chiang mai oh-mai

Last month, Chris and I went to one of my life top 3 bucket list places. It was definitely #travelgoals and not only a new country for me, but my first visit to a new continent- Asia! We flew from Helsinki (that was also a new country for me, does it count as a check if I was in the airport?) and landed in Bangkok. After a few hours' nap, we jumped on another plane and headed straight for our first destination, Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Let me begin by saying there was a lot of planning involved in this trip. There were so many unknowns and so many places we wanted to see- we had to cram it all in to 2 weeks. If you're interested, 2 weeks is definitely not enough time. I'm sure I'll talk about that later. For now I'm going to do separate posts of each of the areas we stayed in, and because I'm still an travel~blogger~in~training (& unpaid, just saying!) I won't go too in depth of where we stayed/ what we ate, etc. I personally prefer to share our beautiful photos with you versus reviewing restaurants, that's not my area of expertise. I like to try everything and already have a love of Thai food, so no complaints there. (We may or may not have had KFC and Pizza Hut once... but hey! We don't have chains where we live now so can you blame us?) Clearly I have a super refined palate!

Sorry it's taken so long to get to this! On top of going through our 37942668201 photos, we flew directly to London for a week from Thailand, then had Thanksgiving and Christmas markets the next week in Hungary (read thanks-giving post here,) and I have an issue sitting still for more than 2 days... we also took a trip to Austria to go snowboarding. So, there goes an entire month in the blink of an eye! Personally, it's so hard for me to sit and be in front of a computer long enough to write posts too. Not my favorite thing to do. I need to take whole days "off" of life to have enough time to devote to focusing on writing these for you! Doesn't help that as soon as I sit down I actually wind up planning for a next trip, and then off I go before actually writing a post (currently packing for my next trip right meow.) Oh well, I'm sure I'll do another post about why my daily life looks like here in Hungary just FYI.

Day 1
Back on track now! I'm going to be up front with you, I made a rookie travel mistake when planning and booked a room for the night we were leaving to get on the plane. NBD right? Except that I totally blanked on the time change and forgot we were traveling into the future, ha! So the hotel was really accommodating and actually upgraded us- for a mistake I made! They deserve a shout out. Buri Gallery House had the most pleasant staff, wonderful restaurant, and perfect location for the beginning of our trip.

We explored Chiang Mai for the day, within the Old City walls mostly, and ventured out towards the night market. There were temples and fresh juice stands galore. Coffee shops and beautiful architecture aplenty. I had saved everything in my Google Map starred and downloaded for offline use but we mostly wandered in the right direction and then ventured into wherever our feet took us.

We wound up in the most friendly tailor's shop, Mr. K, where Chris got a custom suit made within one day! The service and turnaround, not to mention price, was unparalleled! He personally delivered the suit to our hotel after we arrived late from our excursion and were leaving Chiang Mai the next day. Anyway, his location was quite a hike from within the old city walls, (we walked the first time- should have used a tuk tuk for like $2/person) but in evenings it was at the beginning of a street lined with vendors and allllll the shopping your heart desires. We followed the streets and came into the night market that is a "must do." Really, shops of all sorts, bars and restaurants, lively intricately dressed ladyboys, stands with fresh fruit, it was fun to just walk around and see what the hype was all about.

Day 2-3
The next morning we got picked up with a large van and were heading north just over an hour to my DREAM location. Elephant Nature Park. We were going to play with my favorite animals for the next 2 days! I did a lot of research to ensure that they were ethical, took care of the elephants and did not ride them, weren't corrupt in utilizing their donations, etc.

After going and first hand seeing the wonder and CARE in this park, I'm truly embarrassed I ever associated these questions with them. In every single person that works in the park, you can see all the heart that goes into the rehab of these beautiful gentle giants and the fierce desire to protect their freedom. I can cry just remembering how in awe I was witnessing and feeling the love and bonds between mahout and elephant.

The term mahout can be misleading. It may also be someone who is the elephant's 'trainer' and as such will use sticks or poles to poke and hurt the elephant into obeying. However, that is not at all the case here. Most of these elephants are rescued from begging on city streets, tourism riding and logging industries, stepping on landmines, and overall poor animal welfare activities where their owners made money off using the elephants opposed to having a safe, caring and responsible bond with them.

