Asia Step 15 - Thailand The vibrant city of Chiang Mai and its beautiful surroundings

Mallaury
31 juil. 2016
4 min de lecture

With Bangkok, Chiang Mai is the second Thai city we visit. The two towns are way different. Chiang Mai is big but not monstrous like Bangkok, without high rises and seems more traditional. From the first sight we absolutely guess that we gonna be fine here. The temperature is perfect (we have an awful memory of Bangkok climate in May !), it's agreeable to walk in the nice streets, people are very helpful and friendly. Chiang Mai remembers us the Cambodian Siem Reap and the Lao capital, Vientiane.

Drive a scooter for 10 minutes out of the urban zone, and a dense nature, from a huge park, welcomes you with beautiful views and an enjoyable cool.

Among the jungle, we finally hear birds. We couldn't in Laos, we guess because of the wildlife massive destruction.

Chiang Mai, like Vientiane and Siem Reap, is definitely a great town to stay few days and enjoy being in holidays !

The few we've done and advise you to do

1. Go through three huge night markets (Bazaars)

As it's almost the end of our trip, we spend a long time between the three markets of Chiang Mai, searching for the last souvenirs.

There are three different. The biggest is called Kalare Night Bazaar and is our favorite. Hundreds of cool souvenirs stalls meet dozens of cheap street food stalls.

Farther in the same street, still walking through plenty of stalls, we find the two others, Anusan Night Bazaar and the building of the Chiang Mai's Night Bazaar.

Sure it's a tourist meeting point but it's still very enjoyable.

2. Drive the small loop to Sameong

One day during our week in Chiang Mai, we anew rent a scooter. We heard about a loop passing through Sameong Village that we can do in two days. As we miss our Lao loops, we jump on the probably last occasion of driving a loop.

On the way to Sameong we decide to head, first, to a site called the Grand Canyon. In this aim, we drive long, so long, on an awful road going through industrial, grey and dusty zones, in the Thai traffic. We ask our way (we don't have a good map) and are told that we're completely wrong.

Tired, we give up on the Grand Canyon idea and take back the right path to Sameong.

We cross several caves and waterfalls, but are too fine on our scooter to stop.

We take a break in an isolated café among rice fields and mountains, for a strawberry smoothie.

On the road again, we keep driving to reach Sameong, where we would like to spend the night, in a hotel. Still within dense plants, rice fields, mountains, we begin to drive under the rain, and so stop in what we think is a restaurant.

Some wooden houses, some plantations, and some men renovating furniture. We sit and are informed that they don't serve food. We drink a beer instead. Then a second one. A third one... The night is falling, and an old lady, one of the owners of the small farm, brings us some food. Starving, we eat the fresh dishes with enthusiasm : spinach salad, bamboo salad, and some meat.

The son (the only who speaks English) comes to us to ask where we'll sleep tonight. We answer that we were thinking about an hotel in Sameong, but we didn't book anything. With this, he proposes us to sleep in his farm, in a tent. Excited by this adventure, we don't hesitate and accept, grateful. It sounds like we can have our fun and moreover we need to save money. Sleeping here will cost us less than in a resort in Sameong. We spend the evening the two of us, at a massive table out of wood, surrounded by cats, dogs, butterflies and weird big bugs.

When the son informs us that he doesn't have beer anymore and that he has to go shop others in a little store nearby, we go with him. Here we are, lost in the Thai countryside, seated in the back of a pickup with a fat dog who looks like a tiger.

We buy few beers more and a pack of cigarettes and drive back to the farm. There, we enjoy the night with our favorite songs.

When it's time to go sleep, we discover our room, and laugh. The tent is way too small for two people, and mostly for Tobias. Ten thousand insects are running around. Thankfully we're more than tipsy !

But anyway, as we guessed, we have way more fun than in a resort, despite the lack of space.

The next morning, we wake up (with back pain) and are quickly ready to leave. As they insist to prepare us a breakfast, we accept, and wait for it at the same big table.

After what, we ask politely how much we have to pay for the beers we drank last night, and we want to give few bath for the night and the food that they friendly offered us.

That's the moment when Tobias and Mallaury have to come back down to earth.

Nothing is for free in this World. And last night was not for free at all. The old lady has prepared a bill, with everything they gave us (without we asked for it). We have to pay 900 B (25$)!!! Which is really expensive for Thailand. We can not believe it. We ask the woman to call her son that we can speak in English and have an explanation. As we have to play this game, we redo point per point the bill with them, and conclude to an amount of 600 B (17$). Impossible to express you our disappointment, not necessarily for the money, but for what we thought was friendly and disinterested.

Whereupon, we leave our expensive farm, and head back to Chiang Mai, on the loop.