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May 2, 20178 min read

Chiang Mai


Day One

Nico, Kristen, Josh, and I woke up early in Bangkok and headed to the airport for our flight to Chiang Mai, where we would meet up with our friends Robbie (who is travelling for just over a week) and Steven (who is living in Chiang Mai and teaching English). We flew on Thai Airways, which was absolutely amazing. Even though the flight was only about an hour, they still served us food and had personal screens with free movies and games.

When we landed, Robbie and Steven met us at the airport holding signs that read, "Dave" and "nice butt." They drove in on Steven's motorbike, so the rest of us took an Uber back to the house, which Steven arranged for us.

After dropping our stuff off at Steven's adorable Thai home, we headed out to lunch. We went to a restaurant called Cooking Love where I got coconut curry with chicken, served in an actual coconut. It was so good!

After lunch, Steven took us all to get Thai massages. The massage cost only 450 baht for 90 minutes (about $14 USD). The pressure was very firm and the massage therapist used her arms, legs, elbows -- you name it-- to loosen my knots. Before getting massaged, we had our feet washed, which is customary in Thailand. The ladies kept laughing at Nico's toe since the nail had only halfway grown back after losing it a few months ago.

After our massages, we went to meet Steven's girlfriend, Tara, an exchange student from the UK who he met in Thailand. We hung out in her apartment that afternoon and swam in her pool, which felt amazing in the hot weather.


Tara's pool

For dinner, we went to an Indian restaurant called Le Spice. I ordered chicken masala and garlic naan. At dinner, we met Tara's younger sister, Megan, who is taking her gap year in Thailand and visiting Tara.

Later, we went to a ladyboy show. The group tried to get the ladyboys to pay attention to Nico, which resulted in him getting danced on a lot and him being super uncomfortable for the rest of the night.


The whole gang with the ladyboys

 

Day Two

The next day, we went to breakfast at a restaurant called The Hideout. It was one of Steven's favorite breakfast spots. I had delicious French Toast.

After breakfast, the group (minus Tara because she had homework) organized a red truck to take us to Sticky Waterfall, located about an hour outside Chiang Mai. The waterfall consisted of a gradual embankment of limestone rocks. Water shaped the rock into a smooth but lumpy-looking formation. The rocks were very grippy and we were able to climb the waterfall with our bare feet.


That night, we decided to relax at Steve's house and play the pizza box game. The rules are as follows:

Going around in a circle, each person flips a coin into an empty pizza box. Where the coin lands, you draw a circle (or any other shape) and write your name in it. Anytime someone's coin flip lands in your circle, you have to drink. If the coin lands in a new area, the flipper gets to draw a shape and write a rule inside of it (ie. give a drink to the person on your right). Anytime the coin lands on a rule, the flipper has to do that thing. The game ends when the pizza box is full of drawings or everyone is 'over it'.

 

Day Three

In the morning, the whole group went to Toey Dim Sum for breakfast. We ate a ton of food for a very cheap price. My favorites were the pork buns and the gyoza. There were also good custard buns (like pork buns but full of sweet goo).

Then, we took Ubers to The Grand Canyon, a small, water-filled canyon just outside Chiang Mai filled with a bunch of inflatables. We had a blast running through the course, falling all over the place, and jumping into the water.

After spending pretty much the whole day at the Grand Canyon and wearing ourselves out, we decided to just take it easy that night at Steve's. We walked to a restaurant nearby (I had pad see ew) and then went to bed.


My pad see ew

 

Day Four

The next morning, Nico, Kristen, Josh, Robbie, and I woke up early and headed to the office of the Elephant Nature Park, stopping at 7-11 to pick up breakfast, which consisted mostly of junk food (although they do have a tasty chocolate-banana muffin). We checked in at the office and then loaded into a van with our guide, Sakchai (nicknamed Sunshine), and two other pairs of tourists.

During the van ride, we watched an informative video. The Elephant Nature Park is responsible for rescuing over 90 elephants from the abusive tourism industry and over 500 dogs. We learned about why it's important to never ride the elephants or support that kind of tourism. Even if an elephant tour offers "abuse-free" elephant back riding, the elephant still must be "broken" in order to be made rideable. There still has to be an element of fear for the elephant to behave as humans want.

When we arrived at the elephant park, we first fed fruit to the elephants. It was really entertaining to watch them use their trunks to scoop fruit into their mouths. The elephants even removed the rind from a watermelon in one movement as they scooped the red fruit up.

Then, we walked around to different groups of elephants in the park. We learned their names, where they were rescued from, and general facts about them. Each elephant has a mahout, a person who never rides or directs the elephant in any way but looks after the elephant and follows it around the park, keeping it company.


