Great Times In Chiang Mai And Pai

Hey folks! ✌

It's time for a new post! I know I'm a bit late, but at least I'm trying to catch up a little bit 😉 As I told you in my last post, I started my Asia adventure in Thailand and took the bus to Chiang Mai afterwards. Since it was a night bus, I arrived at my destination, a wonderful hostel called Family Home, in the morning and I had a full day left to explore the area. I spontaneously joined a group of six consisting of Ronja, Sophie and Jasper from Germany, Cris from the US and Scott from Canada, and together we went to a temple on a hill first and the Grand Canyon afterwards. The temple was really nice and offered a splendid view over the city and the surrounding landscape but the canyon was a bit of a disappointment as it wasn't a natural but a man made one. We went for a quick swim there, jumped from a platform which was a bit less than 10 meters high, I think, and had lunch before heading back to the hostel. In the evening, I went for dinner and a cocktail with the other Germans.

For the next day, I had booked an activity that I was really excited about: a day at the Chiangmai Mountain Sanctuary where a couple of elephants live. These elephants would be our company for almost the entire day. At first, we got to know and fed them, had lunch and learned how to make medicine for them before we started making our way through the jungle together with the animals, one elephant being accompanied by two or three people. I was in a group with Cris and Scott and I think we weren't too bad at leading our elephant the right way – with a few exceptions when she just stopped for food and apparently had better things to do than listening to our commandos 😁 Anyway, as the 6 kilometer trail went up and down and it was super hot outside with the sun shining all the time, we were all pretty exhausted when we reached the mud pools. There, the elephants lay down in the pools and we were given the chance to put some mud on them. Definitely fun 😊 After a while, we went for the last small part of the track and finally reached our destination, a river in which we were supposed to wash our elephants. Everyone got a bucket and a brush and then we immediately started. I really enjoyed this. At the very end of the trip, everyone crossed the river via zipline and after we had showered and enjoyed some fresh fruit, we went back to the hostel. In the evening, I went for dinner with some people who had just arrived at the hostel, namely Bianca (ITA), Clarissa (BRA) and Camilla, Alex and Henry from England. After returning to the hostel, I spent the rest of the evening with Ellie and Ryan, a Welsh couple who had also been on the elephant tour with me. We had a really nice chat 😊

For my last day in Chiang Mai, I hadn't made any concrete plans, so I just went to a cafe with the English trio before I started exploring the city itself. I hadn't seen that much until then, so it was really time to see what the place has to offer. I saw a couple of temples – surprise, surprise 😅 - and a nice small park.

In the next morning, it was time to head to my third stop in Thailand: Pai, a small town which is extremely popular with backpackers. However, after a few hours on the bus, I found myself being one of only two guests in my hostel. Crazy, even though I wasn't there during high season. I still had a few hours left, so I went straight to a scooter rental to be mobile for the next three days. And I think I can say that I was quite productive during my first day. I went to a waterfall and to the bamboo bridge – a very, very nice walk through green rice fields - before heading to the Pai Canyon for the sunset. I ws actually totally surprised to see sheer crowds of people sitting all over the canyon and waiting for the sun to go down. Probably every tourist had come there 😅 And the sunset was really nice to watch indeed. In the evening, I was looking for some food at the night market which is simply awesome, when I bumped into Isabel and Benny from Berlin who were looking for some food as well. So we spent the evening together and, after they realized that Jessie, an Austrian friend of theirs, was in town as well, actually agreed on meeting again for a yoga class the next morning 😉

However, we never found that yoga class. We met in the “city center” and followed Jessie's GPS but there was no yoga class in sight. Nowhere. So we ended in a small cafe, drinking fruit shakes and waiting for the rain to stop. That took quite a while though, so I didn't have that much time left to see some more sights. Therefore, I only went to another waterfall which wasn't that special but still nice to watch.

On my last full day, I went to see a giant white buddha statue in the forest which was a bit disappointing though because it's currently being worked on so it's completely covered by a metal framework 🙁 There was also a bit of a shock when I was on the way from my hostel to the main street with my scooter. While I was driving around a corner, I didn't see there was quite a lot of mud on the ground so I just hit it and my scooter immediately slipped. I tried to get it back into balance but it was too late. I crashed and one mirror of my scooter got smashed. Nothing happened to me though. Lucky me 🍀 That accident didn't prevent me from going to a Chinese village in the mountains and a viewpoint right next to it. The weather was pretty good, so I had a great view over the valley. Definitely worth going 👌 In the evening, I went to the night market with Isabel and Benny again before going to bed.

My time in Pai had almost come to an end – but just almost. I still had a few hours left so I went to a land split which is located on the grounds of a super friendly farmer and his family. Everyone who wants to see the split gets a lot of free food and some delicious drinks for free 😋 I made a donation though. The food was really really good and after taking a small walk around the split, I once again went to the canyon to see some more parts of it before I hit the road again to go back to town. I had to pay for the broken mirror but the price was really low. A bit later, I found myself on the bus back to Chiang Mai. Once I had checked in at the Family Home again, I went to explore the night market which is quite big and absolutely a must-see when you're in Chiang Mai.

I only stayed for one night this time, but as I had booked a night bus to Bangkok, I still had some hours left before the departure. In the morning, I met two Austrian girls, Nina and Viktoria, and we soon realized that we were actually going to Bangkok in the same bus. I spent my day with them in town, doing nothing super special, before we went to the bus station together and arrived in Bangkok the next morning. So I was back in the capital of Thailand even though it was just during daytime as my next bus was scheduled for the evening. I went with Nina and Viktoria, left my luggage at their hostel and went to legendary Khaosan Road in the afternoon. We had lunch there and I found an excellent way to get rid of all these annoying salespeople who try to persuade you to buy their products: I would just pretend not to speak any English and talk to them in Eifeler Platt – our regional dialect which sounds quite different from Standard German (as Viktoria said: “the most stupid dialect I've ever heard” 😂) – so that these Thai people would think I was from wheresoever, but not from Germany (the problem is that some of them do understand Standard German) 😂 Anyway, as the departure of my bus was coming closer and closer, I eventually said goodbye to the girls and made my way to the bus terminal where my next bus was just waiting to get me to another part of the country – the islands in the South! In my next post, I will tell you what was going on there 😊

Cheers,

Max