Thailand: Days 8 - 11 - Chiang Mai

Despite not wanting to leave Vietnam we were excited to explore another country and culture.  Thailand is living up to our expectations.  It is a much more developed country (better infrastructure, fewer street food markets so people aren't living meal to meal and clearer affluence), but it still maintains a beautiful and happy environment.  It is a culture of courtesy and not of anger. You can negotiate, but do it with a smile!  Also, many more tourists in Thailand.

Chiang Mai is in the north of the country and sits in a valley surrounded by large, lush mountains.  Most people visiting the city go to a cooking school, ride an elephant, visit a tiger camp and/or zipline.  There are many, many outdoor activities.  

Buddhism is the primary religion here and there are many small sites on roads where people stop to worship.  There are also several large temples to visit. 

Our hotel - Le Meridian. Beautiful hotel and view.

This is a lovely restaurant we went to upon arrival in Chiang Mai.  Very serene with yummy food.  

Charlotte and the triangles again. 

There were many interesting spellings and these are just a few that we enjoyed.

This is the Chedi Hotel on the river.  Amazingly beautiful.  We just walked through.  

Our breakfast bar included a honeycomb dripping delicious honey - among a lot of other foods!

Gorgeous water flowers found on the street and outside restaurants.

This is one of the famous Buddhist temples we visited.  No pictures inside, but lots from outside.

Covering up at the temples.

Dad, this is for you!

At the herbal place they said no durian, a very smelly fruit that would ruin the zen.

How did they know we were coming?

At the pool, which was amazing, particularly since it was over 90 with a really strong sun.

 This is a local Northern Thai specialty of soup with lots of different toppings - including bananas.  It came on an artist's palette and was quickly consumed!  Called Khao Soi.

Our big Chiang Mai adventure was ziplining.  There were 18 different ziplines with the two longest at 300 and 800 meters (that's a long way and most of us flew backwards for a bit).  We also crossed some very rickety bridges that petrified me, some abseils (drops down up to 45 meters) and some double zips.  It was SO much fun and if you know me you know that this adventure was way out of my comfort zone, but we all enjoyed it.

The operation we went on was called "Flight of the Gibbons" and here is a mother and baby gibbon.

This was the bridge that I almost didn't get across.  Maddy made it without a problem.

Some of us were more adventurous than others.

We ziplined to the top of this structure, walked down to the next landing and then double ziplined off.

Eric and Maddy on the double zipline.

Showoff

Our group including a couple of Swedish guys and a couple from Atlanta

No fear

Superwoman

Superman .... until

Splat into the rope wall and crunched his glasses.

Graceful

This was taken as we dropped 45 meters.

After our ziplining we visited a lovely local waterfall.

On our way to the Chabad house for Shabbat services, or not since they really didn't do services so we went, hung out for a bit and left, but we tried.  We got there in dueling tuk tuks, which are small, extremely dangerous, polluting vehicles.  It was quite fun.  Maddy and I won even though we left last.

In November there is a lantern lighting festival when the city is full of lanterns like this one.  It is a paper shell that has a flame which is used to heat the interior so it then lifts and flies away, similar to a hot air balloon.  This one lifted, but not enough and landed on the roof of the restaurant where we were eating dinner.  We think it lit a small fire since as we left one of the workers was frantically running with a long pole to the front to get the lantern off the roof.  We clearly timed our departure at the right time!

On our final morning in Chiang Mai I was able to convince the family to go for massages.  Every other business is a massage place.  It is hard to believe how many there are and how many people regularly get massages.  One night we were wandering around and were amazed to see almost every massage place full of locals.  It is the custom to get massages multiple times a week.  At 250 baht, or about $8 for an hour it is really inexpensive.  

We went for Thai Massages, which include pain.  We changed into loose, comfortable clothes and lay on mats on the floor.  The rooms were very serene, until I made noise from some painful tension releasing move.  Charlotte said it is like a sleepover when you are almost asleep and someone says something to wake everyone up.  Oops.

We were positioned in a variety of yoga-like positions and the masseuse used her hands, feet and chin to apply deep, rhythmic pressure.  No oil involved.  It hurt and felt great at the same time.  Even Eric enjoyed it!

What a great way to end our Chiang Mai adventure.