Chiang Mai

 

Ivan having a beer

 Hi folks,

Hope all is well on your side of the world. Two weeks ago, I visited Chiang Mai which is the largest city in  northern Thailand, and  is someplace I have always wanted to go, mainly because it is in a mountains region, less developed, nor as frantic as Bangkok. What i did find out was that Chiang Mai is a destination point for many westerners, which is good?? well kinda of.

  Maybe I have been here to long, but I do take exception when I see that a restaurant has ” Cornflakes” on its menu.  Come on folks suck it up, eat local

Moat

 

The old city , which  is where I stayed,  has a moat or wall built around it. In a couple of location they have fountains, or aerators. Also saw folks swimming in it?? yeeaaa

Wall

                                                                                                                                

    This is the wall around the   old City, this section was relatively new, but their were many sections that seemed quite old, very crumbly.

 

 This is the standard Tuk Tuk, not sure why it is called that? maybe if you say Tuk Tuk real fast over and over again  it will sound like it. At any rate they are a lot of fun and very convenient. Good idea if you have a card from your hotel, if the driver can’t speak any English, although that isn’t a guarantee either, some times they are illiterate? No seat belts, but its all in good fun, because it is open seating you get a real feel for the city

This is the night market. On a couple streets they either close the street down or line it with  100 vendors, selling everything from jewelry,  material, lamps, and more than I can list. But unlike some places i have been at where what you see are items destined for walmart, this stuff was all hand crafted of high quality

  This is some of the food vendors. I cannot speak  enough about Thai food, even these outside vendors, no fly”s, and I have never been sick from eating out! that literally means out. One of the other tourist activities that is set up, is Thai cooking schools, everything from a 1/2 day to a week of going to the market picking out the food and cooking it up. This is definitely something I want to do, my plan is when I return to the US to be able to cook  a number of Thai dishes

One of the sights that I never thought I would see , was this chopper

It looked like it belonged an American lady sitting at the bar, i should have introduced myself?? One thing I did notice was the number of what appeared to permanent living  western folks in Chiang Mai. Hey why not, its cheap, plenty of activity or not depending on your interest.  Just another option

One of the benefits of being in a tourist area , is that there are many thing to do, like ride elephants through the jungle, take bamboo rafts down a river, and a very New Hampshire custom which is to hang out in a river under water falls. Or of course you can visit one of the 300 Buddhist temples here, the oldest was built around the 1300. 

This is a picture of some other folks on a elephant ride before they go into the jungle.

Baby Elephant

 

Later that day we passed these 3 elephant moms, surrounding a baby elephant  taking a nap? they were waving their trucks over the Baby to cool ? maybe shoo away the flies. We passed them on the river, so it was probably a protective maneuver as well. I figured that out,  because they were making a lot of protective sounds as well.

 

And this is the classic New England water falls, with many western people swimming and just laying in the water enjoying the coolness

From the water falls,  the guide had a hard time getting us to  Leave? Please one more dip??. But to no avail, off we went for  lunch , we also visited a Thai ethnic Mountain Village,  to purchase a few home crafted gifts. everything these folks made looked great, mostly material, bracelets, etc.

So after lunch it was off to take a Bamboo raft down the river. The rafts were about 30′ long ,essentially just a bunch of bamboo ties together, The guide was in front and one of us poled from the back. The other job of the guide was to splash water on the customers, or what he really like to do was to step back then run forward , but stop with a jump , which shot the raft forward and promptly threw all of the clients off of the raft. The water  ranged from 6″ to 2′ deep. Even so some folks were wearing life preservers? not us though

On Sunday before the flight we took a trip to a Buddhist temple on a mountain top, about one hour from town. The taxi ride up was not unlike driving up Mt Washington except  twice as long, many many switchbacks. This temple is called “What Prathai Doi Suthep”. This is one of the nicest temples i have been to, their were a couple of traditional Thai dances .

Nara starcase

 

This is the last staircase approach to the temple, note the Nara on both sides ( 7 headed serpent) guarding the staircase, hence the Nara Staircase

I had to take a picture of this Flowering tree, if any ones knows what kind of tree this is, please let me know, it actually originates a full floor below

 

Well this is last picture  from Doi Suthrep. What can I say but Chiang Mai is a beautiful place. Hope you enjoyed the blog. I will return.

Ivan

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