Welcome to Blog Post #1!
What place to begin our travels but beautiful Chiang Mai! We arrived here 1 week ago, kicking off this new nomadic travel lifestyle. Safe to say, there is some anxiety around the thought of “how are we going to pull this off for several years,” but already those thoughts are being replaced by the excitement of “do we really get to do this for years?!”
CHIANG MAI…
Alex chose Chiang Mai as our starting point, and she couldn’t have hit the mark more dead on. This bustling city of around 125,000 is surrounded by mountains and dense jungle. While the town sprawls over the valley, it’s heart is the Old City, a 1-mile square plot defined by an ancient decaying border wall and moat that once shielded the enclosed residents and holy temples. Today the Old City is a whirling buzz of locals and tourists moving about in every mode of transportation, magically weaving paths to their destinations.
THAI FOOD…
Chiang Mai, like many Thai cities is first and foremost about food! From street carts, to sidewalk cafes, to formal dining rooms, the options are literally overwhelming. I would guess that over half of all the shops and buildings in Old Town are food-related. Never have I seen anything like this…you cannot look anywhere without seeing a place to eat. Did I mention that Thai food is spectacular! We are lucky to have many Thai food options in our home city of Seattle, but the quantity and quality here is incredible. Bonus prize -a nice dinner here will set you back about 600 Thai Bhat (“bot”) or about $18 USD.
And then there’s coffee. While Seattle considers itself a coffee-mecca, Chiang Mai dwarfs that perception. Coffee is everywhere here and it is VERY good! When you’ve maxed out the caffeine, then you can grab a fresh tropical smoothie from one of many street carts or cafes. Alex and I are already pumping the brakes on our calorie intake to ensure we can waddle through the rest of SE Asia.
TEMPLES…
Thailand is a heavily Buddhist country and the religion weaves its way through all aspects of Thai life. If food and drink establishments support the body, then the Buddhist temples nourish the soul of the people. There are nearly 300 temples in Chaing Mai with many in the Old City, but they are everywhere. Most are in the Lanna style from the 13th to 18th century. We have been visiting the most notable temples in the city in a slow manner to avoid the mind-numbing over-stimulation that comes with trying to take in these immense structures and their incredible ornate detail. While many seem similar, each temple has unique elements as well as a story to tell.
The details of the temples, the accompanying structures and highly decorated grounds are hard to describe. Check out our humble photos. (Side note: How many temple photos will we have at the end of this SE Asia exploration? Perhaps we should have a contest to guess the total with free mangoes for a year to the winner.)
TRAILS…
The mountainous region around Chiang Mai offers up many opportunities to trek into the jungle, see wildlife, and visit some stunning waterfalls. You don’t have to go far from the city to find trails and we jumped on the Monk’s Trail just NW of Old Town. It was a 40 min car ride up a continually uphill road (that did not have a straight stretch of pavement) to get us to the top of the trailhead at the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep – a large temple grounds full of locals and tourist. The stunning bright gold temple at the top of a long staircase was a great start to the journey. The Monk’s Trail snakes through the jungle to weave together a series of temples over about 3 miles. We (smartly) hiked down, watching as others climbed up the often steep trail through the hot jungle wearing sweaty and uncertain faces. We will have many more hiking and outdoor stories in future posts.
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Thanks for letting us live vicariously! Beautiful and amazing!
Thanks for following! We are still figuring out how to do this as we go. Lifelong learning!!
Love all the temples but like cave temples the most.
We look forward to seeing more. Thanks for following!
Loved the Jazz Club.
Thank you for the recommendation.
That’s great! Glad you enjoyed it.