Chiang Mai (means New City)

  Chiang Mai, Thailand Sunday, November 9, 2014

Chiang Mai is so named apparently, because 700 years ago, The King moved his palace from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai. Chiang means city and Mai means new. So although it was new 700 years ago, it is now quite old itself and right in the middle is the oldest part of the city, surrounded by an ancient wall and a moat. These days, the Thai government has made it all very ornamental with fountains and nice lights and trees. The wall is no longer required to keep marauders out and is now a nice feature (to hang lanterns on at the festival) We are staying inside the old city as it has fairly cheap guesthouses in its narrow streets but the city has a really nice feel to it everywhere. The People here seem more gentle than the citizens of Bangkok and it feels welcoming, friendly and safe. Chiang Mai has it's fair share of beautiful temples and one of them is right outside our new guesthouse. Our room overlooks it and it is very pretty. The Thai temples are beautifully ornate and it makes for lots of pretty photos. Myanmar had many more temples than Thailand but they certainly know how to bling them up better here! The city although quite old, has a really modern feel to it and it has lots of restaurants from all over the world so we have really gone mad on our comfort food since we have been here. Italian and Mexican mainly as we haven't had too much of that since we left England. So pizza, pasta and burritos have featured quite a bit in our diet since we got here (don't knock us - we don't know when we are likely to have it again). Once we get to the south of Thailand we shall be back on the red and green curries as they seemed to be much better down there. The local dish here is chicken and garlic in a coconut sauce with rice. Chiang Mai also has it's fair share of markets. The Night Market is open until 11pm every night and feels a bit touristy if we are honest. The prices are a bit inflated and a lot of the goods seem to be from India and China. However, the Sunday Market is entirely different. In the old city, there were streets and streets pedestrianised off and were full of stalls. Almost all of the stalls were selling things we had never seen before and all seemed to be hand made by the person selling them. We found out later that it was set up especially for people from the villages outside the city to come and sell their things. There was so much of interest that this was one of the few times we wished we were here on holiday rather than travelling because we could have filled a suitcase with lovely unusual things. And whilst we were walking around here who should we bump into but Lizzie & her dad. Remember them from Mandalay? They had made it into Thailand through the countryside and were here in time for the festival. It was good to catch up with them. Dad is heading back to Sydney soon so who knows, we may bump into him there too. Its funny how you meet people you have never met before, then suddenly outside forces push you back together for a second time somewhere completely different. Chiang Mai has been a really nice place to chill out (yes even though its a city) our guesthouse has a pool (yes we have gone posh for a week - at £16 a night it's not that difficult to be posh here). SK2 also serves a nice breakfast by the pool, ok wifi for catching up on the blog and for Bryan to work, and they play nice chill out music - The Eagles is on now as we write this. Bryan hired a moped for a day and found the Olympic size pool a few kms out of the city, as he is feeling so much better now he is keen to start his training again. As it was so cheap to hire mopeds (just £4 a day) we hired one each another day.We headed off to some waterfalls to the north of the city which was nice to sit in the cool shade of the forest and listen to the water. We also found the Poo Poo Paper factory. Yes it is exactly what it says it is. Elephant poo does not go to waste here! We headed home and it's time to start thinking about moving on again. We spent our last day here visiting more of Chiang Mai's beautiful temples and sending a parcel back home with all our lovely souvenirs and elephant art. Chiang Mai has been a really lovely city to visit. Even though it's a city, the atmosphere is much more intimate here and the people on the whole are warm and friendly (even the tuk tuk driver that dropped us at the bus station when we left said "have a great time in the rest of the world" - he didn't even know we were going anywhere else!) It is a city we would definitely like to come back to and probably will one day. Next stop Sukhothai. Where??? [gallery columns="4" ids="9258,9261,9269,9274,9277,9279,9280,9284,9286,9288,9290,9292,9294,9298,9299,9301,9303,9307,9311,9315,9317,9321,9323,9330,9335,9338,9346,9349,9352,9356,9360,9364,9366,9370,9376,9387,9393,9409,9418,9433,9441,9452"]