Our flight arrived in Chiang Mai in the morning and were greeted by cooler weather, gray skies, and rain. We took a Grab to the Airbnb apartment we booked, hoping we would be able to leave our bags prior to check-in. We had booked an apartment in the Astra Sky River high-rise complex which was located southwest of Chiang Mai's Old Town. We were excited about this apartment because it looked pretty fancy and new, and even had a rooftop pool (a nice change after mostly roughing it in Indo)! We arrived too early to check-in so we passed the time at a coffee shop next door and worked on this blog. When we got the keys, we dropped our bags off in our room, took a quick detour to the roof to admire the pool, and headed to find a much needed late lunch. We were staying on a busy street, but since we were about a 25 minute walk from the Old Town, it was a pretty local area. We ate at a cute cafe run by a very friendly elderly couple; they couldn't really speak English, and we couldn't speak Thai, but we got by with lots of smiling and hand gestures. We ordered lemon garlic chicken, spring rolls, and green curry. The food was amazing, and a great start to the Thai food scene we were so eager for. After lunch, we relaxed in our room until our friend Mike arrived close to midnight after a long flight from Minnesota. We caught up for a bit, but we were all exhausted after long travel days and were ready to get some sleep so we would could explore the city tomorrow.
The next day, we walked to the Old Town of Chiang Mai, and on the way we grabbed some fresh mango juices. The juices were massive and served with domed plastic lids that were filled to the top. We continued walking around and strolled around some of the smaller temples- they are everywhere in Chiang Mai. We stopped at one quiet temple with beautiful grounds where we ran into a monk sitting under a tree with a student. He greeted us and asked if we would like to talk. At first we said no because we were nervous and didn't want to intrude, but then we quickly changed our minds. He had us sit down under the tree and close our eyes for a few minutes while he talked to us about Buddhism and the concept of Sabai Sabai, which essentially means to let things go and be at peace. We thanked him and left, and we were all so glad we changed our minds and accepted the opportunity to learn. We continued to wander around Old Town, and eventually stopped for lunch where we got papaya salad and Burmese style curry which were both delicious. We headed back to the apartment and relaxed in our rooftop pool for a while. The pool was awesome; it ran the entire length of the apartment complex, and had really nice views over the city and surrounding mountains. That evening, we headed back to Old Town to visit the Sunday Night Market, which we had read about. The market runs along a closed street that we had been on earlier in the day, and spans over a mile. There were vendors selling everything from food to clothes to handmade goods, and there were even side "food court" areas where more food stalls were set up with places to eat. It was crowded, but we had a blast making our way through the market and looking at and tasting as much as we could. We decided we wanted to try as much as possible, so we ordered a lot of items to share, like bao buns, Pad Thai in an omelet, pork balls, spring rolls, chicken satay, roasted corn, ribs, a northern Thai sausage called Sai Ua, Thai crepes, and ice cream. It was all delicious (and totaled to less than $5 each!), but we all agreed our favorite was the Sai Ua. We also purchased a few small Thai crafts as souvenirs and gifts.
The next day we took it pretty easy relaxing at our place and planning out the rest of our time in northern Thailand with Mike. We grabbed lunch at the same cafe we had visited our first day, but this time Mel tried her first Khao Soi, which is one of northern Thailand's staple dishes. It's a Thai egg noodle soup in a curry broth, and it is SO good. It's sort of like an elevated chicken soup in that it's comforting and warm, but it is creamier and had much more complex flavors. After lunch, Mel and Mike went to a nearby spa for relaxing foot massages, and then met back up with Carson at the rooftop pool to enjoy sunset. Later in the evening we ventured out to another night market in our neighborhood called Anusarn Market. This was smaller than the Sunday Night Market, but it is permanent, so it happens every day. There were lots of stalls for clothes, souvenirs, and food. We tried a lot of new food here too, including durian which is a fruit found in Asia that is known to be very smelly (seriously, you see signs everywhere telling you durian isn't allowed places). The first couple bites weren't too bad, and honestly even though it smelled a bit like rotting trash, we didn't think it smelled THAT horrible (but we were outside). The weirder part of it was the texture and taste. The texture is almost creamy, and the taste was almost stronger then the smell. We thought we liked it at first, but over time, we got a few "off" bites, and felt like we'd had enough. Overall, we all thought it was ok and the smell wasn't as bad as what people make it out to be, but we didn't feel any need to eat it again. Aside from durian, we also had more pad thai, sai ua, and papaya salad (the best Mel found in Thailand) from food stalls. They were all delicious and cheap, so we knew we'd come back to this market again.
