We woke up fairly late this morning after Christmas festivities. Neither of us felt like doing much but we wanted to secure our plans for Friday. We puttered around the hotel room until about 11:30, then we wander around town to find out prices for the travel to the Mae Sa area. Mae Sa is located just north of Chiang Mai and is a popular day trip tour package. We really didn't want to get roped into a package that has too much stuff crammed into one day and cost a “bundle”. We just wanted to see some elephants, tigers and maybe some small attractions such as snakes and/or monkey.
We stopped at a couple tour agencies and spoke to a songwethe driver and were not happy with what they had to offer. The truck wanted 800 baht for the day to take us where ever we wanted. It seemed high and definately not ideal to be in the back of a pickup for a couple hours. The tour agencies we first visited all had too much; but we finally found one that had a simple package that included a driver for the time needed, approximately 4 hours, plus entry (200 baht) to the elephant camp. We would pay all other fees directly at the attractions; exactly what we were looking for. Cost: 700 baht ($23).
We had time to kill, so we decided to walk around the town, see some of the local temples and check out the day markets. We walked through a couple temples, but they were same same. We turned our attention to the day markets. They were mainly focused on Thai daily life, selling fresh meat and produce. We bought some of the spices to cook the dishes we had learned in our cooking class. Most of the stuff we could either get from home or substitute with other available items. Tim bought some Thai spicific spices that he hadn't seen in Canada including dry galanga and Thai chilli paste. We spent a grand total of about 200 baht ($7) including our lunch; fry rice for me and beef noodle soup for Tim.
After a couple hours of walking around, we headed back to the hotel for a nap before the night market. Each night we had spent about 3000 Baht ($100) at the market getting food, services and souviners. Tonight was not an exception. We checked off a few other items it was almost impossible to get back in Canada (for cheap at least) including cone incents, pashimina and purfume. The authenticty of all purchases are questionable, but everything at least looks and feels good. Thai qualitiy (and Thai safety for that matter) and not exactly comparable to North American standards. There are going to be some happy family members when we get home and give them their presents ;)
