First day in Chiang Mai
Yesterday I visited the hilltop temple and the night bazaar, like I planned to, but not before having a nice thai breakfast at my new guest house:
It consisted of a rice soup with tofu, fresh fruit (melon, pineapple and banana) and coffee. For the day trip I teamed up with a girl from Spain I met on the night-train, a girl from Argentina and two french girls. We made a deal with a cap driver, so he’ll take us to the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep (the hilltop temple), to a waterfall and back to the guest house.
The temple was really beautiful, but of course there were many other tourists there. Not as bad as in Bangkok, but still. The view was also very nice, since you could look all over Chiang Mai.
After the temple, we visited a waterfall, which ether was not the waterfall we wanted to visit, or much smaller than we had imagined. It was still a really nice scenery and there weren’t many other people.
We drove back to the guest house and decided to visit another temple, the Wat Chedi Luang, which is in central Chiang Mai and really close to our guest house. This temple was really impressive, because it consisted of an active part, and an old part, which kind of looked like a Mayan pyramid. In the active part of the temple, there were even Buddhist monks praying when we went there. I think it was the sunset prayer, but I could be wrong.
It was still a bit to early to go to the night bazaar, so I went to get my first back shoulder neck thai massage. A regular one. I took 30 min and it was really good and even cheaper than the prices I’ve seen in Bangkok. The massage plus a iced tea after-wards were 100 Baht, I tipped 20 Baht, that makes it a total of about 3€! What. The. Fuck?! I’m definitely going to try the foot massage today.
Also, I think I’m going to rent a scooter today for one week. To get around Chiang Mai today and starting the Mae Hong Son loop tomorrow. It’s a trip starting in Chiang Mai, going to Pai first, then Mae Hong Son, Mae Chaem and finally back to Chiang Mai. You can have a look at the route here.
