommodation was an open longhouse in a native village built on stilts on the edge of a cliff! The view from the terrace was breathtaking! After a couple of beers we sat
sown to a feast of chicken curry and rice and spent the night laughing and joking around the campfire while one of the guides (and Steve haha!) entertained us with a guitar. Steve had 2 songs, the guide had around 4 but nobody minded after a few more Changs.
Next morning, after breakfast and more breathtaking views to sort out our "changovers", the guides strangley fired down a couple of red bull and vodkas and led us down the other side of the mountain. We didn't think going down hill would be so hard but it was mega steep and the track was a mud slope with vines everywhere, after a couple of hours we were knackered again and pleased to get to the waterfall for a morning dip. This was SO NICE! Afterwards a gentle hour and a half walk along the riverbank (including a pretty hairy log crossing!) brought us to the rafting centre.
We were both looking forward to this part and it didn't dissapoint. One hours whitewater followed by a cool 20 minute bamboo raft down the gentle part brought us to a riverside cafe where we finished the trip with massive helping of
pad thai noodles.
Before we got to Chiang Mai we didn't really know much about the place and it was one of those places on the "maybe" list. After spending 10 fantastic days here we were pretty sad to leave and the next time we come back to Thailand it will definatly be on the "definatly" list! The place had a really nice atmosphere to it and the old town quickly felt like a home from home, especially at Julies, something which we've not really felt since leaving Boracay.
Well, all good things must come to an end or at least all good things must continue somewhere else, so after a 14 hour train back to Bangkok and another night here, we're now setting off in an hour or so on a 6 hour train further south to Chumpon where we'll take a ferry to Koh Tao...its going to be nice to hit the beaches again after a couple of weeks away!..it's a hard life..how many times can we get away with saying that haha!
As always hope your all well and keep the comments coming! Mum I hope you've stopped crying, it was really nice to
speak to you and see you on Skype, after 3 months!
Love Steve and Maja x
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stina
non-member comment
Hapiness!
First of all: Congratulations to your engagement from all of us Petterssons. We are really happy for both of you. We ourselves are also happy for having Steven properly in the family - specially Astrid is! Your blog pictures shows a lot of hapiness - keep on having the time of your life! This weekend we had the privilege of having Jimmy, Sharon, Erik, Kristina and Birgitta over for dinner. We really enjoyed it. Take care! / Stina med familj