Chiang Mai, the second largest city in Thailand, is situated in the Northern part of the country. The city is well known for its beautiful temples all over the city, food markets, trekking through the mountains to experience the hill - tribes lives, Tattoo shops, waterfalls and natural lagoons, MuayThai live combats, nightlife full of bars to dance, bars to just enjoy a cold beer appreciating live music or bars where some foreigners go to have a drink while some Thai Girls/Ladyboys "fight" for their attention, etc..., a huge playground for everyone where it can be a hard challenge to get bored.
We arrived in Chiang Mai at 6am on a bus that took us from Bangkok.
Once again, the bus was over-confortable...big space for legs, confortable seats and a huge screen on the front of the Bus playing some western movies. So far, we have been travelling in Thailand on the main routes, so we feel that we still didn't experience the real Thai local buses. Although, we have been capable to find always the cheapest prices, on the same bus passengers can get diferent prices for tickets, it depends on which places people buy the tickets.
Arriving in a place at 6 in the morning with no room booked is always a challenge. However, we are in Chiang Mai... so there is always a solution!
When we arrived we took a shared taxi that dropped us in a place close by a guesthouse that was recommended in our guide book. At the dropping point we found out that there were some bars still open or some restaurants already open, which it was weird at the beginning but then we realized that it was a Super Bowl night in US and with so many American tourists in Thailand would be nice to keep the business open by that time. We sat on one of the opened cafés having a early breakfast while watching the game and waiting for the time to check cheap guesthouses.
Finaly...after 3 hours...we were in our room. We were so tired that we had a few more hours of sleeping before starting to explore Chiang Mai.
Our big challenge for the first day was to find a place to make a bamboo tattoo which is a traditional way in Thailand to make tattoos. Chiang Mai is full of tattoo shops so it is not easy to chose one ... they are all good, though we have a friend that has recommended us one called "Naga Tatto" so after wandering around the city we ended up going there.
We explain what we wanted for the drawing and all the meaning behind. We wanted to feel a good energy and care from them, but it wasn't like that. The guy told us that it would be impossible to make the tattoo in bamboo and also treated us in a very rude way. We were disapointed but we still payed them just for them to work on the drawing, it would be a simple drawing but they still asked us to give them 2 days to make it.
We left the store a bit nervous, we were not expecting to be treated in such a rude way on this important moment of our lives. The rest of the day we just hanged out to do some sighseeing around including the night market at night with realy good food.
The next day we woke up still thinking about the tattoo, we didn't want to wait much more time to make it but as they said, it would only be ready tomorrow. So we just rented a motorbike to visit some Buddhist temples outside of the city. In one of the temples, because it was on the top of a steep mountain, we just stoped our motorbike at the bottom of the mountain and hitch-hicked to the top. The temple was full of people so it was a bit dificult to apreciate its real beauty, though the view from there was just stunning. We ended up finishing the afternoon, once again in a food market, eating a delicious Padthai wrapped in an omelete. At night, we decided to have a new experience so we ended up in a spa massage to make a fish massage. Fish massage is basically putting our feet in a tank full of fishes where they eat our dead skin, which is proved to be very healthy for the skin.
On our third day we were reaaaaally nervous, it was the day to go check our drawing and possibly make the tattoo. Around 2pm we went to the tattoo shop as scheduled with them, but unfortunately the drawing wasn't ready and some details were not as we asked. After some conversation, the guy purposed us to cancel the tattoo... We could not believe how unprofessional he was being with us, we were so disapointed! Naga Tattoo is considered one of the best places in Chiang Mai for tattoos, but for sure it wasn't for us. We left the shop mad with them, but we wanted to make it so we went to another shop that we saw our way back to the hotel, it was called Mana Bamboo Tattoo. This guys just blew our thoughts! Very friendly, open smile and very good energy, we didn't care if they were good or not, we just liked their energy! Immediatly we decided to make it with them, they asked a price twice cheaper than the first tattoo shop, and even more, we were going to make it with bamboo which is way more expensive. We were really happy, a day that we will never forget. Therefore, to celebrate it we decided to forget the budget for the night. We had several beers before going to a club full of foreigners and thai people, which ladyboys are included. It was a funny night after a memorable day.