We decided to get out of the city the next day and booked a day tour to nearby Doi Inthanon National Park. A van picked us up at our Airbnb, and after an hour we were in the clouds at the national park. Doi Inthanon has a cloud forest environment and is known for its two large twin pagodas (Chedis) and for being the highest point in Thailand. The weather was damp and cool with low clouds in the forest. Our first stop was at a large gushing waterfall called Wachirathan Waterfall. It was hard not to get hit by the water gushing from this mighty waterfall. There was also a lot of water when we visited since rainy season was just finishing up. We then drove up to a trailhead to hike Kew Mae Pan Nature Trail. Even though it was cloudy and we couldn't see many vistas, the hike through the old forest was great and gave us a true feel for the cloud forest. We saw unique plant life, waterfalls, crazy vines, one extremely cloudy viewpoint, and a beautiful Green Tailed Sunbird (which we lost Carson to for a bit). After this hike, we drove higher up in the park to visit the highest point of the National Park and Thailand at 8,415 ft. It was cool to say we were there but there weren't many views up high on such a cloudy day. We then jumped into a different van and were dropped off at the famous twin pagodas. The first pagoda we went to was Naphaphone Phumi Siri and was built in 1992 to honor the 60th birthday of Queen Sirikit. Inside were beautiful mosaics telling a story of the Buddha with a standing Buddha in the middle of the room. Outside was a beautiful garden, but it was hard to see more than 30 feet in front of you due to the dense clouds. We then walked over to the second pagoda, Naphamethinidon, which was built in 1987 to honor the 60th birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Inside was a large Buddha sitting and on the four walls was the story of the Buddha reaching enteral life. The two pagodas were beautiful to see inside since we couldn't see anything outside very clearly. After this, we left the park for a quick lunch break and then headed to see some local rice terraces. It was beautiful to see the stair stepping look of the rice terraces with the rolling hills and mountains in the distance. The rice was a tan/yellow color and was about to be harvested. Next, we stopped in a local village of the Karen hill tribe where we observed a woman making beautiful scarves and clothes on a loom. She sat on the floor with her loom strapped around her back so she could lean back while she worked, and it was really mesmerizing watching her work so fast while manipulating so many strings. Carson secretly bought a scarf from this woman for Melissa's birthday which was a week away. After that, we crossed the street to try some local coffee and tea. Melissa and Mike liked the different coffee roasts, and the tea was very soothing. Our favorite was butterfly tea (made from blue butterfly flowers so the color looked like blue Gatorade). We then headed back to our Airbnb after a long day and relaxed and grabbed dinner at more of the food stalls at the Anusarn Market.
The next day was election day back in America, and results would be coming in starting in the late morning our time. We knew we would be glued to our phones watching the coverage anyway, so we decided to see if there was an expat bar where we could watch things live with other Americans. We found an Irish Bar in the Old Town that was showing the election results upstirs, and we posted up there for a few hours with a handful of others. We started out hopeful, but eventually ended up drinking and playing cards more than watching the results since they got depressing really quickly. After drinking our sorrows, we went back to our place and proceeded to order in McDonalds for lunch so we could also eat our sorrows. This really hit the spot, but hilariously ended up being one of our most expensive meals in Thailand. We loafed around the rest of the day and watched a lot of a perfect comfort show- Schitt's Creek. For dinner, we grabbed takeout Chinese noodles and dumplings from a nearby restaurant that we had been eyeing for a few days now. The funny thing we learned about ordering takeout in Thailand is how many bags and tightly wrapped rubber bands are used instead of to-go containers. It took us ages to undo all the bags, but the food was absolutely worth the effort.
The next day, we decided to explore a different neighborhood of Chiang Mai, so we Grabbed to the northwest area of the city. Here we walked around Maya Mall to see if there were any good deals, but all we left with was a new phone screen protector for Carson. We still enjoyed walking around and seeing some of the different kinds of fashion. We worked up an appetite at the mall, so we walked over to grab lunch at a popular restaurant called Khao Soi Maesai where we had to wait about 20 minutes for a table and then ordered three bowls of Khao Soi with different proteins and roselle (hibiscus) tea. While the Khao Soi Mel had the other day was good, this one was seriously incredible. We all couldn't believe how tasty it was and devoured our bowls. Next, we walked a block south and walked around the trendy Nimman Neighborhood. This neighborhood was different than the one we were staying in and felt younger and hipper with the amount of coffee shops and boutiques everywhere. We ended the evening by walking around and grabbing dinner and mango sticky rice at the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. This market was pretty good, but we didn't like it as much as the Anusarn Market.
On our last last day in Chiang Mai before heading north to Pai we went to the Baan Kang Wat art market. We walked around cute artist shops/living spaces and admired their various types of artwork (pottery, weaving, candles, etc.); Melissa purchased a bracelet that had a charm with a pressed flower inside. We then went to a restaurant in Old Town to get more Khao Soi (we couldn't get enough). While the Khao Soi was good it still wasn't as good as Khao Soi Maesai, but we were enjoying trying the different takes on it. We then walked around Old Town and stopped at a coffee shop to play cards. After relaxing we walked home through a more local neighborhood south of Old Town to get back to our apartment where we ordered in Chinese noodles, dumplings, and wine while doing facemasks and watching more Schitts Creek.
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