Chiang Mai

Bangkok was a little too crazy. Koh Phangan was a little too quiet. For us, Chiang Mai was just right -- small enough to walk around in, yet large enough to have the cultural vibe that makes a destination interesting. We arrived in Chiang Mai late on a Thursday night and checked into the Eurana Boutique Hotel -- chosen for its central location and its heavily discounted rooms on Expedia. The next day was spent shopping for a more permanent home in the same neighborhood. We saw guesthouses with rooms from $6 to $60 per night and eventually settled on Yindee Guesthouse. At $30 a night, Yindee was a great value -- a nice balance between comfort and style (they even provided a communal refrigerator, a microwave and eating utensils for their guests). And it looks like we arrived in Chiang Mai at just the right time. During our stay, there were two festive events happening almost simultaneously – the Chinese New Year celebration and the annual Flower Festival. The weather has been perfect -- low humidity, high in the 80s during the day and low in the 60s at night, and mostly sunny just about every day.

Founded in 1296, Chiang Mai was originally a walled city (remains of the old wall are still visible in several spots around the perimeter of the old city). Our guesthouse is located in the farang ghetto, which is in the northeast part of the old walled city. Our neighborhood was a perfect starting point to explore Chiang Mai -- within a few blocks of our guesthouse was a local market surrounded by tons of street vendors. Around the corner was an Irish pub, a Japanese restaurant, and a vegetarian restaurant. Like all tourist corridors in Thailand, our neighborhood had plenty of services including an abundance of the three Ts -- tours, tattoos, and Thai massage.

Yes, Chiang Mai is a tourist destination, but it’s a tourist destination for Thais as well as foreigners. Although you see plenty of farangs walking around, foreigners are definitely in the minority here. When shopping at the famous Night Bazaar or the Sunday Walking Street, there were more Thai customers than foreigners. While we were here, we took a bicycle tour through the country-side south of the city and I indulged in a vegetarian Thai cooking course. But the highlight of our stay had to be a day trip to the Elephant Nature Park. Founded by Sangduen Chailert (a.k.a. "Lek"), this park rescues circus and working elephants who have suffered abuse and unbelievable hardships all of their lives. At the park, there are no elephant rides or performing elephants – just happy elephants living in adopted family groups and not being forced to do tricks or hard labor. In fact, the park is not fenced in – the elephants can leave any time they want to. But they don’t because for them, this is indeed elephant heaven.

Chiang Mai is not perfect. The traffic is pretty heavy and the petrol fumes can be rather irritating. And on certain streets, there is a distinct and persistent sewer odor. But all-in-all, this was the best destination on our trip so far.

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