Next day we rented two bicycles to explore a bit more of the city. This day was more relaxed. There are several Buddhist temples spread all over the city, its flat and wide roads makes it a very pleasant cycling. We heard that Chiang Mai is a very popular place to do trekking, there are mountains around with beautiful wild landscape, waterfalls to swim and hill - tribe villages. We didn't want to move from Chiang Mai without experiencing it, so after checking some agencies we ended up scheduling the trekking for our last two days with our guesthouse - Jungala Guest House - which offers the best priced rooms and trekking adventures in the city.
As agreed we were ready at 9am, waiting for our pick up. The shared taxi arrived around 9:20 but it parked in another street, a nice lady picked us up at the hotel and asked us how much we paid for the tour. After saying the price, she asked us not to comment the price with other Trekkers as some of them had booked the trekking in Bangkok and paid double the price. In the taxi, there was more people, three girls from Germany and a couple from England. We stopped one more time to pick an Italian guy up (Marco that spoke very good Portuguese as he went to Brazil multiple times for long periods).
After 1h30 driving, the taxi stopped in the Elephant camp. The English couple was sent to another group and we got ready for the elephant ride. It was not nice as it is advertised in the brochures, we were expecting it to be bad but it was even worse. The "ride" is about 20 minutes around a predefined path, we just touched the elephant with our feet as we were seating in a box on the elephant's back. It was really sad to see what was going on there... No one from the group liked it. Actually, before booking the trekking we asked if it was possible to trek without the elephant riding but it would be more expensive as it would be a private tour. After the elephant ride, we went back to the taxi and he drove for more or less 30 minutes and stopped next to a waterfall where we had lunch (fried rice on a banana leaf) and five more people joined our group. Three girls from Norway and a couple from France. They were trekking since the day before and they would spend their second night with us.
After lunch was when the real trekking through the jungle started. We walked for more or less three hours through incredible beautiful paths... The landscape was amazing but at one point we felt like we were running after the guide instead of walking and appreciating the views. The guide was nice and showed us a lot of wildlife on the way like a tarantula and insects but we could have done it in a slower pace. Almost at the end, we stopped in a waterfall were we could refresh ourselves, it was nice and beautiful but the water was freezing. We finished our day in a very simple wooden house by the river and that would be the place where we would sleep. Again, amazing views and very relaxed environment. There was a small village above our house and we were free to explore it as we wanted. After relaxing and exploring the village a bit, a very nice and traditional Thai lady cooked us dinner that was very tasty, the only thing that we didn't appreciate that much was the fact that the company didn't even provide free water during the meals. We understand that they charge for beer and soft drinks but water during the meal should definitely be provided.
As soon as we finished dinner, we sat around a big fire and talked for a few hours. We both felt a very nice connection with Marco... In some things he looked Italian but in another things he looked Brazilian... It was a very interesting mix. We all ended up in bed around 9:30pm it had been a full day and we were all exhausted.
We woke up next day around 8am, we slept well but the night was really cold and every time we changed positions we kind of woke up due to the very hard mattress. We all washed out teeth in the river and some of us did their morning exercises until breakfast that happened at 10am.
After breakfast we started to walk again but this time it was an easier path until the bamboo rafts. The bamboo rafts were actually a very nice and relaxing experience... The river was calm and with very beautiful surroundings. It was nice to cool down and enjoy the view... The rafts stopped next to a restaurant where we had Pad Thai for lunch.
In general, the trekking, was an interesting experience but some things could definitely be improved like the speed of the walk and the interaction with the village people but it was worth to try it for sure.
As we got back to the hotel, we just relaxed and had our goodbye dinner in the market where we ate the delicious chicken burgers and fries.
On the way to Laos, we decided to stop in Chiang Rai so that we could see the famous white temple. We only stayed there one night, we saw the temple that was incredible and we enjoyed some nice food in the night marked that was much more traditional than the one in Chiang Mai.
