Finally I'm being allowed to write a blog after Michelle has taken all the laughs from the last one ;o) !!
Arrived in the train station and everyone was greeted with about 60 taxi / tuk tuk drivers and touts all shouting and vying for our business. Here we go again we thought and escaped for a coffee in the hope that in the meantime the madness would die down! It did a little but not before both our taxi driver and ladies in the cafe tried to get us to go to their 'recommended' guest houses. We stood firm with a 'we have a reservation' story but our taxi driver even went as far as ringing the guest house we wanted to be taken for to try get commission - the lengths they go to it's unbelievable!! Fortunately for us the guesthouse must've told him to do one as he just dropped us off. Better still they had space so for the princely sum of 26 quid a night we got booked in. It's a beautiful place, nice rooms set in lovely peaceful surroundings just within the walls of the old city. Back home this place would be called a boutique hotel spa and would cost a fortune.
After freshening up (needed to feel human again after sleeper train!) we went out to explore. Chiang Mai has an abundance of lovely temples many of which are right on our doorstep. We're also right next to the Buddhist University so it's swarming with monks - Michelle's fair scared to walk outside (danger of brushing and all that!!).
Random tangent - talking of monks we were walking behind an old one at Bangkok station. He was a bit all over the place and dropped some change. Being a nice honest person I instinctively picked up the coin and was just about to give it to him when Michelle cried: "NOOOOO!" According to 'the book' it is an absolute no no (especially for a woman) to hand something to a monk - you need to place it on a cloth! Not having one handy we ended up just walking off - so in order to avoid making contact with him I surely committed a far greater crime of theft!! Beginning to wish Michelle hadn't read the section from the book on social etiquette etc...
So back to Chiang Mai and some more pictures of lovely temples:
There was a cool little shady courtyard area and pinned to all the trees were wise sayings. We sat there for a while and silly as it may sound it was a very calming experience!
This temple was partly destroyed in an earthquake but they are going about restoring it.
Sorry for upside down but this tickled us. In the surrounding gardens there were elephants, tigers and other things you would associate with the Buddhist culture as well as Donald Duck holding a rice bowl - how totally random I wonder which of the scriptures he is in?!
Next was lunch and we spent the equivalent of 2.40 pounds on two main meals, 2 cokes and one lemon grass juice (which was awful hence the 2 cokes but if you don't try you don't know!). It was absolutely delicious. Apparently Northern Thailand has a slightly different style cuisine which is very influenced by Burma. If this is anything to go by we're in for a treat.
We finished off a lovely day with a sunset boat trip down the River Ping which runs right through the city. We were taken to a herb garden and got to sample some herbal juices, we tried ginger and it was very tasty. We passed on the lemon grass after my experience at lunch! We were also shown how rice is produced which was quite an education as neither of us had ever known!
So all in all a very successful first day in Chiang Mai - compared to Bangkok this is much more like the Thailand we were hoping to see. For a start you can get from a - b without it taking 3 hours and there is plenty to keep us occupied in the city and surrounding areas for the 4 more days we will be here before we hit the beaches of the south.
No comments:
Post a Comment