17 days exploring Southeast Asia: Chiang Mai, Thailand

Thai food... so amazing

Hi everyone! This is the second entry related to my winter vacation trip, my 17-day journey throughout Southeast Asia. This week's post will focus on Chiang Mai, Thailand. Chiang Mai is located in northern Thailand, and the name Chiang Mai means "new city". It is named "new city" because it became the capital of the Lanna kingdom when it was founded in 1296, taking over the former capital, named Chiang Rai.

My cooking creation!

Chiang Mai was my absolute favorite destination on my vacation. The weather was perfect: mid 80s, no humidity, sunny. The scenery and surrounding environment were so relaxing, and Emily and I's experience with our hostel was 1,000x better than our hostel in Hong Kong. You would be surprised how much where you are lodging impacts your opinions about a city.

My cooking creation!

We stayed in Chiang Mai for nearly one week! On day one, we mostly got settled into our hostel, enjoyed some delicious Thai food, had a drink, and crashed early. Did I mention massages? No? OH YEAH. Massages were less than ten dollars... So you know I ended up getting a massage nearly every single day of my trip. I tried so many different types of massages. The first day, I tried a traditional Thai massage - similar to a full body massage, no oil. It felt absolutely amazing. I had no idea how tense my body had been until I came here and received massages every day.

"Please give me the sweetheart"

Day two was quite exciting - Emily and I decided to take a trip to the Tiger Kingdom, where we were able to get face-to-face with the tigers, touch them, and watch them wrestle around with each other (without getting ourselves killed!). It was a little scary at first, but after watching the tigers interacting with other people, I was excited to get close for this once in a lifetime opportunity. Supposedly, the larger tigers are not drugged, but I am not so sure... the little tigers we saw were definitely not drugged - they were very active and playful with the other tigers and with the humans as well. Most of the larger tigers laid around and slept - occasionally they would wake up for a snack provided by the trainers, making for a perfect photo shoot.

Our zip lining crew!

After meeting the tigers, Emily and I headed to a cooking class!! The class lasted nearly four hours - but it was well worth it. We cooked a four-course meal. We were able to choose the dishes we wanted to cook, so my meal was entirely different than what Emily decided to make! I chose to make a cashew peanut stir fry with rice, a fish curry dish, and a delicious spicy soup. I never imagined that I would be able to cook Thai food, but we had an awesome instructor. I was thoroughly impressed with my meal, and the best part is, we received a cook book at the end of our lesson! So now I can go back to America and attempt to replicate this masterpiece. However, the ingredients are very specific and difficult to find in America... so it might be a bit of a challenge. At the end of day two, Emily and I went back to our favorite massage ladies and tried the foot massage, which wasn't anything short of amazing.

The Frenchmen and our tour guides!

A much-needed pedicure

On day three, another Fulbrighter met up with Emily and I for the remainder of our time in Thailand! We woke up early because we booked a trip for zip lining through the mountains of Chiang Mai, which was an absolute blast. Perhaps the best part was the company's motto, "Flying Higher than the Hawk"... but on many of the tour's t-shirts, there was a huge typo that read "Flying Higher than the HANK". My friends and I couldn't stop laughing and nobody around us knew why (we were the only native English speakers on that trip). Our tour guide was hilarious; at one point, we stopped to rest and he found a leaf that had a cut-out shape of a heart. "Please give me the sweetheart," he said, as he made us pose for pictures. Haha! After zip lining, we ventured back to our hostel for beer and more delicious Thai food, and crashed. Emily and I had scheduled a full tour for the next day, which proved to be loads of fun.

Visiting a Buddhist temple

My new tiger friend

Day four was another busy day - white water rafting, bamboo rafting, and elephant riding! Oh my! We had a long tuk-tuk ride to our destination (a tuk-tuk is like a run-down buggy/taxi... very cheap!). In our group we met three French men, who at first were quite charming, but would soon turn into boyish animals (they were really fun, though!). We started with elephant training, feeding, and bathing. It was soooo neat! We learned some of the commands to feed the elephants, and how to turn in different directions when we ride them. Elephants typically spend around 12-18 hours a day just eating! We fed them grass and bananas. One of the elephants even stole some of the bananas from the secret hiding area. Riding the elephants really hurt my butt - they have surprisingly bony backs for such large animals. My favorite part was bathing the elephants - we told them to roll around in the water and we covered them with sand to scrub. Then they rolled around again. We even taught them how to squirt us with their trunks. They are so strong that they are able to lift us and carry us with only their trunk! I learned so much about these creatures that I had never known before. It was an awesome experience.

Elephant riding with Emily

That trunk has some insane muscle power!

After spending time with the elephants, we drove to white water rafting and bamboo rafting. The white water rafting was absolutely hilarious - the Frenchmen didn't know their right from their left, causing us to get caught on rocks and boulders the majority of our trip. However, I couldn't contain myself from chuckling because so many other groups kept passing us, and even the locals came over to watch us try and escape. We finally made it through the white water rafting and finished our river trip on an awesome bamboo raft. It would have been more relaxing if the French guys weren't splashing everyone with the freezing cold water the entire time... but that's okay! We ended our trip with a short hike to a waterfall - you could actually slide down the waterfall and go swimming! It was a relaxing finish to a long tour. To top it off, we went to our massage place and I chose an oil aroma therapy massage. Man, was it amazing. I wish I could hire my masseuse and keep her with me everywhere I go. Haha!

Hiking trip with Zoe!

Our last day in Chiang Mai, Zoe (my other Fulbright friend) and I planned a day trek. I hadn't been exercising while on vacation, so this felt really good to be active and moving for an extended period of time. We walked through forests, mountains, and learned about some traditional villages. We had a great time, and ended up chatting away with two ladies who were from the UK. It is so nice to meet people from around the world and build connections. By the end of our hiking trip, I was thoroughly exhausted, but we managed to head to the night market to go souvenir shopping before heading to Bangkok.

Chiang Mai was such an amazing, relaxing, beautiful city to visit, and I can't wait to visit again in the future! This post is already too long, but I didn't capture all of the wonderful experiences I gained while here. Next up, Bangkok!