Chiang mai

What can I say about this place? Just ahhhhh, when we arrived here we took a deep breath, not just because of the fresh air but the delightfully slow pace of life Chiang Mai occupies. The area is surrounded by an ancient wall built in the 1300’s. The city is then surrounded by a real life jungle with rolling tree lined hills and tea plantations.  

Our hotel, Nanya hotel, was situated in a suburban area with an amazing pool with loads of sun beds to relax on (which we made use of on many occasions). A great place to stay for couples or friends. The city itself has a fresh approach to Asian living, the young people here have devised a balance of east meets west and created hip and trendy Thai style cafes and bars. We visited a few different food joint that we gotta share with ya. 

Firstly, if you want the best burger you’ve ever tasted, you gotta goto Arno’s steak restaurant. They cook there beef patties under metal pans so they are super tender and juicy. We got the classic burger with a side of truffle sauce to dunk our burger in and oh my goodness, it was good! The next place is ‘Good morning Chiang Mai’, we went for breakfast here 4 times over the week. They make some excellent dairy free wholewheat pancakes (you have to request them) and have the best sausages patties we’d had in Asia. 

Another place we visited regularly was the Market near the North gate to the city. Everyone raves about the cowgirl slow cooked beef from here, which we tried but were underwhelmed by, what you’ve really got to go for is the duck stand a few doors down. They cook the duck Asia style and slice up the tender breast meat and serve it with either noodles or rice with the best broth we’ve had over the top or on the side. All of this for just 50 Bhat (£1.15). We also visited a bar which had the most amazing cocktails called nophaburi. It’s a tiny little cocktail bar with very few seats so not suitable for large groups but perfect for couples. They use only Thai made spirits and fresh local juices and garnishes. I’d recommend the ‘sexy lady’, which has distinct pornstar martini vibes. 

Enough about the food now moving on to the the place itself... The tribal museum we visited on our last day to kill a bit of time before our long coach journey, it’s a little way out of the old city walls but with Uber’s costing us just £1 for the 20 minute journey it was fine. The museum was empty on arrival but we were welcomed openly by the lovely museum coordinator. We watched a short film about he lives of the tribes people in and around Thailand and the museum held artefacts from tribal ceremonies and their everyday life. Overall, worth the visit.

The absolute highlight for us and maybe even our trip so far (it’s a close one on this) was hanging out with 4 elephants for the day. It’s a tough choice choosing which elephant sanctuary to go for as you never really know which ones are real life or for show. We finally decided to go for Lovely elephant sanctuary but there were many in the area. Our guide(who was an absolute legend who bought us ice cream and doughnuts) explained to us the reason behind this is that the farmers used to use the elephants for farming the land but after government regulations changed they could no longer do this so they then used them for riding but after noticing tourist no longer wanted this the thai farmers then converted their farms into elephant sanctuaries. So there you go... On our arrival to the sanctuary the elephants were all waiting for us and the baby elephant rushed over knowing that we had bananas in the boot of the truck. It was the most bizarre feeling having a baby elephant shoving its trunk in your face as you tried to get out of the car. We fed the elephants with banana and sugar cane and then trekked up through the jungle through streams and then back to camp for some vitamin balls and bathing. The keepers got the elephants to give us an elephant shower too. The elephants were incredibly well behaved which made us slightly suspicious of their treatment but they were quite obviously happy and enjoying themselves and allowed to do whatever they wanted. The guide explained that the big older elephants were used for riding before coming to the sanctuary which might explain why they were so happy to be around humans. Anyway, it was the most insane experience being able to be so close to happy elephants and the cute little baby Ellie’s. The day did not end there though, oh no it did not. We then went white water rafting! Now, the river was kind of low so the rapids weren’t as big as they could have been but Jake still felt like James Bond so mission accomplished. All jokes aside, the most amazing day was had. 

Phew, sorry about the long post, stay with me here... Other things we did in Chiang Mai was hire a couple of bikes and cycle around the city. You can literally cycle all the way around the outside walls of the old city in about 45 minutes but you should stop at the various impressive temples and shrines on route including an interesting chicken shrine. If you have time you should also cycle beyond the old city in to the very hip and trendy area of ratchadammen. This area was nothing like we had experienced in Asia before. It was very classy, expensive and clean. We sampled some of the local craft beer and it was about the same price as you’d expect to pay in London! There are literally so many Temples in Chiang Mai it’s very difficult to choose which to visit. We went to one very near to our accommodation called ..... which was very impressive. Lots of gold and shiny mirror mosaic. Unfortunately the heat really got to me this day so our tour of the temples got cut short but here’s some pics. Just to round that all up for ya, you should visit Chiang Mai for a slower Asian pace of life, elephants and good food! We transferred to Bangkok for a few days then flew over to Australia, first stop Melbourne. Stay tuned for my next blog of our camper vanning trip from Cairns to Brisbane too! 

#travelling #thialand #Chiangmai