For reasons that we would later discover, the cheap flights up to Chiang Mai were booked up, and the train tracks under repair, so Daisy and I opted to try the local favorite and take a ten hour overnight bus. We weren’t sure what to expect but it turned out to be reasonably comfortable. If it wasn’t for the concerning rocking of the whole double decker after every pothole it would have been an even better ride.
We arrived in Chiang Mai at 7 am and were retrieved by a songthaew, or red truck, for a night at an elephant conservation center. I will post about our elephant experience separately because I have a lot of thoughts on the topic.
We returned to Chiang Mai the next evening in time to meet my friend Katie from college! She has been living there for the last two years and generously invited us to a lot of local events including the Reel Rock film event that night, including some free snacks and – most exciting to me – imported craft beers from CA! It has been months since I have tasted anything but bad lagers.
Daisy and I spent our few days there wandering around the city, shopping in the local markets, and stumbling upon temples. While a lot of Thai people obviously live there, Chiang Mai is strikingly westernized. For every Thai restaurant it seems there is an Italian or American restaurant. English is spoken widely, and in some places I was surrounded by more foreigners than Thai. It was strange for me emotionally to no longer be the obvious odd one out and instead to be one of a crowd of travelers. My re-introduction has begun.
Apparently we had picked the busiest tourist weekend of the year, but for good reason. It was the weeklong Loi Krathong festival which also overlaps with Yi Peng, the festival of lights. People release paper lanterns (the torch tied inside is a cut up roll of toilet paper soaked in oil) to symbolize releasing all of the bad inside them, for the beauty of the world. Katie invited us to join a group of people going up to one of the biggest (10,000+) lantern releases in the world. It was AMAZING.
The next night we went to the river with Katie and friends to see the similar but opposite Loi Krathong, where people release floating candles down the river, also to symbolize the release of their evils. This was a very different atmosphere: drinking and fireworks abounded and we left early. It was still a wild and fun experience.
We spent a half day at Doi Suthep, which I was surprised that I recognized from a photo of my brother from years ago! It is the big famous wat in the area, a super tourist spot, but still impressive.
