Chiang Mai & Chiang Rai, Thailand
/(Dec 25th - Dec 29th, 2016)
When we arrived in Chiang Mai our first stop was in "Old City" where we met up with a co-worker and his wife for dinner. Our friends Matt & Phi were in the middle of a 6 month trip throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe and our itineraries overlapped for one night only (Christmas day!) so we made a point to meet up and exchange travel stories. We went to Kanjana which is known for their Khao Soi (a northern Thai curry noodle soup) and it did not disappoint! We grabbed drinks at John's Place and finished the night enjoying each other's company.
Our first full day in Chiang Mai was spent with elephants at the Elephant Nature Park. We had the most wonderful experience and even though there were many different elephant parks to choose from, we were so happy we chose this one. The nature park is an ethical elephant sanctuary which was an absolute requirement when we were searching for elephant excursions. We had heard so many horrible stories about how elephants are mistreated both within and outside of the tourism industry so we did our homework and found a place that truly provides a sanctuary to elephants. The massive park is a rescue and rehabilitation center that is home to hundreds of elephants, cats, dogs, buffaloes, and other rescued animals and largely runs off of donations and volunteer programs. We heard a few of the elephants' stories and saw photos of what they looked like when they arrived at the park compared to post rehabilitation and the change was remarkable. These animals were tortured, starved, beaten, and forced to perform in the circus or provide rides to tourists, but learning about the process of "breaking their souls" in order to be calm enough around humans was the worst part of it all. With an estimated 30,000 Asian elephants left around the world, it's encouraging to see established foundations and organizations like the Elephant Nature Park working so hard to preserve the population we have left. We were fortunate to meet one of the park's ambassadors (Dave Oleary) as well as the founder (Lek Chailert) and it was amazing to see how passionate they were about helping these fascinating creatures.
Our day started off with a morning feeding session with a few elephants who had recently been rescued. They ate quarters of watermelons right out of our hands and as soon as they took a piece, they started looking for their next piece. They just never seemed to get full! After we went through two tables worth of watermelons, one of the elephants was still hungry and went for a leafy branch to get a few more calories in before our walk through the forest. We were each given a sack full of bananas to feed the elephants during our walk and it was amazing how many times you would feel an elephant trunk on your back trying to sneak a banana from your sack! They are so quiet and stealthy! We had a picnic Thai lunch while the elephants cooled off in the shade and then received another sack of bananas for the second half of the walk. We finished our day by bathing the elephants in the Mae Taeng River and observed some of the more tenured elephants, dogs, cats, and buffaloes roaming freely around the sanctuary. It was truly an amazing place and we would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone visiting northern Thailand.
After the elephant excursion we went back to our hotel to shower, tend to our (what seemed like hundreds of) mosquito bites, and grab dinner at Lemongrass for more Khao Soi and spicy curries.
On our second day in Chiang Mai we did a full day Chiang Rai and Golden Triangle tour. The drive was several hours long so we played heads up to entertain ourselves (and greatly confuse our guide and driver). When we arrived at the Wat Rong Khun (White Temple), we were in complete awe. We had seen photos, but on a perfectly sunny day with all the pieces of mirror reflecting in the sunlight, it was more stunning than we could have imagined. We didn't have any prior knowledge on what the temple was for or why it was built, but we learned that the artist began work on the temple in 1997 and the complex has yet to be fully completed. It's overall appearance is drastically different from the 30,000+ temples throughout Thailand (i.e. it's main chapel has paintings of Harry Potter and Hello Kitty). There is a structure known as the Golden Toilet (an ornate gold leaf covered bathroom), a bridge to the main chapel called "Cycle of Rebirth" (symbolizing that the way to happiness is by foregoing temptation, greed, and desire), a colorfully decorated glass Ironman figure sitting on a bench, and a full gallery of both beautifully detailed and unique original paintings by the temple designer Chalermchai Kositpipat's. One of his art pieces that stood out was a painting of President Bush riding on a rocket with Osama bin Laden, called "Love". The complex seemed to have a little bit of everything, but it was beautiful and entertaining.
We continued our drive on to the Golden Triangle (where Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and Thailand all meet along the Mekong River). The Golden Triangle (coined by the CIA) is a region that was known as one of the world's most prolific opium producers dating back to the 1920s. Since 1959, poppy growing has been illegal in Thailand, but Myanmar still produces about a quarter of the world's opium today. We visited the opium museum, took a boat ride along the Mekong River, stopped over in Laos to do some market shopping (where we found bottles of whiskey with scorpions and snakes inside...) and then started our long trek back. The White Temple was definitely worth the trip, but I would probably skip the Golden Triangle part of the tour if I were to do it over again.
On our last full day in Chiang Mai, we slept in, enjoyed a riverside breakfast, and relaxed before our Thai cooking class. We had heard great things about cooking schools in Thailand and decided to book with the Thai Orchid Cookery School. We started off the class by selecting which dishes we wanted to make for each of the courses (spring rolls, soup, curry, stir fry, and dessert). The four of us strategically diversified our selections so that we could sample more dishes. For the first course we made both fresh and deep fried spring rolls (paw pia tord) and then made both Tom Yum and Tom Yum Goong soup with prawns. Everything was delicious and was surprisingly quick to make (once all the ingredients are chopped and ready to cook with). We took a break and went to a nearby market where our instructor showed us different fruits and vegetables she cooks with as well as alternative ingredients that can be used when cooking back at home. She also showed us some of the more interesting items in the market like a hundred year (century) egg, durian (which is forbidden in a lot of hotels due to it's smell), honey pineapple, and Thai donuts. We explored on our own for a bit taking some photos and sampling different items while our instructor picked up the rest of the ingredients she needed for the second half of our class. In the afternoon we made chicken panang curry (panaeng muu), green curry with chicken (gaeng kheaw wan gai), yellow curry with chicken (gaeng garee gai), phad thai, cashew nut chicken (gai pad med mamuang), and sweet and sour chicken (pad preaw warn gai). We enjoyed the meal with rice and lemongrass tea. Everything was absolutely amazing and we all agreed that it would be hard to go back to the Americanized Thai food we were used to in Seattle (we found out that a lot of places use ketchup in their phad thai instead of tamarind paste to cater to the American palate). Homemade, local Thai food is just SO much better! To finish off the class we made dessert, which no one had room for, but somehow we all managed to finish :) Allen, Sam, and Erik all made mango sticky rice (khao neow mamuang) and I made a steamed pumpkin cake (khanom fug thong). It was everything we were expecting a cooking class to be (and more!) and the instructor was amazing. We couldn't have asked for a better experience and have already replicated some of the recipes at home thanks to the cookbook we got to take home with us!
After our class, Sam and I treated ourselves to Thai iced teas and then got massages at our hotel spa (we just couldn't get over how cheap they were!). The guys then followed suit while we got ready for dinner. We had our last dinner in Chiang Mai at the riverside restaurant, Paak Dang and enjoyed more local food and drinks. We were excited to head to the beach the following day, but all agreed that Chiang Mai had been an unforgettable experience.
