Chiang Mai is Thailand’s second biggest city and there is a lot to do there and around the city itself. However, this is where I must confess that we didn’t do a lot there. There are reasons for this of course! This wasn’t our first visit to the city. We first came here back in 2014 as a part of our honeymoon trip and we did a lot of sightseeing back then. Secondly, this was always meant to be our retreat where we recover from the month-long Myanmar trip. I’m glad we planned it this way because by the time we got there I was shattered and needed a few days of doing absolutely nothing.
We arrived in Chiang Mai by bus from the Myanmar/Thai border. It was a very comfortable ride on board the Greenbus and took approx. 6.5 hours and cost £19 pp but we took the VIP option, you can go for half price on the standard coach. Chiang Mai also has an international airport and flights from Bangkok are very cheap and it only takes just over an hour or so.
If you are in the market to just have a nice and relaxing time in Chiang Mai, I would really recommend the i River Hotel. It is located on a riverbank and has a lovely terrace from which you can enjoy the peaceful view. It also has a swimming pool (huge bonus!) and is conveniently positioned very close to the Night Bazar and the old city. You can pretty much walk to most places and you also have great supermarket nearby if you need supplies. All for £35 per night! We spent a few days just chilling by the pool which was wonderful and felt like a proper holiday.
The first thig we embarked on in Chiang Mai was eating. Yes, I know, it sounds weird but we were so fed up with the food in Myanmar where we were pretty much vegetarians and had to watch what we ate that when we got to Thailand we were like animals let out of the zoo and started eating our way through the city. Thai food is so delicious, and it was so liberating to finally be able to have all the fish & prawns and street food we wanted. The street food is truly wonderful, and you can find all sorts of things at the stalls as you walk through. Pad thai is a must of course but there is so much more, all the BBQ meat (the Chiang Mai sausage was full of Thai herbs and spices and was so tasty), all the seafood you want, various dumplings and buns and sticky mango rice for pudding. You can go to the stalls every day and find something new every time. And the best part about it is that Thai hygiene standards are pretty high so it’s unlikely that you will end up with an upset stomach.
If you are into food like we are I would really recommend doing a cooking class. You can do those all over Thailand of course but there are a lot of them here, so you really have a huge choice. When we were last here in 2014, we did a cooking course with Baan Thai Cooking School and we still cook a couple of dishes from their cookbook today. We thought it would be nice to go back to the same school and practice other dishes we didn’t do last time. The evening course costs around £20 pp and includes all the ingredients and the best of it all is that you get to eat everything at the end! We were picked up around 4 PM and after picking up a few others we went to see a local market and were shown some nice ingredients we were to use in cooking later. We were given a card with 5 different courses and everyone had to pick what they wanted to cook. As last time, Steve and I picked different courses so that we get to try 10 different dishes (I know, pigs, right?). They divide you into groups based on what you pick and off you go cooking. It’s super easy so even if you’re not a confident cook it will be 100% fine and come out perfectly edible. All the ingredients are prepared for you so all you do most of the time is throw them in the wok or pan and transfer to a plate at the end. You eat them as you make them and by the time class finished at about 8 PM we were so stuffed we had to go back to the hotel and lie down! We made Kao Soi (Northern Thai curry with crispy noodles), chicken with cashew nuts, chicken and seafood coconut soup, papaya salad, fishcakes, green curry and possibly other things which now I don’t remember. A real feast for the senses and the belly of course.
Another thing worth doing is the Thai massage of course. There are so many massage shops around that you will have no trouble finding one, there is literally one every 5 meters! It’s best to research it a little though and go somewhere highly rated and where they speak English and do a health check on you before you start. You can also choose the level of pressure you want applied. Thai massage is famously painful so I was very relieved that I could choose “soft” although it didn’t feel that soft in places, but this is just what it is like, so some pain is expected. I really enjoyed the massage and would recommend Fah Lanna place in Chiang Mai if you’re in the market for a bit of stretching and pulling. The cost was £10 for an hour so very reasonable by English standards and totally worth it.
There are tons of attractions in Chiang Mai and you could easily spend a week or more here. For reasons mentioned earlier, we didn’t get round to doing them but if you are coming here for the first time you should definitely explore a few temples (Wat Chedi Luang, Wat Pra Singh), perhaps consider visiting an elephant sanctuary (please make sure that this is an ethical place and the animals are not made to carry people etc.), do some trekking in the mountains or even zip lining. There is also the 3D Museum called Art in Paradise which we visited and enjoyed. If you want to base your self in Chaing Mai and have no other stops in the area, then you should also consider a day trip to Chiang Rai.
We were passing through Thailand on our way to Laos so decided to make a separate stop in Chiang Rai as it was on the way. I was under the impression that apart from the main attractions there won’t be much in there, but I was very wrong. It’s a charming little town and I think we could have stayed there a bit longer had we known what it was like. The bus ride to here from Chiang Mai was very quick, took just over 3 hours on the VIP bus and cost £9 pp. It’s a small town and you can get to most places on foot. We stayed in Baan Jaru guesthouse for just over £20 per night, very good value. The room was clean and spacious with a private bathroom and the owners spoke very good English and were on hand to advise you and suggest things to do. They even posted our postcards for us!
The main draw of Chiang Rai is the famous white temple or Wat Rong Khun. It was designed by an artist and built recently so don’t expect any ancient monuments. It is very impressive, and the detail is incredible. The brilliant white with the mirror flecks reflects beautifully off the blue sky and you can really take stunning pictures here. Inside the temple itself the artist seem to have played on the idea of modern idols and you can see large paintings featuring Batman for example which is very amusing. You can’t take photos inside though. Other things to see in the area are the Blue Temple (Wat Rong Seur Ten) and the Black House Museum. You can tick them all plus some others on a daily tour which costs around £25 pp and takes whole day but we only had one day there so decided to just see what we wanted instead of being dragged through some souvenir shops on top of it. Grab is the best way of going about it, we spent just under £20 in total and took Grabs to the white temple, from white to blue temple, from blue temple to Black House and back home from there. It worked perfectly for us; we were back in Chiang Rai by 4 PM just in time to take some photos of the lovely murals inside the bus station.
Both Blue Temple and the Black House are also modern creations and are very refreshing to visit if you are a little tired of the traditional old temples. I found the Blue Temple nice and peaceful although the colors are very vivid and a bit cartoon like. The Black House is a rather bizarre place. It’s a collection of buildings all carved from black wood and furnished with animal skins, horns and alligator skins. Lots of the rooms look a bit like some sort of satanic cult is about to meet there. All a bit odd but interesting to visit. Admittedly I think I need to read a bit more about the artist’s intentions here and what it is supposed to be exactly. Anyway, it is worth popping in.
You can also visit the Golden Triangle area here which is essentially the little corner where Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet. From what I could see advertised, there are lots of tours offering treks with a homestay and cooking classes which we would consider if we were staying longer for sure. But our time in Thailand came to an end here and we made our way to the border to explore a whole brand-new country – Laos.
