Chiang Mai, Thailand

From Siem Reap, we went straight to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. Not like my mom told everyone: Kaddi is now in Shanghai. No, I'm not in China :)

It's only 3 km from the airport to the city center. I stayed here for a total of 8 days and stayed in the old town.
You can do many courses here (language courses, cooking courses, etc.), there are many excursions.. to elephant care centers, to the hill tribes, there are many temples. Monks walk the streets.. here's the best Wi-Fi since my whole trip including Australia. So fast! I'm really impressed :) It's a pretty relaxed city and there are also many great markets here. A Saturday market and a huge Sunday market. I didn't even manage to see the whole Sunday market. I walked so much that day that I didn't make it all the way to the end of the long street. I had already bought enough in one evening. I also sent my first package to Germany. The shipping cost 32€, more expensive than the contents, but it doesn't matter. It didn't fit in my backpack anymore :)
Then there's a huge night market or night bazaar every evening. There's also a ladyboy show in the cabaret every evening at 9:30 p.m. Highly recommended.

There are also many other markets, especially daily street food markets. And of course, large Western shopping centers outside the old town.
The Thais are not pushy at all here. Even at the markets. You can browse relaxedly and won't be bothered. Everyone greets friendly. They are so well prepared for tourism and everything is still very cheap. Even cheaper in Chiang Mai than in Siem Reap. It's super easy to travel in Thailand. Everyone is helpful and well organized. I really like Thailand. I was here for the first time in 2007 and it has always been my favorite country in Southeast Asia. Normally, I don't travel to the same country twice. There's still too much to discover. But with Thailand, I had to make an exception. I was curious if it is still my favorite country here. So far, I really like it and I feel very comfortable in this country :) Besides, it's cheap to get from A to B.
Oh, and of course... the food! Someone recently pointed out to me that I talk a lot about food ;) Hey.. food is just very important! :p Any trip is less fun without good food.

Thai food is so delicious. Chicken cashew nut, mango sticky rice, pad thai.. so good! Very typical in the north: Khao Soi. A mild curry soup with noodles and chicken. Also very good.
Wherever you go to eat, you hear Ed Sheeran. He is so popular in Southeast Asia. Even in Indonesia and Siem Reap, Ed Sheeran's music is everywhere from the speakers or played on the guitar. Whether you can sing or not. The main thing is to play 'thinking out loud' or 'shape of you'. Old and new songs. But he's also really great. I love his music.
The warmth in Chiang Mai is very pleasant, by the way. Hardly any humidity. But with a blue sky, the sun burns quite a lot.
And Dengue fever is a problem in CM. You also have to spray yourself with mosquito repellent during the day. Wow, I got so many mosquito bites! I almost went crazy. I always thought the only thing I really 'hate' are cigarettes, but mosquitoes are right up there! I even woke up at night with so many bites. I wondered why they had mosquito nets in the room even though there is air conditioning.. Now I know why.
Luckily, I have this 'bite away' burner with me. It's so good and I can only recommend it to everyone. Also in Germany for warm summer nights and barbecue evenings. It only costs about 25€ or so (cheaper on Amazon than in pharmacies). You only have to put it on the mosquito bite for 6 seconds and then endure the pain, 50°C heat, but then it stops itching and you hardly see the bite the next day.
The main thing is that I'm advertising it here for now :)

But now to the main point.
I mainly came to Chiang Mai because I wanted to take a Thai massage course here, a cooking course, and I wanted to visit the elephants at a care center.

I did the Thai massage course. It lasted for 3 days. Really cool. The teacher was good and there was only one other student besides me. So he could show us everything in detail. And before you also want to sign up.. I already have enough test subjects :) Unless you are male, good-looking, single, and muscular :p

Then I did a Thai cooking course. It lasted for a whole day with a visit to the market in the morning, where we learned a lot about the types of vegetables and spices.
The course was really fun. Wow, and it felt so good to cook again. It's amazing how sometimes you realize how much you miss the everyday things or how happy you are to cook again :) The food was really delicious. Everyone ate what they prepared. A total of 7 dishes with appetizer and dessert. I was really full afterwards. The guys from the cooking school were super funny.
In the end, we had a drink: sticky rice rum. A Thai rum made from sticky rice. It's called Lao Khao. It is topped up with Sprite and tastes really good with a splash of lime juice :) It's very cheap to buy at 7/11 for about 2.70€ per bottle! The ones with the crab on a blue or green background are the best.

Another beautiful moment at the cooking school. We sat at the table and I had my phone in my phone case lying on the table. One of the "teachers" liked the pattern. I told him that my mom had sewn the phone case for me and that the outer fabric used to be her pants and the inner fabric used to be a shirt of my dad's. He was amazed and asked if I was Buddhist, which I denied. He then told me that when Thais travel or are far from home, they always carry something from their mother and something from their father as a lucky charm. About 95% of Thais are Buddhist. He got goosebumps because I just had it with me without knowing it and that it was done without any ulterior motives.. so sweet. For him, it had a great meaning and he thought it was beautiful that other countries do it just like that out of instinct (or to use up the fabric of old clothes). He said I will definitely have luck on my journey and be safe :)

The only thing left on my list was the elephants. I thought that these care centers, where sick elephants are nursed back to health and all these "sanctuaries" where retired elephants come, would be something good, but after further information, it's almost as shitty as elephant riding.. The care centers have become tourist attractions and are offered on every corner. Always the same program, that you take a mud bath with the elephants, can take photos with them, etc. Even there, they are not treated well and cannot grow old in peace. They have to take a bath with the tourists every day, and they are secretly urged with sticks to go into the mud bath, even if they don't want to. Besides, there are now also baby elephants, although the sanctuaries are not intended as breeding stations. Well, if you look into it, there are a lot of arguments against it and that's why I decided against it :( even though I would have loved to bathe with an elephant..

Instead, I decided to visit another temple. There are so many in the old town. But the most beautiful one was Wat Doi Suthep up in the mountains. It's about a 45 minutes' drive from the old town.
Of course, there are a lot of tourists there, but I still found it quite beautiful.

Now I've had enough of cities again. I will spend the rest of my time in Thailand on the islands. I'm looking forward to the sea. First stop is Koh Chang.