Temple hopping in Chiang Mai's old town ;-) (Day 60 of the world trip)

03/11/2019

The journey to Chiang Mai was relatively uncomplicated :) We first took the metro as planned, and from there it was just under 2 km to the bus station. However, I didn't want to walk with our heavy backpacks, so I preferred to take a bus or a taxi :p

At the exit of the metro station, there were about 10 different bus lines, but only one of them went to the large bus terminal where we wanted to go. But since there are no (approximate) departure times here, I was a bit nervous and preferred to take a taxi. We hailed one, told him where we wanted to go. He nodded, but when we then put down our backpacks and wanted to open the trunk, he just drove away!! :O We puzzled about it, but we have no idea what we did wrong :D Asians next to us had no problem getting into a taxi, but we were unsuccessful -.-

Then suddenly a bus came, which Jonas was sure was our line. We sprinted there with our luggage, got on board, and when we went to pay for the ticket, we were told that this was the wrong bus. I was getting annoyed and moody by then (poor Jonas :p ), but in the end, we walked the whole way and arrived at the bus station sweaty and tired but still on time ;-)

When our bus arrived, Jonas and I were impressed! It was a double-decker bus (which we already knew but still cool^^), designed for long journeys! There was a lot of legroom (much more than on an airplane), there were free blankets (against the slightly excessive air conditioning), and the best part: you could recline the seats really far back and also fold up a footrest :O

Shortly after departure, we each received a water bottle and a box with two snacks: waffle cookies and a chocolate roll. Wow! And then something unexpected happened to me! I could actually sleep! On a bus! I've never been able to do that before :O But apparently, with the comfort and the seat/lying position, it worked :)

Jonas and I slept from shortly after departure until midnight, where we made a stop, and then from the continuation until about 5 am

Since the hostel only opens at 8:00 am, we sat outside at a table and used the Thai SIM card as a hotspot to upload yesterday's blog post :) We also planned what we will do today and possibly in the next few days.

Checking in was uncomplicated, and the room is pretty good. The bathroom is a bit unusual because there is no flush, but you always have to pour water instead, but well :D I remember that from the holiday in Phuket last year ;-)

By now it was 9:00 am, and we (super surprisingly :p) went to 7-Eleven to buy bread. Unfortunately, it was sold out, but then I grabbed a banana, yogurt with muesli, and we went to the opposite cafe, which has a real bakery!!! The cafe is Irish, and the bread is rather light (as the British also like it^^), but it was so great! There were regular rolls, whole grain rolls, ciabatta, baguette... wow!!

For starters, we got two small baguette rolls, which we then enjoyed together with the rest on the rooftop terrace of our hostel :) The rooftop terrace is very pretty and also covered, so you can really hang out there!

After the refreshment, we started exploring: Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand, but we didn't see any of that when we arrived :D It's quite calm and relaxed here, hardly any high-rise buildings... However, our hostel is also located in the old town, so maybe it looks different in other neighborhoods.

Well. In our usual manner, we picked out a few notable points in the old town that we wanted to see, and voila! Three major temples and the Lanna Museum (Lanna is the term for the northern region of Thailand as we learned in the museum^^) were on our agenda. However, since we were both wearing shorts, we never entered the temples, but we took plenty of photos from the outside. As expected, there are a lot of temples here, so we photographed (almost) all of them :D

By the way, the Lanna Museum was really cool :) It's not particularly big, but the presentation makes sure it's not too boring and you can spend some time there. In addition to old ceramics or clothing, for example (which I'm not particularly interested in), there were rooms explaining various aspects of Buddhism. Why are offerings made at the temples and what kind? How are temples generally structured?

In addition, there were also a few historical insights into folk dances or customs in the search for a partner. Situations were often recreated with wax figures to make it look more lively and to avoid the sometimes prevailing museum monotony. It wasn't fulfilling in terms of information if you want to know a lot about the history of the people or the religion, but there were bits of information that we both found quite interesting :)

I also had fun taking photos of random street art or posing Jonas or myself in front of figures, cool trees, etc. :D Around noon, we went to a park where Jonas ordered a real coconut for the first time in his life to drink the water :) In addition to fountains, pagodas, and beautiful green areas, there were also some fitness equipment there, and we had fun trying some of them out^^

When hunger struck, we went to a small street food stall, and we were told that only two dishes from the menu were available. We tried one, and it was okay. Pork with rice, but the meat was full of cartilage and the other "good stuff" (:p) that I really don't like :D

Then at around 3:30 pm, we dropped off our laundry (which really needed it...), took a shower, and now we're relaxing a bit until later when we'll go to the Sunday Market. As the name suggests, it's a market, and according to our host Sid (who, by the way, is German), it's the "better" one of the two markets because you're not constantly approached and encouraged to buy things there. Apparently, there is street food there (which we are looking forward to since our lunch was a really small portion) as well as the typical items for sale like clothing or souvenirs. But we want to give it a chance ;-) ^^

So - first impression of Chiang Mai is very positive! We only booked three nights here for now, but we'll leave it open whether we might extend. Because there's a lot on offer here, from national parks to waterfalls, temples, swimming, or bouldering :) In any case, you won't get bored here (if you're willing to spend a bit of money on tours, especially ;-) )!