A mahout watching the elephants roam

 A mahout is typically an elephant's keeper, and only a male can be a mahout. Historically, and I'm only going to stay on the positive side here, elephants were cared after by their mahout for life. The same goes at Elephant Nature Park. Each elephant has a mahout to help feed them and watch out for them, all hours of the day.

One of the viewing/ dining platforms

Eyeing the dog, some get along and others don't

Baby playing chase with the dogs

These mahouts know everything about the elephants and can understand their pains. One elephant we came across on one of our walks was in an area where she typically does not hang out. Our guide was a little surprised to see her there, but the mahout explained the elephant's feelings and how we can best continue on our path past her. This poor girl had severe trauma from working on the city streets and begging. As elephants feel everything through their feet, the vibrations from the ground of all the cars and noises from honking were too much for her. While working the streets begging for money, she became overcome with fear and her owner hit her to behave which forced her to be even more afraid. I'll skip a bit of her story for my own sake, my heart hurts for her.

I do think it is important to tell, so in brief, out of fear she had trampled over a car that was honking at her and of course received more lashings from her owner. Fast forward to her being rescued and able to roam freely, she is still damaged and remembers everything. When we came upon her, she was eating peacefully, but because the sweet girl was "hiding" behind a tree (a young, 4 inch wide skinny tree might I add) she thought we wouldn't see her and therefore she wouldn't be forced to "work." The mahout and our guide said it was best if we continued on our path quietly, and did not look at her. Act as if she wasn't there. That was the only way she felt safe. This shows there is a lot to be said about the mahouts at the Nature Park. There is more than a duty, more than a simple bond between man and the animals.

I shortened her story- and yes, all the elephants except one are females- just a little because there is only so much I can type about it. There is more to feel... and you can only feel when you are there visiting. Every elephant has their own story of how they came to be at the Park, and none are what you would consider happy. The happy part is now, how they are recuperating and living their life and how well cared for they are.

Jungle Boy, the only adult male at the park. He was born there and you can tell he's been kept safe because his ears and tusks are in perfect, natural condition.

It was his "time of the month" if you know what I mean, so for protection he was kept separate

Our villa for the night. Definitely enough room for a family of 5 FYI.

Our villa came with a free pup!

View from our back porch, the elephants slept right beside us!

On this Park there are over 400 dogs in a dog shelter, and a separate area for cats as well. It is not just about the elephants! Every animal is a rescue. The ox sharing the fields with the elephants are rescues also. The cats and dogs roam free, and even have beds and food bowls on the porches where the humans eat. Definitely an animal lover's paradise! In our free time, we walked the dogs from the shelter or visited the cats in their rehab center and played with them.

Couldn't not LOVE this cat with a mustache!

This was just one day's shipment

Filling up our bags to go feed

We walked among the trees on this cool platform

His name is Walk-in, because that's how he arrived at the Park

 A random side note- all meals made at the Park are vegetarian. The food is amazing! The buffet spread for the meals was the best Thai food we had in all of Thailand! It was large- everything you could want and more. It was definitely unexpected and delicious. Getting hungry as I type!

We made these soft food patties for the older ladies who couldn't chew solid foods

Loving bath time!

So cute to see her happy, she is blind and her friend stands by her side and guides her

 I can't say enough how amazing of an experience it was at Elephant Nature Park. We got to walk around with, feed and make food for, watch play and bathe, sleep with windows open and hear the soft grunts of, hug, trek on a path through the mountain with a pack of, and learn stories of these amazing creatures. I know the saying goes, "an elephant never forgets," but neither will I ever forget.

Good morning!

Day 4
We arrived back in Chiang Mai city with much of the day left. It was after lunch, and the Nature Park had fed us and we said our good byes and took group selfies before our departure. We switched hotels and stayed at Mo Rooms, livable art with each room uniquely designed.

We wanted to stay somewhere cool and this place definitely took the unique cake! Again, not going into actual hotel reviews but wanted to at least mention the name. Definitely Instagram worthy! We explored again, but this time outside the old city walls, and somehow still ended up at the night market, ha! We were a bit tired too as we never actually got over our jet lag so after a few delicious fresh-fruit-cocktails we went to bed ready for the next day's early morning wake up call!

Day 5
After some discussion as to what we wanted to do and whether we wanted to book with a tour group, we decided to go on our own. Because I had made a rookie travel mistake and miscounted the amount of days we were actually in Chiang Mai, we had options to either go up north to Chiang Rai and see the White Temple or south to Doi Inthanon National Park. Do you know us? What did we choose? The National Park, ding ding ding!

