Chang Mai: My first stop in Northern Thailand

Ancient Buddhist temple ruins.
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Chang Mai is the largest city in Northern Thailand, with a population of a little over a million in the city itself.  It is a bit of a cultural center in the country, and many Thai's around the country hold a special place in their hearts for Chang Mai, being the quintessential Thai city.   I arrived in Chang Mai on the 22nd of March (I think...) and ended up spending about 5 days.  I took an overnight train from Bangkok, which was a nice chilly way to travel.  It's the hot, dry season throughout Thailand now, day and night it can be sweltering hot.  The train I took was air conditioned, but after being sweaty for a week straight in Bangkok my body didn't know what to do with the cold... I woke up multiple times in the middle of the night to throw on a couple more layers.

Me and my Irish Friend
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On arriving in Chang Mai it was back into the heat, walking from the train station to the guesthouse that I decided to stay at, called Ben Guesthouse.  A nice enough place, though I had a 15 minute walk whenever I wanted to get to the main part of the city, the old walled city.  I had arrived at 7am on the train, and after dropping my bag and taking a shower, I spent the bulk of that first day walking around the city and checking out some of the more important/dramatic wats (Buddhist Temples).  Chang Mai has over 300 wats, close to the number that Bangkok has, but since Chang Mai is only a fraction of the sized, it means that all those wats are more concentrated in the city itself.  You don't walk too far in any direction without seeing the distinctive roof lines of temples, the symbolically protective dragons next to the entrances, and the many golden Buddas, in their various 'postures.'  There were many beautiful ones that I visited that first day, the most dramatic of which was a very old, very cool massive stone wat that had been partially leveled in an earthquake sometime during the 1600's.  All the wats are beautifully ornate, but can get repetitive after a while... I got a bit 'watted out' after a couple days.

Firey sunset over wat.
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Being a cultural center, Chang Mai has many traditional Thai practices that people from all over the world come to learn and practice.  Specifically, there are many courses in Thai cooking, Thai Massage, Buddhist Meditation and Muai Thai (the traditional Thai kickboxing).  Although I didn't take part in courses for any of these, I did enjoy each in their own right.  Eating delicious northern thai cuisine every night, getting hour long Thai massages everyday (literally, I mean for $4 how can you not...) and attending an amazingly entertaining Muai Thai match.  I also did some guided meditation too, to finish off the list, but that wasn't until I made my way to the more northwestern town of Pai, which I'll get into on a separate blog.

Meeting up with Brett and Jodi on the street, also Daniel (far left) the Australian guy I had first met in Bangkok.
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The Muai Thai night was one of the most interesting nights during my time in Chang Mai.  A couple of my new friends that I had made in the guesthouse had headed out of town, so I was back solo again.  Went out to dinner by myself, had a great green curry chicken with sticky rice (one of my favorites...) and then ended making friends with a eclectic group of travelers from all over: Holland, US, Canada, England, Germany.  I joined them for a drink, and then they invited me along to the boxing match with them.  So we all piled into the back of a taxi-pickup truck (they're all over Chang Mai, benches along either side of the bed of the truck and a little roof over your head, a good way to get around with lots of people.) and headed towards the stadium.  We saw nine fights that night, some teenagers, one match with 9 yr olds (!) and then three title matches at the end.  An intense sport, it was interesting to watch all the traditional aspects that go along with the fighting itself... respect for the trainers, the ref, the oppponent.... and then they beat the hell out of each other.  We say a couple good knockouts, and some all around entertaining fights.

Ride to Muai Thai night
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During the boxing match I met a couple beautiful Irish girls whom I rescued from a group of drunken australian guys that had drawn them in... they ended up joining our group for the rest of the night, which was a wonderful addition.  After the fights ended, myself 100 baht in the hole to the the British guy I'd been betting with all night, we all ended up at a very chilled out rooftop bar called THC overlooking the old walled city of Chang Mai.  It was a great way to end a fun night with new friends.  It was a shame that the Irish girls had to leave the next day, back on the road again, but it was an incredibly fun night none the less...

Dragon armrail at wat.
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The majority of the rest of the time I spent in Chang Mai was well spent, relaxing and reading.  The guesthouse I was in had a nice little garden to hang out in, a good place to lay low and get out of the sweltering summer heat.  Over the days there were a few people coming and going in the guesthouse, randomly I ran into the two australian girls that'd come out with me on my birthday.  Also randomly staying in the guesthouse was an Australian guy who'd I'd gone out with my first night in Bangkok with a big group of people.  I love it the way that you meet up with people, seemingly out of the blue, along different stages in the journey.  It brings a sense of community to a place where you can often feel like the cliche "stranger in a strange land."

Sunset against some wat rooftops.
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And speaking of running into people, it was in Chang Mai that I met up with Brett and his sister Jodi.  Brett had already been traveling here in SE Asia for a couple months, but I knew he'd be up here in the north about the same time, so we made an effort to connect.  Although, in the end, we just ran into each other anyway.  I had emailed him telling where I was staying, and he had later emailed me with a place to meet up for dinner, an email I never received.  Instead I was just out for a bite to eat with that australian guy when who should come strolling down the street but Brett and Jodi, having just gotten into town that morning.  This was actually the second time that I'd been in a city of over a million people and met up with Brett w/o even knowing he was in town yet (the other time was in Mendoza, Argentina, 3 million people, last march when Brett and Slade were walking down a street to go to dinner, looked into a random hostel window and saw me hanging out in the lounge area...crazy).

My Aussie friends, also from my birthday night, we met up randomly again in Chang Mai.
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All in all, Chang Mai was a good experience and a fun place to spend a few days.  After meeting up, we (Brett, Jodi, and I) spent another 2 nights in Chang Mai before hopping into a minibus for the bouncy 4 hour ride to the little mountain town of Pai, further to the northwest and close the the border with Burma.  And thats where I'll leave off for now...

Once again, I uploaded a few more photos which didn't make it onto the main blog page, so just hit 'View More Photos' to see all of them.