We headed to the north of Thailand from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. (My blog for Bangkok will be up soon, we are returning there for an extra couple of days before we move on!) Chiang Mai is surrounded with mountains, still has its Old City area and has so many stunning Buddhist temples. So here’s what we got up to.
We had to visit some of the Buddhist temples around the Old City. We visited 3; Wat Phan Tao, Wat Chedi Luang and Wat Phra Singh.
Wat Phan Tao was covered in beautiful coloured ribbons and flags which have the dharmachakra Buddhist symbol on them. The flags and ribbons follow down towards a golden Buddha sat beneath a tree behind a small stream, I loved how decorative the whole area was especially being outside.
Next door to Wat Phan Tao is Wat Chedi Luang. We entered in a massive building covered with a golden carved roof. What was inside was breathtaking. The amount of artwork and pillars covered in golden colours and swirls was outstanding. It was a beautiful place of worship with Buddhist figures the size of the building taking pride and place at the back of this huge hall like space. It was quiet and we sat for a while whilst we took it all in. In the centre of the temple grounds stood a 15th century Buddhist shrine slowly being crumbled away, it was such a sight to see, a tall piece of architecture and so different to other shrines. It was huge. There were also a lot more monks on these temple grounds walking around going about their day.
The last temple, Wat Phra Singh, had a range to look at. The most impressive thing we saw were the incredible life like wax models of monks. I am not sure if they are models of very important buddhist monks, but either way these models were crazy impressive. The level of detail from the skin down to the different seated poses they took on were phenomenal. My only regret is not taking any pictures of these models closer up. We loved all the temples but we are definitely all templed out for now!
As we went all over the place in the 4 days we were there, we sure did wander the streets of Chiang Mai to quite an extent. Doing around 20,000 steps a day we saw loads of shops, markets, street food, restaurants, bakeries, craft shops, lots of things. We even ended up in a fancy barber shop for Rob to get his hair cut. He desperately wanted it cut but didn’t want a botched job like some of the stories he had heard from friends, and to be fair the cut isn’t THAT bad! Just looks like a grade 1 straight into a grade 3. We call it the Asian fade. During the evenings we went to many night markets and night bazaars. Our favourite being the Ploen Ruedee Night Market, where there was a selection of different food and drink stalls to choose from, along with live bands and traditional Thai dancing.
The next days after visiting temples we wanted to do something different. However there isn’t lots to do in Chiang Mai itself. We were a little stuck what to do, we didn’t fancy going to any zoo or see any types of animals, or even zip line across a forest area with gibbons. We have another 2 and a bit months to do all that. We also fancied having a bit of a pool day.
After searching online for a bit we finally came across Tweechol Botanical Gardens. We finally got there after hailing down a taxi, which here is a small van of some sort where you jump in the back and there are two benches along the sides that you sit on. No seat belts, an open back door and going at least 60 mph on an A road, definitely thought I might die.
But the gardens were divine, hedges shaped into different animals, orchids, cacti and a lake all to ourselves. That’s right we were the only people in this whole massive garden. I don’t think it was well known as it was a bit out of the way from Chiang Mai, but such a shame more people don’t know about this place. Eventually we ended up in one of the many pools the gardens had dotted around and took in the blue and green atmosphere. Relaxing at its finest.
I feel like I need to start a whole separate food section for our travels because the food is so good not to talk about. The best food I had at the night market we loved so much was a traditional Thai dish called Khao Soi. It came with beef, noodles boiled and fried, coriander, red onion and a coconut milk and curry past broth. Rob also experienced a Thai Green Curry which was super spicy. We went to a restaurant called Cathouse where Rob had a burrito and I had falafel with hummus dip and pita bread which was all so yum! However, the food that captured our hearts in Chiang Mai was a small restaurant called Blue Noodle. Here they served noodle soup with either beef, pork or both and we loved it so much we went there two times. The broth was so tasty and the beef melted in the mouth, I’m just hoping I can recreate the dish when I get home!
Chiang Mai overall was a really chilled area and I enjoyed walking around for hours just seeing where we ended up! But now, it is time to head back down to Bangkok and finish our adventures there.
Next stop Bangkok round 2!
Comments