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Well this blog is a bit wacky. We started to put our post-cambodia Thailand adventures in our original thailand journal but it put them underneath Cambodia which makes it confusing. So, we put our Chiang Mai visit here but if you want to read about Ayutthaya look at the last entry in the old Thailand journal. Well that was clear as mud right?!
Anyway, we rode on a train for 14 hours to get to the Northern city of Chiang Mai. We arrived late and the bus driver brought us to like 20 hostels/hotels but they were all REALLY gross. So, we ended up spending our first night at really nice little hotel that could only put us up for one night. We thought if we begged they would let us stay longer but alas they threw us out the next morning. As luck would have it, we stumbled upon the Green Tulip House "an oasis in Chiang Mai". This is a brand new guest house that just opened up the month before. It was beautiful and really really reasonable. The staff was amazing and took excellent care of us for the week we were there. It was by far the nicest place we have stayed on our trip! We hated to leave.
We spent the week shopping at the markets, roaming around town, going to the spa, and taking a cooking class! What a great class! We got picked up and driven to an organic farm out in the countryside. We each had our own little cooking space. We toured the farm and learned all about the different herbs and ingredients. We learned to make our own curry paste with a mortar and pestel and we cooked: green curry with vegetables and tofu, sweet basil stir fry, tom yum soup, spring rolls, banana's in coconut milk, sticky rice and jasmine rice. We then ate all of the food we cooked! Delicious. We will cook for all of you when we get home!
The city was celebrating Loy Krathong Festival which is a four day fire and water festival. It was beautiful! There are parades, fireworks, shows, and everyone builds lotus leaf boats that they float down the ping river lit up with candles and incense. They release them to float away any sins or ill luck they have incurred and give thanks to the ancient water goddess for the rainy season. They also release khom loy, paper hot-air balloons, into the sky at night. They look like a million new stars in the sky! They carry away problems and bad luck. Its was stunning. We released our own lotus boat that we bought and a hot-air balloon. THe last night, we released a couple balloons with our friends from the guest house from their roof after enjoying some whiskey pineapple deliciousness and brownies in honor of Stella's birthday. Good times.
The markets were so great! We were walking down this super busy street market when all of a sudden the kings song came on and thousands of people stopped dead in the tracks and were totally silent while they played it. Its amazing...just now as we walked out of the mall in Bangkok they played it for no apparent reason and everyone within earshot stopped in their tracks! They love the king!
The Northern part of the country is so different. Its all hills and green and a lot cooler (temp) than in the south. Chiang Mai was a very friendly city and we really enjoyed our time there.
Click view more photos (jarod enjoy)
previous travel blog entry
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