Chiang Mai: Surprise of the North

Since the Gibbon experience is now no longer part of our travel itinerary - we had to rearrange our schedule a bit before heading onwards. This gave us a bit more time to experience Chiang Mai for a bit longer, and boy, it turns out that Chiang Mai has a lot more to offer than we had ever imagined. Had we known that this city was so full of things to see/do, we would have planned a longer stay from the start.

We managed to go on a two day trek in the jungles north of Chiang Mai, go to the zoo, and take a cooking course since my last post. There are even downhill mountain biking trips, and other activities such as watching a Muy Thai boxing match.

Trekking in Chiang Mai

We booked our trek through the guest house that we're staying in for 1500 baht per person. This price includes a two day trek with guides, the ride there, the ride back, food, bamboo rafting, elephant riding, sleeping overnight in a hill-tribe village, and a venture to some hot springs and waterfalls (not in that order). Our trek was with 6 other people - four ladies from Ireland, and two guys from Slovenia.

Our guide, Nooka, was from the hill tribe that we stayed at, and was very knowledgeable about the history and surrounding environment. His english was pretty good, and he was able to answer most of our questions about anything we saw. I learned a lot, but of course, at the expense of exploiting the hill tribes, and some shady treatment of elephants. Exploitation aside, the trek was worth every baht I spent. :) I'll let the pictures do more of the talking... let me know if you have any more questions about anything.



Chiang Mai Zoo

The Chiang Mai Zoo is a very well developed center with a large variety of animals, including a pair of Pandas. Their aquarium is a bit lacking, and their bird sanctuary covers a large portion of the Zoo, but it was still very enlightening. Other mentionable animals included a rhinoceros, hippos, giraffes, tigers, lions, and gibbons apes.

The entry fee to the zoo was 100 baht, and the price to see the Pandas was an additional 100 baht (the air-conditioned facility that they were enclosed in is well worth the 100 baht that we spent on that very warm day). Again, less words, more pictures!



Thai Cooking Class

This was probably the most enjoyable thing that I've done so far on the entire trip. We had a group of 11 people - 8 of which were from Canada (including ourselves), and a very capable and knowledgeable instructor. We are given the opportunity to cook 6 dishes from a vast menu: curries, soups, noodles, desserts - you name it, and you can make it!

We started off the day by making a trip to a local Thai market to buy all the ingredients we needed for all of our dishes. We learned how coconut cream and milk is made (grind down a mature coconut, and pass it through a juicer thing with the addition of water... first pass is the cream, second pass is the milk), what the different local ingredients are used for, and how to buy stuff (although I don't think I'll ever be able to grasp the concept... where's my Superstore?).

I wish that someone invented taste-screens, where a user can taste the picture via touching the screen with the tounge. All of our dishes were delicious (some more than others), and surprisingly quick and easy to make. The favorite dish that I made was Massaman chicken curry... I'll have to make it for y'all when I get back home. Drooling, a la photographs:



Since we're on somewhat of a schedule, we'll be leaving Chiang Mai soon. I'll definitely be coming back to try more of the food, perhaps trying other treks, boxing, shopping, you name it... there's just so much to see here! I highly recommend this city to anyone who is coming to Thailand in the future!