Thailand - Chiang Mai

I spent two days in Chiang Mai before going to the elephant sanctuary and then stayed for a week after. It's a nice place to spend some time. As someone pointed out, the old city looks a bit like every road is a back alley but once I found my way around, it was really nice and I liked the alley look. After the elephant sanctuary, I was a bit weary so took the opportunity to do some relaxing. I did manage to get up to some stuff though:

3D Art Museum (Art in Paradise)
A gallery with paintings on the walls and floor and sometimes ceiling to make scenes look 3D.



Not really a pool

I'm actually lying on the floor

 



 

I really liked this one - it's
painted in  the corner of a room
(two walls and the floor)

 

No explanation required

 White water rafting
I went on a day rafting trip on the Mae Taeng River, which coincidentally ended just up stream from the Elephant Nature Park. I've done a few white water rafting trips in different countries and they seemed to be getting less and less fun but this one was fantastic. There was only a small group of us (5 people) and everyone was friendly and easy going. The guides were really professional but still managed to be really fun. There was a lot of splashing each other, getting pulled into the river and laughing. The rapids were really good too!

I just like the angle of our guide

Our raft at the bottom of a rapid

Cooking Class
I took a day long Thai cooking class. I made chicken coconut soup, pad Thai, yellow curry, spring rolls and deep fried bananas. It all tasted alright except for the pad Thai, which was the worst I've ever eaten ... I think too much fish sauce.
I learned why eggplant is called eggplant - Thai eggplants actually look like eggs.


Guess which is the eggplant.

I was so excited because my deep fried
bananas turned out like the picture in
the recipe book.

Book Stores and Bagels
There are lots of English language used book stores in Chiang Mai (by lots I mean I came across three, which is two more than I've come across in other cities combined). The upside is that I love bookstores. The downside is that I now have four books to lug around until I finish reading them.
I also found a bagel store - the first I've seen in Asia. The upside was that the bagels were just how I like them (dense and a bit chewy). There was no downside.

Worst Tour Ever
I took a half day tour to see Wat Prathat Doi Suthep and a hill tribe village, both of which are on a big hill (little mountain) on the outskirts of Chiang Mai. It started off badly when the tour was late picking me up (not the company's fault... the van had to wait for a late tourist). Then it got worse when the girl sitting beside me at the back of a full van got car sick and puked into a plastic bag.  I felt really bad for her because not only was she sick into a plastic bag but she then had to hold the clear plastic bag of puke on her lap until we got to the next destination. We got to the hill tribe village and had 30 minutes to wander around the town which consisted solely of souvenir stalls and a flower garden (I'm not entirely sure people actually live there). Then we went to the temple, which was alright but jammed full of people and the main reason I wanted to go to the temple was to see the view of the city but it was pretty hazy so you couldn't see much. Oh well. I did buy some strawberries at the hill tribe village so it wasn't a total waste of a morning.



Hill tribe village

View from Wat Prathat Doi Suthep





Wat Prathat Doi Suthep



Wat Prathat Doi Suthep

Temples
There are many many temples in Chiang Mai. I visited a few of them.



Wat Chiangman

Wat Chiangman

Wat Chiangman



Wat Chediluang



Wat Chediluang



Wat Chediluang

And now some other notes about Chiang Mai:

Wildlife
I thought that I would be leaving wildlife behind when I left the elephant sanctuary but I was walking back to my hotel one night and two huge toads were hopping down the sidewalk in front of me. On another evening, I was wandering around looking for somewhere to eat when I heard this weird noise. I looked over and there was a goose charging at the fence beside the sidewalk.
Oh, and the mosquitos! There were more mosquitos in the city than any other place I've been on this trip so far, including the elephant sanctuary and all of the homestays.

Homesickness
I felt homesick for the first time on this trip while in Chiang Mai. I had just checked into my hotel after finishing at the elephant sanctuary and was unpacking my entire bag (which hadn't been fully unpacked since Ho Chi Minh City). I found my hoodie at the bottom of my bag and I smelled it (I was sorting out what needed to be washed). It didn't smell like anything and that made me homesick (which perhaps says a bit too much about the state of my pack). It was a short-lived bout of homesickness though.