Old City

We arrived in Chiang Mai on Sunday the 20th of January after a week in Bangkok. We flew into the Chiang Mai airport and checked into our first guest house. We spent the first two days exploring the city. Chiang Mai is based around the Old City which was the former capital of the kingdom of Lan Na. The Old City is surrounded by a moat and walls. Some original parts are still standing but there is always lots of construction work happening to rebuild broken parts. We haven’t ventured much out of the Old City since it is so easy to get around. The total perimeter is about 8kms.

Cooking class

We decided to take a Thai cooking class for a whole day! It started with a tour to the market to identify the local produce we were cooking with. Lots was familiar and lots was not. We had a great guide called Kiss Kiss whose mother taught her to cook traditional Thai food. We made spring rolls, green Thai curry, Khao Soi curry, hot and sour seafood, tom yum goon, tom zabb, sweet blue sticky rice (coloured with pea flower) and a papaya salad – which I think made me sick for the next few days. In the evening after our cooking class we decided to go for a traditional Thai massage (possibly adding to the sickness). We chose a spa that looked very western, clean and not dodgy. Thai massage is a very firm deep tissue massage which incorporates assisted yoga techniques to release toxins and relax the body. The spa itself was lovely but we came out feeling less than relaxed. My massage was very firm and I’m not sure how much Matt enjoyed being assisted in yoga by the Thai man massaging him 😂.

The day after the cooking class and the massage I felt very ill and we spent the day in our guest house watching back to back episodes of Shark Tank and eating bananas.

Eco Trek

The following day we had booked into a three day Eco trek hike through the Chiang Mai mountains and jungle. This has so far been the highlight of our trip. We booked with the company Thai Eco Trek Adventures which have excellent reviews online due to their ethical environmental practices. We were picked up at 8:00am and driven to a local market about an hour out of Chiang Mai city. This market truly was for the local people and was in no way sanitised for tourists like many of them are. Our guide went and purchased meat, fruit, vegetables and other foods for us to eat for lunch and for the following day.

After the market we drove another hour up into the mountains where we were dropped for our first walk and greeted by two village dogs, my favourite was called Basu. It was a difficult uphill walk considering I had only eaten bananas the following day. The view from the top was incredible and so was the lunch that our two guides Suvit and Vijit prepared for us at the top, with leftovers cleared up by the dogs.

We then began the descent to our campsite which was a bamboo cabin located right next to a waterfall.

When we arrived we relaxed while our guides prepared us afternoon tea which consisted of fresh fruit, tamarind, coconut sticky rice, rice cakes and tea. Dinner followed soon after, all prepared in the cooking hut, a small bamboo house over a hot coal fire.

With no electricity and the temperature dropping to 12 degrees we were in bed, asleep by 7:30pm to the sound of the waterfall.

The next day was another uphill walk, about 12kms with more delicious lunch and amazing views. Our guides are local to the Karen tribe so speak Karen, Thai and one spoke pretty good English. They grew up in the hill tribes, went to primary school in a bigger village and then went to high school in the town, about a 15 minute drive away. At high school they learn all the usual subjects as well as tourism. Many kids work in cafes, restaurants, bars and as guides in their last couple of years at high school as they don’t finish until they are 20. Our guides did this for 8 years and have now moved back home to the village to work as guides on the Eco Trek and to support their family with growing crops. They really do care about the local environment, always stopping to pick up plastic on our Trek.

On our third day we said goodbye to our dogs and went trekking to see many waterfalls and did some jungle style cooking. Everything we knew about western food safety and hygiene was non applicable in this style of cooking. The raw meat is sandwiched between a piece of split bamboo and cooked over the fire. One of our guides made us tea cups out of bamboo and a shot glass to try his special mountain whiskey, coloured with red herbs.

We saw coffee that the hill tribe people grow and one family is in charge of roasting it. We had this in the morning at our lodge.

On the way out we visited the biggest waterfall in the national park. Matt enjoyed a dip.

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

On our last day in Chiang Mai we visited the Doi Suthep mountain where the temple Wat Phra That is located. It is unknown when exactly the temple was founded but it is suspected to be in 1383. There is a legend that says a piece of Buddha’s shoulder bone lays there, so the site is considered one of the most sacred pilgrimage places in Thailand. There is also an impressive view of the city at the top, although hazy the day we visited.