I was really excited to visit Chiang Mai, I had read lots of great reviews and recommendations. However it did not end up exceeding/meeting my expectations... but we did end up having a great time
Chiang Mai is a little city with cars, mopeds and tuk tuk's zooming by. Walking down the street it's hard not to inhale the exhaust fumes. Our taxi driver again did not take us to the right place (He did take us to the US Embassy, but umm we were just looking for a place to eat dinner)
We enjoyed dinner at an outdoor cafe until it started pouring down rain- literally cats and dogs. The rain passed and we went to the famous night Bazaar, to again be disappointed by the offering. I guess we were just spoiled with the first market in Bangkok.
Please forgive me for the poor recap (I wrote this once and the computer crashed.. very appropriate for my time here in Chiang Mai, haha).
Back at the hostel it was also a little disappointing, the hostel received many awards and great reviews but I guess it was just not fur us. It had a community feel, so very little privacy, and No toilet paper in the dirty bathroom.
The first day we went on a 1 day trek... We visited the Karen Hill trip (the long neck women with rings around their necks). After we rode an Ox cart to an elephant camp where we rode an Elephant (we named him Buddy). It was a bit scary but we survived and I loved it! After, we hiked a bit to our lunch, Phad Thai, eaten in a hut in the forest. Then we hiked the mountains to a waterfall.. standing under the waterfall was one of the best feelings and very refreshing after our hike. After we took a bamboo raft down the river, again in the pouring rain. That night we were exhausted, we ate a great Italian meal and went to sleep.
The highlight of Chiang Mai was the cooking class we took. It started in the market, where we bought all the food we prepared. We learned how to cook 5 dishes, and mine actually tasted good!! (getting closer to being an excellent cook, haha). We met an American couple on their honeymoon, the girl is a USC alumni in my sorority.. Small world, huh?
After the cooking class, we decided to book an overnight bus to the Northern border of Thailand and Loas to begin our 2 day boat journey through Loas to Luang Probang.. More to come soon...
