Chiang Mai

After our adventures in Bangkok, we took a VIP night bus up to Chiang Mai. The buses in Thailand, are actually really a great way to travel around. If you get a first class ticket for around $15, you get a seat that reclines almost all the way back, a blanket, a pillow, water, fruit juice, and some snacks! We left Bangkok at 11:30 pm and arrived in Chiang Mai at 9 am the following day all rested up. 

Chiang Mai is a university town, with coffee shops on every corner and great restaurants, but not much more than that. However, it is a good center point to visit the White Temple, The Golden Triangle, and go jungle trekking. 

Our first day in Chiang Mai we signed up for a cooking class. It was a really fun experience! There were only 2 other couples so it felt very comfortable and intimate. We picked our menu out together -  Dtom Yum Goong (Shrimp and coconut soup), Pud See Yoo Gai (Stir fried thick rice noodles with chicken), Gaeng Kieow Wan Gai (Chicken with Green Curry) where we had made the curry paste by  hand with all fresh ingredients, and lastly for dessert Glooay Tord (Fried bananas with thick coconut toffee!)

The lady was very nice and spoke English well. The food was absolutely delicious. And we got a recipe book at the end. So now we can try to attempt these recipes in Italy!

After a night of cooking, the next morning we were up bright and early to head into the jungle for some trekking, with an overnight stay without electricity, sleeping with the animals. It was a pretty quick drive in the back of a truck. First we stopped at a waterfall to have lunch which they gave us pre- "wrapped" and got a swim in. Then we started hiking, crossing rivers, through rice paddies, up and over the hills to our final destination. 

Oh! Just some fried rice is inside!

Mystery wrapped lunch

  

Dinner by candle light 

Where we slept

 There were 9 of us in the hiking group: 3 girls from Barcelona, a couple from Granada, a couple from the UK, and us. It was a very tiring hike since it was ridiculously hot and the first half was all up hill. But it was beautiful to be in such a quiet, peaceful place, going to bed with sun, and rising with sun. At first we had our doubts about the overnight, but afterwards we were really glad we did it! 

It was raining the next morning, so we had to put on our ponchos 

Floating Market, Erawan National Park, Death Railway

While in Bangkok, we decided to take two different day trips. The first one was to a floating market, and the second was to visit Death Railway, Erawan National Park, and some elephant riding thrown in there as well. 

Unfortunately I'm not sure which floating market we went to. There are several outside of Bangkok, and they're very difficult to get to on your own, so you must go with an organized tour group. A van came and picked us up at our hotel and took us to the meeting point where we were piled into a different van with about 15 other people. 

We drove for about an hour and half before we were dropped off at a dock and all filed into long-tail motor boats which brought us to the floating market. 

Over the years, the market has become more and more adapted for tourists. Before they probably only sold fresh food to the local people. Now the water lanes are lined with vendors selling trinkets and souvenir objects, calling out prices and trying to lure you over to take a look and make a purchase. Thankfully there are still some typical boats selling fruit or even hot food they're making right there in the boat. 

We didn't buy anything, but it sure was a unique experience. We paid to get a tour through the market where we got into another boat, but this time there was a woman who paddled us through the river. 

The day after, we took another group van into the Kanchanaburi region, Northwest of Bangkok for a 2 day excursion. First to visit Erawan National Park and then also to visit Death Railway and do some elephant riding on day two. 

Erawan National Park is worth visiting because it's known for it's 7 layers of waterfalls, with natural pools to swim in and even natural "water slides." 

It would have been wonderful to visit the falls without a tour group, but again it's a difficult place to reach and you would probably spend more money trying to get there by yourself. So when we arrived we only had 2 hours. Of course we didn't want to visit just the first few layers of falls, we wanted to get the seventh layer! 

It's 2 kilometers from start to finish, which doesn't seem so far, but it's all up hill, in 90 degree weather with what feels like 100% humidity. However, once you arrive it is so refreshing to bathe in the pools. But you have to watch out for the fish that nip at your feet! 

We were able to see all the layers except 4, and 6 which you had to veer off into a different direction, and we just didn't have enough time, we were already racing against the clock as it was.

That night we stayed on a floating hotel! It was the coolest place I've ever slept, and it was beautiful to fall asleep right over the rushing river. I was worried I might suffer from motion sickness since every once and while you could feel the whole structure bobbing in place, but it was ok! 

Being in Thailand, it felt like we had to experience riding an elephant. There are number upon number of elephant "farms" where you can go feed the elephants and take a ride and pay to have your picture taken. Unfortunately many of these places treat the animals terribly. Thankfully this place seemed to treat them pretty well, however later by chance, we ran into another elephant riding experience and it just broke our hearts. 

Burma Railway, also known as Death Railway, was a 258 mile long railway system that ran between Bangkok, and Rangoon, Burma that was built by the Japanese during WWII. It was built using forced labour mostly by POWS. Because of the horrible working conditions (over working, starvation, and disease)s more than 100,000 people died while working on the railway.

Bangkok

Bangkok, Thailand is busy, fast, crowded, colorful, and full of excitement. We had 4 days to explore this dynamic city and I'm going to divide it up into two parts: Food and Temples. 

Thailand is 95% buddhist and so the temples are an important part of their culture. It was very common to see monks walking around the city in their orange tunics, especially in the morning receiving food from their followers. Food plays an important role in Thai culture, especially street food. The streets are lined with vendors selling fresh fruit, noodle dishes, shark fin soup, or meat kebabs. And at any given time of the day it was possible to see people sat down enjoying a bite to eat. 

On our first day in Bangkok, we took a Tuk Tuk  into Khao San, a busy street full of hostels, restaurants, and where the night market takes place. We immediately were drawn to the women making Pad Thai to order just for 50 Baht which is a little more than 1 euro! 

After our first night in Khao San, we went back every night to eat and do some shopping. We enjoyed trying dragon fruit smoothies, banana pancakes, deep fried potatoes, and coconut ice cream. They also were offering insects, but we weren't brave enough to try one! 

 On our second day, we ventured out to visit 3 different temple sights: Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun. We first stopped at Wat Phra Kaew - Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which is near the famous Grand Palace. This is considered the most sacred of temples. All the temples were swarming with tourists, but especially this one. We fell into a tour guide trap, and paid to have someone show us around, which in the end only made us feel rushed. 

After we wandered on over to Wat Pho, which holds the largest reclining Buddha at 46 meters long and is to be worth around 13 million dollars.The soles of the feet are inlaid with mother of pearl, depicting 108 signs of the Buddha and the statue itself is covered in gold leaf. 

 Lastly, we took a boat across the river to visit at Arun- The Temple of Dawn. You can climb this temple, and it has two layers of very very steep stairs. While we were there, a thunderstorm came, and we waited it out under the roof of a nearby building. It was beautiful with the rain, hearing the hundreds of bells lined along the temple chime, and the thunder. 

Before entering each temple, we had to make sure that our shoulders were covered, that we weren't wearing too tight of clothing (so loose jeans, or a long skirt)  and had to take off our shoes. Buddhists consider the head of the body most sacred and the feet the least sacred. So we had to make sure we weren't pointing our feet at any buddha which is extremely disrespectful.  

Luca's new shirt he bought, after having sweated completely through his shirt on the first temple grounds

Notice the lovely cover up our tour guide gave me so that I could enter the temple

A note in a mini van to beware of where you point your feet!

Our other days in Bangkok, were actually spent taking day trips, which I'll explain in the next blog to come!