Again, I had done a lot of research for this vacation, (probably too much) and knew that going to Doi Inthanon National Park isn't like going to Rainier National Park or any other National Park I've been to. It was nicknamed "A Day In The Car Tour" by a lot of reviews on TripAdvisor. At least we knew that going in to it! That's all I can say to defend that unfortunate nickname, because it was definitely true. However, it did even out! The benefits outweigh the negatives, and we still had a full enjoyable day in nature. Emphasis on full. I believe we left at 7am and returned home after 5pm- because of evening traffic. Just as bad as any large city at rush hour, if you wanted to know. We were 12km away and it took about an hour once we hit the rush.

Anyway, positives here! We had a private driver who stopped at 7-11 (they're everywhere in Thailand so no worries if you forgot your toothbrush) so we could get some snacks and waters. We entered the park about 1.5 hours after leaving our hotel and began our drive to see each of the Park's stops. Originally, we were hoping for a day hiking trip to see all the sites, but unfortunately it is just not set up that way. Thus, the "day in the car."

Lots of people here at the "highest spot." One of the more silly stops and I cropped all the people out of the picture, but hey we were there!

Our driver knew everything we wanted to know. We didn't have to worry about anything. That was one reason I knew I did a little too much research. The Thai people will take care of you! We never encountered anyone trying to scam us in any way, and everyone was so extremely helpful. I was originally researching paths I wanted to take to see all the sites, how long it would take, what time of the year this path is open vs. that path, etc. Wayyyy too much time spent on something I could have just gone with the flow with. In this case, gone with the Thai!

Growing up my Korean neighbor always had these at her house, I was so excited to find them! (At 7-11 of all places)

This is something I should highlight- if you're going to Thailand make sure you have cash! That was something that I should have known from my research, or realized because they are not a rich country (it costs a lot to pay for the credit card fees,) but we had to constantly take cash out for everything.

Also, yes, most Thai speak English. I was a little surprised by this but shouldn't have been, as nearly 20% of their GDP is tourism. Another interesting note was that we learned and again, should have realized- duh, is that Thailand is largely frequented by Russians and Australians on holiday.

The thundering Wachirathan Waterfall. It's like a theme park with people and the fact that you will get splashed!

Chris jumped across the boulders to take this pic, I told him it looks like a desktop background!

Back to the National Park, bring a lot of cash for this! Not sure if there are ATMs inside but our driver told us what the entrance fees were and we got money at the 7-11 just before the entrance. There were a couple stops where we had to pay some extra to visit. We stopped at some sites where we could just jump out and take a quick picture and hop back in the car. Others we walked for a little and the driver just waited for us.

The ground below us was alive and up flew handfuls of butterflies with each of our steps

They were eating whatever nut/fruit this was that had fallen

No one else was here!

Thought this was so cool! Bring your food to sit by the water just below the waterfall. Talk about waterfront dining!

One stop was Kew Mae Pan Trail, that took just over an hour to complete and we never stopped to catch our breath. It had some steep parts that if you stopped or slowed, it could have easily taken 2 hours to complete. It was also foggy which was pretty cool to see the clouds moving through the mountains but that meant there wasn't a great view from the viewpoint, so we didn't stay long. I wouldn't say you need hiking boots for this, maybe just good sneakers. It was a little muddy but it was the end of rainy season so depends when you go. I do believe that the trail had just opened for the season when we arrived (Nov. 2) aka it's not open in the rainy season of summer. Also bring a light jacket! It was a bit chilly the higher we were getting in the mountains but then I was sweating from the hike or when the sun was out.

On the Kew Mae Pan Trail

Overall, we liked Chiang Mai the best of all our stops in Thailand. The weather was perfect, the people were friendly and helpful beyond anything I've ever encountered, and I GOT TO PLAY WITH ELEPHANTS! Also the prices in Chiang Mai were the lowest we came across- and let's compare it with massage prices. The lowest price we saw for a massage was 250 Thai Baht. Less than $10 USD! When we arrived at our last stop in Bangkok, they were comparable to 1500 THB! Talk about a price difference!

We wish we had more time to explore a bit more in Chiang Mai and the northern parts of Thailand, but we felt good enough to give it a "been" check mark and leave saying, "next time."

Chiang Mai, oh-Mai did you start my Asian vacation off beautifully! Until next time!