Hello from Chiang Mai! We have spent the last seven nights in Thailand’s second largest city and one of the most visited Northern cities by tourists. It is also home to 300 Buddhist temples and basically felt like a smaller version of Bangkok. Prior to arriving, I had heard great things about Chiang Mai from several friends who had lived or studied abroad there so I was really looking forward to it. But unfortunately, our time in Chiang Mai got off to a rough start…
For the first time in Asia, we booked an Airbnb because the hostels seemed a bit more expensive here and we thought why not? Turns out, we should’ve stuck with a hostel! We arrived in Chiang Mai after a two hour flight from Krabi and took a taxi to our AirBnB which was situated in the “old town” part of the city. We had read on the reviews that the private room was part of a cool coffee shop which we found intriguing. We were expecting the room to be some guesthouse or outhouse. But as we checked in, we saw the lady at the restaurant open a door towards the back of the kitchen area (it looked like it would be a storage room or something) and I found myself saying, “Oh god I hope that’s not our room”. But it was. Ha! We made the most of it, but at times it felt like we were in the way. A couple times we had no water, our air conditioning was very noisy, the room was dark and a little grimy, and the host was not very friendly or helpful. Not the best situation for our longest stay (in one city) in SE Asia. At times, we questioned whether we should move somewhere else but we decided to make do as it really wasn’t that bad. (Alex here, I mean with our budget hotels we expect a level a griminess to an extent but with this place I think we had a high expectations because of the good reviews. So it threw us off showing up to a place that we did not expect.) It also made us realize the benefits of staying in a hostel or hotel since we often relied on the reception desk in giving us advice for things to do, booking tours, taxis, etc and we missed that a bit. But we did get free breakfast every day so that helped.
On another note, we both weren’t feeling 100% and poor Al got a bout of traveler’s diarrhea (TMI but true story). Although he fought me on it at home, I think he was glad he got some antibiotics (Azithromycin) to bring before we left. (Fun fact though, a side effect of Azithromycin is diarrhea…so the medicine for traveler’s diarrhea can cause diarrhea. That was a lot of uses of the word diarrhea. Lol) He had stomach issues, a fever, and headaches during most of our seven nights in Chiang Mai. He is a trooper though and we still proceeded to have a couple great experiences while here.
During much of our research on Chiang Mai, the two “must do” activities were going to an elephant sanctuary and taking a cooking class, so of course we had to do both! Similar to our experience booking in Halong Bay in Vietnam, there were TONS of different companies that led tours to elephant sanctuaries and several cooking schools with great reviews on TripAdvisor. We were left overwhelmed by which ones to choose.
For the elephant sanctuary we ended up going with a company called “Elephant Nature Park” since it continued to come up in searches with positive reviews as an ethical company that treated the animals well, which was important to us. This company had several different tour options (of course), many of which were booked already. So we went for one called “Karen Habitat” where we would go to a Karen village (one of the ethnic hill tribes in Thailand that came from Tibet 500 years ago) and meet some elephants that they take care of as part of one of Elephant Nature Park’s rescue projects. Bright and early, we loaded into a minivan with nine other travelers (three other Californians, a family from Ohio, and two girls from Spain). We liked that the group size was small. We drove around an hour and half south during which time we watched a short informative movie about elephants made by the nature park. It was pretty eye opening and sad watching this. Some of the main takeaways: Riding elephants can hurt them, watching them do tricks such as paint or play soccer, lug logs or other equipment, or perform in a circus is NOT normal behavior and means they were likely part of an elephant “crushing program”. This type of training involves “breaking the elephants spirit” through isolation, separating them from their mother or herd, chaining them down, pinching their ears (which are very sensitive), using a hooked stick to manipulate them, until they have been “broken” and able to be controlled by a human. The whole process is extremely heartbreaking and still happens frequently in Thailand and other parts of the world. I had no idea how extreme this problem was and it made me very glad we picked an elephant sanctuary which rescued elephants from these types of situations. In order to rescue elephants, Elephant Nature Park has to buy them from their owners which costs on average three million Thai Baht (94,000 USD). At their biggest facility, they have rescued around seventy-six elephants and they have expanded and are trying to build sanctuaries in other countries as well.
Okay, back to the tour now: After a quick pitstop at 7-Eleven (these are everywhere here by the way), we got out of our minivan and onto the bed of a pickup truck (it was covered and had seats, don’t worry) to take us the rest of the way, which turned out to be a super bumpy, curvy, dirt road up a mountain. It wasn’t the most pleasant drive but it was short. When we arrived at the site, we carried down some food for the elephants and waters, changed into a shirt they gave us (helps the elephants with familiarity) and snapped tons of pictures as we saw three elephants walking towards us. We learned there were two females (30-35 years old and five years old) and one male (8-9 years old) - it is hard for them to tell elephants’ ages after a certain point so they estimate. Two out of three elephants had been in the circus and they were rescued and brought to this site just five months ago. (Alex here, I can imagine the village gossip: “Did you hear the Karens got three elephants?” “Yeah, now a bus of white tourists goes and visits their village every day”.) We started the day by feeding them bananas and chunks of pumpkin which they gobbled down, skin and all. It was surreal being able to touch them and see how they would grab the food with their trunks and throw it in their mouths. After each elephant had finished their tub of food, we walked with them up a hill and took pictures with them and fed them more. Boy, can they eat A LOT of food! Our guide told us, some elephants eat up to (200 kg) 440 pounds of food per day. Yowzah! We also learned elephants sleep only around four hours each night (this is all just coming from the guide). After our little walk, we took a lunch break where I tried Khao Soi, a dish common in Northern Thailand which consists of egg noodles in a yellow curry like sauce. It was tasty!
