Thailand: Chiang Rai & Chiang Mai

My next stop in northern Thailand was Chiang Rai, which is known for its White Temple and Blue Temple. In addition to the White and Blue Temples, I was also able to see a waterfall and a Buddhist temple outside of town before heading back to Chiang Mai for yet another visit.

After Pai I took a bus back to Chiang Mai since there were no direct buses to Chiang Rai. I stayed in Chiang Mai for two nights as I had another appointment at a travel clinic there to get a second rabies vaccine and after the quick stop I headed to Chiang Rai. I’m glad I had a stop in Chiang Mai because the same day I arrived at my hostel I discovered that another woman, Naomi, who had also been in Pai, was also headed to Chiang Rai the same day as me but on an earlier bus. Once I arrived in Chiang Rai and dropped my bags at my new hostel I left to meet up with Naomi and Katariina, whom Naomi had met in Pai. After meeting up, the three of us headed to the Saturday Night Market. This night market is huge and sells everything from clothes, to toys, pots and pans, and food. I really enjoyed being able to walk up and down the long street seeing all that was being sold. At one of the shops we stopped to look at some of the graphic t-shirts. It was a great decision to stop because a lot of the sayings on the t-shirts made no sense. One example was a Snoopy shirt that said “the perfrct friend,” “avajlable to lean no,” “ready to usten no a moments notice” and multiple more sayings. After walking through most of the market and once shops were starting to close up we called it a night and I went back to my hostel.

The next morning I met up with Naomi, Katariina, and a guy from Katariina’s hostel. The four of us got a Bolt, which is an app like Uber, and went to the White Temple. The White Temple is one of the big tourist attractions in Chiang Rai. It is a temple that is entirely white with some silver pieces and it glitters in the sun. It was beautiful to see and so different from a lot of the other colorful temples I had seen so far in Thailand. After walking through and around the temple the four of us walked around the grounds. The whole area around the White Temple is large; there’s a large garden, a man-made waterfall area, and an all gold temple. Within the waterfall area there are different animated figures from cartoon frogs and rabbits, to mystical looking fairies, and even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Walking around it was a lot of fun. Seeing all of the different animated figures seemed so random when compared to the temple. It was a fun morning walking around the grounds of the White Temple.

Once we made it back into the main part of town Naomi, Katariina, and I headed to a restaurant called Cabbages and Condoms for lunch. The night before we had walked by the restaurant while at the night market and the name was so funny that we just had to go for lunch. Within the restaurant there were different decor pieces to match the name, including a Santa statue made with a bunch of condoms. The name of the restaurant seemed like a mistake but what we found out is that it's purposeful. The unusual name is designed to get tourists like us to come in. Cabbages and Condoms is the Population and Community Development Association’s public-benefit restaurant used to promote family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention in Thailand. We were also told that their focus now is to make condoms as easy to get as cabbages, which is where the name comes from.

After lunch we took a break for a while to avoid some of the midday heat. That evening the three of us went to the Blue Temple. Since we went after sunset, the blue temple was lit up in an even brighter blue color. It was beautiful to walk around and explore and as the name says, it was very blue. Going in the evening was a great choice because there were very few people there and by the time we were done we were the only ones there. Next, we headed to the daily night market which was much smaller than the one from the night before. This one had a few different clothing and souvenir shops as well as a large permanent structure food area where we got dinner and hung out before calling it a night. The next day Naomi and I met up and got brunch before finding a tuk tuk to take us to some of the sights outside of Chiang Rai.

Our first stop of the day was the Khun Korn Waterfall. After the tuk tuk dropped us off, it took about 40 minutes to walk to the waterfall. It was well worth the hike. Once we got to the waterfall there were only two other people there and they were down low and way out of the way so it felt like we had the place all to ourselves. The waterfall was beautiful! It was really tall and the power of the water made it loud and the closer you got to it the more soaked you got. I loved visiting the waterfall because of just how beautiful the nature was on the walk there and then being there with almost no one around made it even better. After our walk back we headed onto the second stop of the day which was Wat Huay Pla Kang, a buddhist temple complex. This temple complex had a giant white buddha at the top of a hill. Along the steps to the top were two dragons stretching the length of the stairs. There was also a smaller white temple and a nine floor pagoda which was super colorful and bright. This stop was a lot quicker than the waterfall, but was still cool to see. After Wat Huay Pla Kang, our final stop of the day was Baan Dam Museum which is a collection of black wooden buildings that were filled with a bunch of different art pieces by Thai artists. Overall, it was a really fun day and I enjoyed seeing some of the other sights outside of town.

My final day in Chiang Rai was an admin work day and even though I spent most of the day inside I also made sure to get out into the town and get some fresh fruit at the fruit market. After a fun time in Chiang Rai I, yet again, headed back to Chiang Mai. My original plan for Chiang Mai was to go to the mall to stop at a store and to see some of the places outside of the city that I hadn’t seen yet but that plan changed. On my first full day in Chiang Mai, which also happened to be Thanksgiving in the United States, I headed to the newer mall in the city with a girl I met in my hostel. We walked around the mall for a while and it was a lot of fun. The mall was full of big name western stores and even had an Auntie Anne’s, Dairy Queen, and KFC. Since it was Thanksgiving the girl I was with and I stopped to get something small at each of them. Overall it was a fun and relaxing day. One thing I have found that I enjoy a lot more now while I’ve been traveling is doing some of the normal, mundane, everyday activities that I would do at home like going to a mall. Some of why I enjoy these activities more now is because it helps bring some sense of normalcy to the crazy life that I have while traveling. The next day Katariina and I were originally going to go to the Chiang Mai Grand Canyon but that plan changed and we ended up going to another mall in Chiang Mai. After wandering around the mall we walked to a large supermarket that was nearby and got some groceries to make our own food at the hostel.

The rest of my time in Chiang Mai was uneventful and spent mostly working on figuring out how I was going to get to Laos. While not every day was action packed or went according to plan, I really enjoyed the time I spent in both Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai. I really enjoyed both cities and would gladly go back again.

“I’m not sure what I’ll do, but – well, I want to go places and see people. I want my mind to grow. I want my mind to grow on a big scale.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald