Saturday, 15 November 2008

Chiang Mai report

I arrived in Chiang Mai a few days ago, but feels like I've been here longer. I've already lost all sense of time, but I'm pretty sure it's Saturday today :)

Chiang Mai is a smaller city, beautifully surrounded by mountains. There's a quite relaxed vibe, very nice after hectic Bangkok. The climate is perfect too, sunny but not to hot and a little colder at night.

The first night here I went down to the river to see the Loy Krathong celebrations here, and it was amazing! Masses of people, big floats decorated with everything from elephants to palaces, lanterns everywhere, and small hot-air balloons with candles being sent up into the sky. Very hard to describe, and unfortunately I don't have the same talent with words as darling Sigrid (hope you have a great time in Tucson with Maja and Benny!) do... Anyhow, it was spectacular, and I will try to post some of my (not very good) pictures later.

Yesterday I first went up see a temple up at the Doi Sethup mountain, it was very pretty and the view was amazing. It's quite interesting to see how religion is so mixed with everyday life here, and how people that come to pray mingle with tourists and vendors. Inside the temple they even had a coffee bar. Imagine Starbuck's opening a stall inside St. Pauls Cathedral eller Domkyrkan... The rest of the day I spent mostly just relaxing, reading, and researching cheap accommodation on Ko Lanta and Phi Phi. Not that easy to find. The big drawback to traveling alone is really not being able to share the price for rooms. Socially I'm amazed how easy it is to meet people, you don't have to spend a minute alone if you don't want to.

Today I've been to a cooking course and made loads of great food. I really need to start to cook more food when I get back to London. And since we live 15 min walk from a Thai supermarket, I can't really say that I can't get hold of the ingredients... Later tonight I'm meeting up with another Swede to go to the night market, but first I need to have nap and coffee. It's hard work to be on holiday ;)

Tomorrow, on my last day here, I plan to take the bus to Lampang to visit the Thai elephant conservation camp, where they take care of sick elephants among other things. The following day I have an early flight (again...) down to Phuket, and from there I'll take the ferry out to Ko Lanta. Looks like I finally found a place to stay :) I guess I could wait and try to find something when I get there, but I kind of like to know where I'm staying beforehand. I'm still a novice traveler... Anyhow, very much looking forward to a week on the beach :)

Take care till my next report,

xoxo Holiday girl

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