The second part of the day involved getting wet and dirty. We changed into bathing suits and gave the elephants a mud bath. I’m not sure if I would’ve done this had the elephants not been so cute. It was pretty gross. Especially after seeing an elephant pee in the mud that we were covered in. Oh well, when in Thailand right? We then headed to a nearby river and rinsed off the mud while the elephants rolled around in the water. Midway through I saw some elephant poop float by but it didn’t phase me. Although later, we think this could potentially have played a factor into our “feeling a little off”. This concluded our day with the elephants. We both got pretty carsick on the truck ride back down the mountain but we made it back to the minivan without puking. Looking back at our pictures, we agreed this was definitely one of the highlights of our time in Thailand and I’m not sure if we will ever be able to do something like this again!
The next day, we got up around nine and headed to Thai Orchid Cookery School for our cooking class. This cooking school was reasonably priced, was close by, allowed you to customize your dishes, and had “gluten free” on their website. Upon arrival we got to fill out a sheet with different dish choices. I chose to make fried spring rolls, yellow chicken curry, cashew nut chicken, and mango sticky rice - all of my favorite Thai dishes! Al chose to make fresh spring rolls, green chicken curry, pad thai, and mango sticky rice. It was great because we got to try more dishes by trying each others. Our cooking class was small - only nine of us (a couple from Scotland, three Americans from NJ, and a couple from Tennessee). We have come across way more Americans here by the way - must be a more popular tourist destination compared to Vietnam/Cambodia (or we all just find the same tour companies). We each got our own cooking station, and there was a classroom where our instructor, Kong, would show us how to cook each dish. I felt like I was on one of those cooking TV shows for a second. As part of our class, Kong also took us to a local market and showed us different fruits, veggies, spices, and ingredients. After a month and a half in SE Asia walking through markets almost daily and not knowing what a lot of things were, it was nice to finally have some information. Our class concluded around 2 PM where we got to eat all our food. The room was silent as we all ate and enjoyed all the different flavors. It was delicious! Probably the best meal we’ve had in Chiang Mai. I just hope we can recreate what we learned back at home. Luckily, we were given a cookbook to help. We left the cooking class in high spirits and were really impressed by how organized it was. After our cooking experiences during this trip, we hope we can now master cooking Thai and Italian food, two of our favorite cuisines!
We didn’t do a whole lot the rest of our time in Chiang Mai and probably spent too much time here overall. We rented a moped one day and rode it up to Doi Suthep temple which is on top of a nearby mountain. We saw a couple in front of us wipe out on their moped which was pretty scary but glad they were okay. We also did a “fish spa” where you put your feet in a tank with these fish that eat the dead skin off your feet. I had done this years ago in Greece but it was fun getting to experience it with Al and witness his reaction to the tickles. We walked around and shopped at a couple night markets here but they were both pretty crowded. We got a couple more massages, ate more Thai food, hung out at some coffee shops, got laundry done, went souvenir shopping, and Al got a questionable haircut. We met up with the American couple we met in Phong Nha, Jess and Rorie, for dinner one night since our travel plans overlapped again. We also found a yummy place with gluten free bread and pancakes that we went to for breakfast one morning which cheered Al up a bit since he was craving bread products with his stomach problems.
Maybe it was our accommodation (and lack of comfort/sleep that came with it), not feeling 100%, travel burnout, or just different expectations for our time here, but we felt a little thrown off by our time in Chiang Mai. We left the islands with such a high and feeling so relaxed but this quickly faded as we spent seven nights in the city. I think our timing leaving Asia was perfect.
Compared to Europe where we typically visited one city per country, it was nice being able to spend more time in fewer countries to really get a feel for the people and culture. We got to experience a part of the world that shocked our senses on a daily basis when it came to sights, smells, and sounds. We saw some beautiful beaches, rice terraces, and temples, ate and tried delicious foods, saw some cool wild animals, and pushed ourselves to do things that were a little out of our comfort zones. I will miss strolling through bustling night markets, enjoying fresh mangos, getting frequent massages, and the everyday challenge of crossing the street. While I really loved our time in Asia, I also recognize that the language barrier, lack of independence (compared to Europe), and having to exert caution so frequently (when crossing the street or when choosing what/where to eat) was a little exhausting after a while.
We are looking forward to some fresh air and nature in New Zealand - but we will miss being able to get drinks and food for under $10!
On to New Zealand!