My week in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai
Chiang Mai Thailand Week Two My second week in Thailand we traveled north to Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. A quick one hour flight from Don Muang airport in Bangkok took us to the beautiful mountain ranges of the Thai highlands. Chiang Rai was also on our itinerary and this is where my grandmother is from. Chang Mai is such a refreshing , green , lush contrast to Bangkok. Northern Thailand is simply breathtaking. I could live out the rest of my life here in these mountains , growing my own food and just enjoying the serenity We had so much fun over the next eight days even though it started off wet with heaps of rain pouring down on us from the moment we landed! Things to do in Chiang Mai We stayed at Nanta Glam CM .What a beautiful home with the sweetest family who make you feel so welcome. They have their own bakery and brew their own Kombucha which is some of the best I’ve had in my life. My husband HATES Kombucha and he drank it everyday so that’s saying a lot ! We were pretty hungry since we landed around dinner time but finding a restaurant that wasn’t closed , flooded or fully booked was becoming a task. Like Bangkok, Chiang Mai uses the Grab app . It’s their version of Lyft and I highly recommend it for getting around if you don’t want to walk or take a tuk tuk. http://www.grab.com If you plan on visiting Thailand Grab will be your best friend in Bangkok and Chiang Mai … We decided to take a tuk tuk and found MAADAE Fish kitchen. Cold wet nights like this need Tom Kha Gai or Tom Yum soup. We had a heaping bowl or Tom Yum seafood soup with a Crab omelette that was perfect. We spent the next few days exploring Chiang Mai by bicycle (another perk from Nanta Glam CM) We had two memorable meals at http://thehousebygingercm.com . The Pomelo Shrimp salad , fried whole fish with cashews and red curry in a whole coconut was to die for. Their version of a Pisco sour is the beautiful purple cocktail I’m pictured with …. There’s some incredible french bakeries Chiang Mai is known for. L’Opera had fantastic pastries and eggs for breakfast ,also a good baguette sandwich if you prefer take away. Lady Bake was a delicious breakfast spot with a full breakfast , amazing coffee and fruit . Khom Chocolate house http://linktr.ee/khomchocolatierhouse is next door and we stopped in to have some after our Day with Elephants . We had the Double dark chocolate drink and dark chocolate ganache cake.. We really wanted to visit an elephant sanctuary in Thailand . Seeing these beautiful animals up close in Africa is something I’ll never forget. Asian elephants are quite smaller in size , have a double domed head, and the females don’t grow tusks! For years I always wondered why asian elephants didn’t have them but it turns out only male asian elephants grow tusks .. Over the years I’ve heard stories and seen documentaries about elephant abuse through tourism . Elephant shows, rides, and bathing are still common practice and it can be a challenge to find an ethical sanctuary . http://elephantnaturepark.org was an amazing experience . We chose the half day excursion and it was the perfect amount of time to see all of the animals with a vegan lunch included. It’s a one hour drive into the mountains and the scenery is so beautiful. There are many other animals like water buffalo and dogs that have been rescued and live out their days on the reserve which is massive , and well maintained. Chiang Rai It’s about three hours to drive up to Chiang Rai from Chiang Mai . We stayed at Le Meridien resort in Chiang Rai. It was cozy with great food which was what I needed over that weekend. Their Tom Yum soup mmmmm … It’s quite a bit cooler here in the mountains and we had a lot of rain . August is the monsoon season so make sure you wear a good jacket , boots for hiking (there was mud) and layer up against the wind! I still have no idea WHY I wanted to see the White Temple or Wat Rong Khun as it’s called. It is just a tacky tourist trap that reeks of evil and something nasty I can’t put my senses on …. We did see another beautiful white temple with beautiful dancing dragons . I regret I can’t recall the name BUT I do remember the Hello Kitty tram that took passengers up and down the Wat and you all know I adore Hello Kitty … Phu Chi Fah Summit If you want to see the most beautiful part of Chiang Rai then head north to Phu Chi Fah summit. The sunset view is just incredible and we spent hours here just marveling at the beauty . As I stared out into the mountains and rice paddies I was envisioning my grandmother with my mother strapped on here as she tended the paddies… I watched the women with their children for hours and it was just mesmerizing … On our way back to Chiang Mai we passed this buddha that I remembered seeing when we left to Chiang Rai. I wanted to see it up close it was just pulling me in ! I took a picture and its name is WAT PHRATHATSANPAHIANG . I had to write it right I don’t want any bad juju! This place was just calling out to me as we drove by . It was a Sunday and it was empty . We could only hear the wind chimes above the Buddha but it was so serene and wonderful to be in it’s presence . Fun spots in Chiang Mai We stayed our last night in Chiang Mai at http://elbarriolanna.com . WeLOVED this hotel and
