After a night on the sleeper train, we made it to Chiang Mai and checked into our hostel. We spent some time getting organized and planning our next few days. We were able to book our elephant sanctuary visit and cooking class through the hostel. We had lunch at Morning Glory Thai Vegetarian Restaurant which was perfect!! I could have a bunch of the Thai soups like Tom Yum because they were for sure vegetarian!
The rest of the gang spend the afternoon in a spa getting pedicures and Thai massages. I walked around a bit and checked out Wat Fon Soi.
I also went to Wat Chedi Luang where I got to walk around and sit down and talk to a monk!! I wanted to hear more about his everyday life but he kept bringing the conversation back to Buddha. Wat Chedi Luang was cool because there were dozens of smaller temples surrounding a large ruin. There were many Buddhas to go around and see.
That afternoon and evening we had our Thai cooking class!! The hostel booked our class through the Chiang Mai Thai Farm Cooking School which was everything I could have asked for in a cooking class and more. We started in a market where we learned about different ingredients and then came back to the farm where we got to go around and pick certain ingredients we’d need to cook.
We got to cook all the best food!! We made pad thai, green curry, tom yum, spring rolls, and had mango sticky rice for dessert!! We got to smash the chiles for the curry ourselves and made everything from scratch. They were also able to easily accommodate my vegetarian diet!
The following day we had big plans to rent scooters! We had three, so two of us would go on each. I planned to ride with Mel, but there was a bit of an accident while Andrea was practicing on one. So we scrapped the scooter idea and had a low key day exploring some temples around Chiang Mai, eating pad thai, and went to a night market in the evening to load up on souvenirs!
We went to bed early in preparation for our elephant tour the next day!! We didn’t book early enough to get a tour at Elephant Nature Park, the most popular elephant sanctuary in Chiang Mai. We did a lot of research and talked to the hostel and ended up finding a tour with Elephant Rescue Park. They were a smaller park with four elephants: three babies and one adult. We were big fans of the cute outfits and hats we got to wear.
We started out by feeding the elephants bananas!!! They were so sweet and so greedy for bananas!! We could put the bananas right into the mouths of the little ones but had to feed the adult by handing off the bananas to her trunk.
We then got to take the elephants for a walk and finished the walk in a river where we got to bathe them!!! Elephants have coarse hair that needs to be brushed!! Who knew?!
Seeing elephants up close and getting to interact with them was actually amazing!! They’re so gentle and cute!!!! Definitely worth making a day trip to go see them!
That evening we were moving hostels, and this is when I lost my phone, RIP. I realized I didn’t have it on the way to the elephant sanctuary and figured I must have left it in the hostel. After getting back we tore up the hostel looking for it but it was gone. I think someone must have pocketed it when they saw it lying around.
We headed to the next hostel and that evening went out in Chiang Mai. We found a bar with some good music and cheap buckets of booze. We also learned that because Thailand was mourning the death of the previous King, the songs being played couldn’t exceed a certain bpm.
Quick breakfast in paradise in the next morning.
We started at the Grand Canyon in Chiang Mai. But we were definitely mislead. We though we’d be seeing a natural space where we could hike and maybe swim. But it was just a big hole dug in the ground with swimming areas and lifeguards. Would not recommend. Classic SE Asia.
We then took a taxi up to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, which was a temple on top of a mountain!! The ride was a bit brutal though, a few of us got car sick. But the temple was lovely, everything was gold and the view of Chiang Mai from the top was awesome.
We came back to the hostel and said our goodbyes!! I was headed back to Hong Kong that night and Emma had a couple evenings that she’d spend solo in Chiang Mai before flying home to New Zealand. The other four were off to Pai for some outdoorsy adventures.
Goodbye, Thailand & girl gang!!! Leaving my heart and phone behind! ❤︎