Chiang Mai - Thailand
/After our relatively sleepy few days in Ayutthaya, Sam and I headed up north to Chiang Mai. We'd heard from a bunch of people that Chiang Mai was a highlight of their trips to Thailand, so we were super excited to check it out. It's a much sleepier city than Bangkok, and it was definitely much easier as a tourist. We had a hotel booked right in the middle of the old city, which was a perfect hub for seeing the sights. It's a city that is filled temples and history, and we spent a few days taking it all in. It was really cool to see some of the temples here, especially after seeing so many of the ruins in Ayutthaya. The intricate designs, the gold EVERYWHERE, and the glass mosaics are really incredible. The food is also insane - fresh, a huge variety, and unbelievably inexpensive. We were lucky enough to be there over a weekend too, which meant that the famous Saturday and Sunday night markets were in full swing. Massive amounts of street food, shopping stalls for over a kilometer, and some really awesome people watching.
In addition to the sightseeing, we took advantage of some other staples of Thai culture. One afternoon we "enjoyed" a traditional Thai massage. If you're not familiar, these are not necessarily relaxing affairs. They crawl all over you and stretch, and press, and poke, and jab. While I didn't have any fun during the hour long massage, a couple hours later I began to feel pretty great. We went to a spa and had some fish eat some of the callouses and dead skin off our feet. I say we, but I only lasted about 15 seconds before getting too weirded out by it all. We also attended a night of Muay Thai boxing. We met a really friendly German ex-pat who owned a hostel/bar near where we were staying. He warned us that most of the fights that take place are choreographed and usually involve people who have real day jobs, and perform in the evenings to take some money of all the tourists. He got us tickets to an actual fight (techincally 6 fights) with some other Americans who were staying in his hostel. It was super cool, and really fun to spend some time with other English speakers for a night.
On our last full day in town, we rented a car to explore some of the temples and sights outside of town a little bit. We went to two really cool temples, where we saw that massive spider pictured below, and also a lovely little place called "Catmosphere". Its a coffee shop that houses about 20 cats. All the seats are actually just cushions on the floor with little tables, so the cats can get all up in your business. It was pretty hilarious, I recommend googling them to get a taste of their branding and vibe, its pretty crazy. We left Chiang Mai the next day, and took our rental car north to Pai. The road from Chiang Mai to Pai has over 700 curves and was really fun to drive. We're looking forward to spending some time enjoying some of the incredible nature northern Thailand has to offer!