My Week in Thailand – Bangkok
Teradise found … It’s exactly one month since I’ve come back from Thailand and I can say with absolute certainty that this was the greatest trip of my life so far. Thailand is country number one hundred and two that I’ve visited and why have I waited so long to visit my motherland ? Let me dive deep for a minute and give you a bit of my background… For those of you who don’t know I’m half Thai from my mother’s side and my father is English and Dutch. My parents met in Thailand during the Vietnam war when my father was stationed there. My mother left Thailand pregnant with me in 1976 only to return once more when her father died in 1985. She happily left Thailand for a new life in America and never took us back to visit or spoke Thai with my sister and I after we started primary school. In fact all I really remember in Thai are colors , numbers ,basic phrases pertaining to food , salutations, and I can recite The three little pigs. So random … As I got older I’ve always wanted to take my mom back to Thailand so I saved this trip thinking we would return together . As the years passed and I kept asking my mother to go with me I started to realize then accept that she just didn’t want to go. She had her reasons and after having many of my own life experiences I understood why she didn’t have the same desires I did to see her homeland. My Dad, best friend Charmane and countless other friends kept telling me I needed to go to Thailand . I should see and experience this incredible country for myself. So finally in August of 2023 with my husband we spent one incredible month in Thailand. Week one Bangkok Beginning in Bangkok we arrived into Suvarnabhumi which serves as the main airport for international arrivals. My first tip is get a Thai SIM card here http://www.ais.th I can’t believe I had to go to Thailand to have BETTER wifi and cell phone service but here we were! Two Youtube channels we binged on were Retired working for you https://youtu.be/NFw-WizIt50?si=poCQYbuH0Sgr4oq2 . Chris is so funny and in this video he explains how to make your arrival into Thailand much easier . Paddy Doyle has fantastic guides that we bought from his channel https://youtube.com/@PaddyDoyle.?si=IX6PAHHzrtCkWvQd .Although he’s lived in Thailand for many years he’s made countless videos of himself traveling the world and I like is carefree enthusiastic personality as he documents his journey. I booked our tickets six months in advance to Thailand from Italy and we had an idea of the regions we wanted to visit so we made an itinerary based on where we were going to be from one week to the next. In the four weeks we would be there we started in Bangkok . We stayed at The Carlton Hotel on Sukhumvit RD .The Carlton hotel is incredible and within walking distance to great shopping malls , food markets, breakfast spots , Thai massage and anything else you could possibly need. Some spots near our hotel we shopped and ate at were http://terminal21.co.th where you can get anything from clothes to electronics . http://emquartier.co.th had the most beautiful food market I’ve ever seen in my life! This luxury mall has all the high -end shops and on our last night here we ate delicious Mexican food at La Monita . There was this twenty -four-hour mango sticky rice spot across from our hotel that we hit up after a long day of sightseeing temples and it was SO GOOD. The mangos in Thailand are on another level .. ask anyone who’s had one seriously ! We also had Pang Cha which is Thai Iced Tea with shaved ice, soft white bread topped with tapioca pearls. It’s hard to describe unless you try it but its a sweet crunchy chewy combination of pure deliciousness ! We took ours to go and strolled Bangkok at night absorbing all of the beautiful chaos that is this fantastic city! Our first night we were exhausted so we had our first dinner Of Pad Thai, Tom Yumm Goong , and red curry at Pak Bakery and passed out early. Day Two Our second Day we headed to Lumpini park because I wanted to see the Thai Monitor lizards. You all know how obsessed I become with animals and this was my goal for the trip. We took a tuk-tuk to the park and after walking around for a good twenty minutes I finally spotted one! He (I’m assuming a male but I’m not sure ) just slinked past me and I got so excited and took my first selfie of the trip with him . They are super chill I mean we found them mostly sleeping on the grassy banks or swimming slowly in the water . I read a sign at Lumpini that said the Thai Park Authority had to remove many lizards because they would frighten the tourists but I was happy nevertheless to see about twenty of them just living in the park .. It was close to lunch time so I remembered my girlfriend Christy Bomb a few years prior had mentioned a Street food chef by the name of Jay Fai . She’s also profiled in the Netflix show Street Food Asia but it was Christy who sent me a YouTube link of Jay Fai cooking her famous crab omelette years before that sparked my curiosity . She was located a bit far from Lumpini so we got back in a Tuk Tuk and headed over not knowing what to expect but we had some luck on our side that day for sure… I’ll say this about OUR Jay Fai experience , we loved it. Yes you have to wait.. a long time. We put our names down (party of two)