Around noon, we took a break for lunch. The park provided a delicious Thai vegan buffet. I ate a mushroom that fooled me into thinking it was chicken. The food was amazing.


After lunch, we walked around a little more, meeting elephants with broken legs or without site. Then it was time to head down to the river to bathe the elephants as they ate more fruit. We filled buckets with river water and splashed it up onto our elephant, avoiding her eyes and ears. The elephant we washed was called Sook Jai (I think). She is the most recent rescue in the park. After this last activity, we said "goodbye".

Overall, I felt that the entire experience at the Elephant Nature Park was phenomenal. Our guide, Sakchai was super great and funny. I think this is an experience that cannot be missed by people visiting Thailand. My advice is that you need to book ahead. This was the only activity on our whole trip through Southeast Asia that we booked before leaving the US.

That night, we went to Kat's Kitchen for dinner, which was super good. I had yellow curry. It rained a lot while we were there and the only seating was outside but at least it was covered. This was the first time I'd felt cold since arriving in Thailand.


Yellow curry from Kat's Kitchen

Later, we went out dancing. We spent most of the night at this really cool reggae bar (that I forget the name of but it's near all the other places people like to go out to).

 

Day Five

We all slept in a little bit before starting day 5. We headed to a breakfast place that Steven recommended that serves paninis and cinnamon rolls but, unfortunately, it was closed for the season. Luckily, Steven knew of another breakfast place nearby called Good Day. Here I tried a Thai omelette served with massaman curry. It was very good. I liked how the Thai omelette is crispy. I'm pretty sure it's made by frying the egg in hot oil, which gives it a nice texture and flavor.


Massaman curry & Thai omelette

After breakfast, we headed to Tara's apartment to swim in her pool again. Then, we walked to a nearby restaurant for lunch called Lumlumlablae where I tried tom yum, the national dish of Thailand. It's a spicy noodle soup served with chicken and a fried egg. Once we were finished, we walked to a 7-11 to get ice cream.


Tom yum

That evening, we walked to Tara's place to relax a bit before walking down the street to get street food. I tried roti, which is a sweet egg pastry that had chocolate and bananas inside. You can get a roti with practically anything you'd like in it (some Thai people were getting it with sweet ingredients plus cheese??). It reminds me of a crepe kind of, except the dough is fried in fat.


Street food

After that, we took a red truck to a night market. There were many different stalls set up selling different things including clothing and food. As we were browsing the market, it began to pour rain and unfortunately most of the food stalls closed early right as I was starting to get hungry.

To end the evening, we went to a bar called Baan Din. It had a cool ambiance with pillow seats on the floor and board games to choose from. I ordered some tasty gyoza for dinner and a beer. We all played jenga until the bar closed at midnight.

 

Day Six

On the sixth day, we slept in before heading to Cooking Love again to get brunch. This time, I got red curry with pineapple. Usually, I don't like pineapple but I tried some and it was okay (trust me that means it was amazing for everyone else at that table).


Red curry with pineapple

After eating, Nico, Kristen, Josh, Steven, and I took a red truck to Wat Pha Lat. We walked around a little bit and I tried to fly the drone but it had SD card issues. It was a pretty temple with beautiful views above Chiang Mai.


When we got back to Steven's, we hung out a little bit before meeting up with the others for dinner. We went to The Swan, which served Burmese and Thai food. I ordered a dish called moo oop, which tasted kind of like tomato curry. It was okay; not my favorite.

After dinner, we went to the Sunday night market. I bought a pair of hippy pants and elephant shorts. The market stretched on and on with many vendors selling the same or similar items. I'm glad I waited to buy anything before learning the different prices for the same item (even though it's all cheap).

After shopping for a couple hours in the market that never ends, we all met up again at a bar called Loco Elvis. There were margaritas that everyone said were strong, however, I didn't think so. A band played live music for awhile but then it came time for karaoke. Our group was the only one to partake. We were eventually asked to leave.

Then we stopped at a 7-11 where we found a broken vending machine spewing out free toys. We grabbed a couple rubber ducks and banana erasers before the 7-11 employees noticed it was broken and came out to disperse the crowd (sorry, 7-11).

To end the night, we went back to the dancey bars but only had a few minutes left before they closed.

 

After six days in Chiang Mai, Nico and I headed further North to Chiang Rai, Robbie flew back to the U.S. (cause work), and Kristen and Josh headed to Laos, where Nico and I would meet up with them later.

Video


Watch my whole Southeast Asia trip here

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