Our first few days here in Chiang Mai have been pretty relaxing. Chiang Mai is a beautiful town in north Thailand with a very laid-back and friendly vibe. The square-shaped, brick-walled, old town, where we are staying is a picturesque little network of cheerful streets filled with tasty and inexpensive eateries, laundromats, bike rentals, thai massage, and cooking schools. And the temperature is a little cooler here compared to in the south, especially in the morning and evening.
We are staying at a little oasis called Kodchasri, which has a fairly unassuming street view, but when you enter through the lobby, it opens into a serene courtyard garden with a swimming pool, elevated gardens, a hammock, work out room, and a lots of little nooks to relax in. And there are adorable animal statues everywhere and 4 sweet cats. We have two rooms with front porches side by side facing the pool, where the kids have spent some time in between their studies and reading. Remember my Sri Lanka post about the tea? They serve us tea every afternoon in an adorable little elephant tea pot and cups, along with a sweet treat. Yesterday it was Rosella tea with banana bread, and today it is Ginger tea and coconut cookies.
So far we have had Rosella, Ginger, and Chamomile tea. I try to make a point of being here for tea time because I love the presentation so much!
We have done a lot of walking around, sampling the street food and local establishments near to our hotel. We’ve eaten Mexican food twice now (our last and only other Mexican cuisine was found in S. Africa), and have also done some important shopping. We found some birthday gifts for Maggie, who turns 9 on the 17th, and I also found a replacement for my deceased camera, which I sent home with the Snyders for repairs. One night walking home from dinner, we stopped at a hair salon and David got a haircut. It was quite the process – the thai woman who cut his hair was extremely serious about her art, and I thought it was the best looking cut he had ever had, but as with every haircut David has ever received, he didn’t like it.
Yesterday, we hired a man named Tor to be our driver for the day. Tor had been the taxi driver that picked us up from the taxi stand at the airport, and instantly appreciating his excellent English, we asked him if we could hire him to take us around Chiang Mai. He took us the the Chiang Mai zoo, then to the famous temple at the outskirts of town. The main attraction at the zoo for us was the pandas. At the zoo, I read that outside of China, there are only 30 pandas in just a handful of zoos around the world. We have seen pandas at the National Zoo in DC, but were excited to see them here in Chiang Mai. However, we were only able to see the father panda, who was sleeping during our visit. The mother panda is pregnant, due any day, and there was a big press room set up filled with journalists awaiting to break with the big story when the little pink hairless bundle finally arrives. Another young panda that used to live at the zoo is now at another zoo. Anyhow, we saw some other really cool animals, including gibbons, barking deer (even an albino species), penguins, an Indian Rhino, and even a seal show. They also allow you to feed many of the animas for a small fee, so we fed deer, an asian elephant, and even a leopard. We rode on a monorail around the zoo, that I kid you not, actually moves slower than the LeBoat that we rented in France. It was almost comical, except I have a healthy fear of monorails from living in Seattle, where the monorail breaks down every 3rd trip or so and on multiple occasions I have seen tourists being evacuated from the high rail by firetruck.
Back in Chiang Mai, our next stop was the gorgeous golden Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, just outside the city, at the top of 300 steps. Here we observed the solemn rituals being performed by so many buddhists. Some walked around the temple, reading prayers from a sheet, others dipped oil into burning lanterns, or kneeled in front of buddhists and then were blessed by monks. The only bit we played in the actual ceremonies was we signed a golden scarf that was going to be draped around one of the pagodas.
Jon was taking a picture of these military officials on tour at the temple, so I took one too. The grounds at Doi Suthep are stunning, with almost everything gilded in gold paint.
After bowing to the buddha of your choice (their poses represent virtues to aspire to), you did a ladel into the oil, and pour it into the lotus in front of that statue. Since I couldn’t read the inscriptions I decided not to risk it!
There is an incredible view of Chiang Mai from the temple grounds, but unfortunately obscured by smog.
Inside the temple, there was a large piece of golden monk cloth with a small sign instructing us to sign our names on it and then it would be wrapped around the Pagoda. The Roaming Jones were here.
The final stop of the day was the Mae Sa Waterfalls, which is a very easy but beautiful hike along a path that follows a series of 10 waterfalls. When we got to the top after about a half hour of hiking, we jumped in the murky water and swam around a bit. It was surprisingly not that cold, and we managed not to get eaten alive by mosquitos. As I write this, I’m sitting on porch at the Kodchasri, sticky with a film of mosquito repellant, as a mosquito coil burns on the ground next to me. I think our family has single-handedly kept the entire mosquito population in old town alive with our blood donations! Tomorrow, we have a Thai cooking class for the whole family – stay tuned.
