Chiang Mai, Thailand

Prior to moving back to the states, we decided to take a little detour through SE Asia. Chiang Mai was our first stop.

We departed London Friday at noon and arrived in Thailand early Saturday morning. After a quick layover in Bangkok, we were off to Chiang Mai. We arrived at our hotel early afternoon and then headed out to explore.

Once we were settled, we decided that a Thai massage would be our number one priority and we booked ourselves in for a one hour massage that afternoon. While the massage was nice, it was a bit intense - the ladies cracked Shane's neck and popped my entire back  - I guess we were both a bit stiff after the flight.

After the massage, we explored the Phra Singh Temple. Starting to feel a bit of jet lag, we decided to  grab am early dinner at a local spot recommended by our hotel, opting for their 'taste of northern thailand menu,' before making our way to the Saturday Night Market. The Saturday Night Market was chaos and we quickly came to recognize that order and personal space are not common concepts here. We meandered around for a bit before deciding we had enough and turned in early for the evening.

The next morning we were up early for our Thai cooking class. Our cooking class started with a trip to the local market to purchase our ingredients. There were a total of six of us in the group and two instructors.  We each got to pick an individual soup, appetizer, noodle and main to cook. Shane and I both choose Tom Yum soup, spring rolls and green curry but differed on our noodle dish - I went with pad thai and Shane had a sweet & sour seafood. The food was delicious and we hope we can use the skills we learned to make some of the dishes back state-side. Full from all of our food, and still recovering from the jet lag, we headed back to the hotel for a quick power nap. As it was raining, when we woke up, we headed to the spa. Shane got another Thai massage while I, still recovering from the trauma of the noise my back made the day prior, opted for a pedicure.

That evening we explored the Sunday Night Market. The Sunday Market is significantly bigger than the Saturday Night Market and streets close such that vendors can set-up their tents. You can find everything at the Sunday Night Market - street food, clothes, electronics, performers, etc. We explored the market for about an hour before it started to drizzle. In fear of more rain, we hopped in a tuk-tuk and headed off to dinner.

The next morning, we were up early again to visit an Elephant Sanctuary, Elephant Nature Park, which has a number of outreach programs that it does with nearby mountain villages. The outreach programs work to teach the village not to use the elephants the village owns for tourist riding camps or use the elephants as work animals. The outreach program allows tourists to come and help the village care for the elephants for the day by feeding, trekking with and bathing the elephants. Our experience with the elephants in Mae Win district was amazing and our favorite activity in Chiang Mai.

We drove about an hour and half drive from Chiang Mai before we reached the elephants. When we arrived, we collected the elephants morning snack - bananas and sugar cane - before heading over to the feed the elephants. We fed the elephants the bananas in their gates as certain elephants needed to be separated for the morning snack feeding. After their snack, we trekked with the elephants a bit into the jungle. We had bags of sugar cane with us that we used to move the elephants along. After the jungle trek, we made our way back for a quick lunch before trekking with the elephants to a mud and river bath. The baby elephant was the only one who enjoyed the mud bath whereas the older elephants preferred the river. Throughout the whole day, we couldn't believe how much close interaction there was between us and the elephants.

Once we were back in Chiang Mai, we refreshed a bit before heading for some street food, a drink along the river and a foot massage.

The next morning we were off to the airport to catch our flight to Koh Tao.