Just Another Day in Chiang Mai

Kate and I are spoiled.

After living in Thailand for a month we’ve seen a good variety of temples. Gold roofs and Buddha statues are awesome, they really are. But we can see those back “home” in Bangkok. We wanted to take full advantage of Chiang Mai.

We decided to forgo any of the tours. They cost a lot of money and took us to see temples and different hill tribes. The native hill tribes are really cool, but Kate and I didn’t have it in our hearts to be able to go and participate in giving money toward what Thailand has essentially made into a human zoo. So instead we decided to use the help of some locals, the Internet, and a very kind hotel employee to organize the rental of a private taxi to take us out into the rural areas of the mountains. We wanted to go outside of the well-traveled circuit.

We walked into the lobby of the hotel at 8:30AM to meet our driver. He was extremely nice and led us out to his vehicle. We paid for a taxi. We got a private 10+ person van with comfortable leather seats, a large television (which we didn’t use, the view through the windows was way more exciting), foot rests, cup holders, and it was entirely to ourselves. Kate and I. We had a private chauffeur and amazing transportation for an entire day, flat rate.

First we visited Bua Thong Waterfall. It’s really hard to put what we experienced into words. First off, we were the only ones there. Kate and I had a three level waterfall to ourselves. Even cooler though, is that Bua Thong is a limestone waterfall. So because of the grip from the limestone, you can walk and climb all over it, even when it’s particularly steep. So Kate and I climbed around our own private multi-story waterfall for an hour and a half.

Besides the waterfall itself, we were just experiencing the tropical Thai forest out in the middle of the mountains. Everything’s different from the States: trees, plants, bugs, fish, and animals. We saw frogs and crabs, as well as a large variety of insects. It was so much to take in. It was so overwhelming and absolutely, amazingly gorgeous.

Part of the falls. 

A view from near the very top of the falls. 

 Part of the stream above the falls.

This is what every path in the forest looks like.

Hazardous. 

When we finally felt like we could part with the falls (which still was not easy) we hiked back to where our driver had dropped us off. Before we knew it we were on our way to yet another stunning waterfall. Or, I should say falls. The next one was in the middle of a national park and had 10 levels. It was a long hike to the top, and sadly the top level was not very rewarding, but it was another awesome experience.

One of the levels of the falls.

The best part of the Mae Sa falls was the fact that you could swim under parts of it. That’s right, Kate and I got to swim in the waterfall.

The waterfall that we swam at. 

Underneath a waterfall.

Oh, and it started pouring when we were hiking up at the top of the falls. Slightly inconvenient maybe, but it got people to start leaving the park. So when we hiked back to where we decided to swim it was empty. So we got yet another waterfall to ourselves. I repeat, we’re spoiled.

When we finally decided it was time to head back we dried off and hiked the rest of the way to the van. We made it to the hotel around 5:00PM, just in time for a swim before dinner.

One of the two pools at our hotel. Again, we had it to ourself. 

The view of our hotel from the pool.

Oh, and dinner was awesome. We ate riverside in downtown Chiang Mai. Kate and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Lanterns, candles, river. It was rather swanky.

And clearly, all that is not enough to do in one day, so we hit up the famous walking night market in Chiang Mai.

Except it was way over-hyped. It was super crowed, the vendors weren’t particularly kind, and it was just overwhelmingly large with little variety. So we decided to ditch and head back to a slightly more local night market we knew of near our hotel.

It was very pretty and a much better market. Kate and I enjoyed shopping a little too much and we managed to head back to our hotel only when the market started to close (roughly between 10 and 11 PM).

We slept really really well that night.

“I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight." - C. JoyBell C.

After an hour or so on the van (and some very narrow and precarious roads) we arrived at the Flight of the Gibbon. According to their website they are “the leaders in zipline eco-adventure canopy tours in southeast Asia”. And I would justify this. It was absolutely incredible. Over 5 kilometers of ziplines as well as suspended bridges and abseil descents which totaled more than three hours of soaring and suspension many stories above the forest ground. And we saw gibbons!

A pre-flight photo of Kate and I in our souvineer bandanas they provide.

Gibbon baby! 

It's a bird, it's a plane, oh wait it's Winona on a zipline! 

Just climbing a net in a tropical forest. No big deal. 

One of the abseil descents. I think these were the scariest part. 

Kate and I on a tree top hangout area. 

Kate and I soaring on a tandem zipline. 

A really pretty tree. And if you look closely you can see one of the zipline platforms. 

After our adventure of soaring through the forest Fight of the Gibbon provided a delicious Thai lunch before taking us to a waterfall near their site. They told us we had 20 minutes, but our tour group decided to hike up to the top of the falls, so we made it back in just under an hour.

Oh, and a quick anecdote about our tour group. There were six of us total: two couples and then Kate and I. Ironically, we were all midwestern Americans. Kate is from Wisconson, one of the couples was from Chicago, and another came from the Twin Cities (Minnesota, where I myself dwelled for a while). It was kind of fun that we could bond over similar roots while all traveling around Thailand.

Walking around the waterfall. 

The bottom part of the falls.

Kate and I at the top of the falls. 

The falls were gorgeous and the entire trip was easily one of the best highlights of my time here in Thailand. On the trip back into Chiang Mai Kate and I mused over how lucky we were that it was each other here at Santisuk right now. Had another missionary been here instead of Kate and I, we might not have gotten the oppertunity to do such adventurous things. Such as spontanously trecking out to Chiang Mai by ourselves. Or hiking around tropical mountains near the border of Myanmar. We were just so grateful for everything to work out and end up as such an exciting trip.

Computer Access Has Returned!

Okay! So I made it back from Chiang Mai! It was absolutely incredible. I am going to work on putting up some more posts in the next hour or so. Unfortunately I have to catch my plane back to Tokyo tonight as I am heading back to the US today/tomorrow. I am definitely not ready to be coming back. I mean, I'm packed, but Lat Krabang feels like my home right now. I'm a little worried about going back to my actual home town only to experience culture shock again. We'll see how it goes.

Anyways, I'll put up some more posts soon! Despite my heading back to America I still have a few updates for you guys, so don't just assume my blog is over and done with! I'll still be updating for a little while with some more posts I never got the time to share while I was teaching and traveling.

In the meantime, here's a teaser for what's coming up in the next few posts...

Yup. Lots of adventure and a few dorky helmets. Get excited.