After we departed Siem Reap Cambodia, we landed in Suvhanabhumi Airport in Bangkok. We traipsed from the arrivals up to the Air Asia check-in counter for a domestic flight that was due to leave in about 2 hours for Chiang Mai. Of course on paper the interval between flights looked fine, but in reality we were sprinting on moving walkways just to arrive at the gate...and sit around for a while. This happened to me a handful of times at Suvhanabhumi Airport. Hurry up and wait I guess.
Man, Chiang Mai is just a cool city. There's so much to do there, it's pretty affordable, the people are friendly, the temperatures nice, and the surrounding mountains are nice on the eyes. It's just a very pleasant place to be. This was my third time to Chiang Mai (man, life is tough for me in Asia!) but I could go back again and again and always do different things, or the same things again and still enjoy it.
In typical Matranga fashion we had a lot of events planned for our week long stay in the ever popular mountain town of Chiang Mai. Quick summary of activities: A boat tour, shopping, temple visits, cooking class, elephant camp, museums and the Queen's Botanical Garden and massages of course.
High lights from this go-round was the cooking class, Queen's Garden, and elephants. I enjoyed this cooking class with my mom a lot more than the one I did the first time by myself. We got to go to the market and learn about different types of vegetables, noodles and rice. We also got to choose our own menus. The Queen's Botanical Garden was pretty incredible. So many species of different flowers and tropical plants, too many greenhouses to visit, and we got to take a stroll by a river and in the jungle. It's hard not to enjoy an elephant camp- elephants are pretty amazing creatures. I felt more comfortable when riding an elephant because it was the second time for me, so I was able to pay attention to mom and see that she had an enjoyable time. We had a scare at the end of the day when we thought her glasses had fallen into the river when we were riding our elephants back to the training center, but it turned out they had fallen out of the sock she put them in for safe keeping right by the table where the guides put our things after we returned. Phew! I ran back on the path where we'd come from and was wading through the water when another guide ran into us and told us they'd been found. I was quite relieved.
So, here you go- time to check out photos!
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| House along the river |
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| Mae Ping River boat tour |
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| Neck of a dragon flanking the entrance to a temple |
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| Bbbbiiiiggg Buddha, Big Buddha, Big Buddha, Big Buddha |
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| Chedi (or stupa) | | |
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| Temples at every turn. Stunning day and night. |
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| Word carving shop in the Night Bazaar |
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| I volunteered to demonstrate. I think it's just pad thai. |
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| Som Tam- spicy papaya salad (nicknamed 'Papaya pok pok'). Strong work ma! |
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| Key players in the game. |
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| Happy Elephants |
I'll be putting up another post about Chiang Mai because I want to talk a bit more about the elephant camp, cooking school and botanical gardens. But I think this is enough for now. Thanks for checking it out!
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