Chiang Mai

We arrived in Chiang Mai around 4:30pm. The airport was pretty nice, it even had a Starbucks which is such s treat. Especially when you are traveling it is like a little piece of home, so comforting. We ended up messaging a friend we made in New Zealand Tabby to see where she was staying in Chiang Mai. She was at the Eagle house 2 and said it was pretty nice and cheap. So we got a taxi there for $160 baht total. Eagle house wasn't the nicest place we stayed but not the worse either it was just ok. it was also pretty central which was nice. A food market was really close plus tons of great places to eat. 

Once we arrived there Tabby came out to great us it was so nice to see her again. We ended up talking and going to get dinner with her. It was so nice to have her with us because she had been in Chiang Mai for a few days and knew where to go. After Dinner Jess and I went to the night market. We tried not to spend any money but its so difficult not to. Everything is so cheap but it all adds up. Jess did't want to take her money out of the ATM, but did anyways and ended up getting crazy haha. I just waited because I knew we would be back the following night. After that we were so tired and walked back to our place, which wasn't the closest even though Jess seemed to think it was. haha 

The next morning we got up I went to breakfast with Tabby and Jess slept in because she was so tired and didn't sleep well the night before. Tabby took me to this amazing place called Angle's Secret for breakfast. It had high reviews on trip advisor and was priced pretty low. We went, everything was so good. It was so nice to not get white bread with my omelet for once and to get nice butter with it. The little things in life haha

they also gave free watermelon while u waited for your food! Yumm

After breakfast we went back to meet up with Jess. After Tabby left for Pai Jess and I rented a scooter. It was $200 baht for 24 hours! Such a deal, however the to of us riding on one was a little scary. Especially in all the traffic and with all the other crazy drivers haha. We ended up getting the hang of it, Jess more so than me lol. We went to a few Temples around Chiang Mai. There are so many to see!

After the temples I went to the cooking class I had signed up for. It was just me and the instructor which was really nice, a little one on one action. I got to pick 3 meals to make with him. His name was Suk and he spoke english in a sing songy way too funny. He also just laughed a lot he reminded me of the Rafiki in Lion King haha. The 2 of us went to the market to get all the stuff we needed to cook dinner. I decided I wanted to make Pad Thai, Spring rolls and Papaya Salad. I was to excited to get a pic of the Pad Thai but got a pic of the other items.

Thank god jess showed up right in time once i finished cooking to help me eat all the food. We still couldn't finish the spring rolls, so much food. It was so fun to learn how to make all of it though. After Jess and I walked around and went back to the night market. This time I ended up getting a lot more gifts for people. We were at the market for a few more hours then headed back and went to bed since we knew we had a long trek to go on the next day. 

The following morning we packed up our stuff t switch rooms, had a little something to eat and waited for our bus to get us for the day trek. The "bus" came, it was more like a tuk tuk though and all 10 people squeezed in. Jess and I were laughing that we all had to ride in the open small tuk tuk all day. 

Our first stop on the trek was the butterfly and orchard park. Going in we weren't to excited because we saw a huge orchard park in Singapore. However once we were in we were blown away with how great it was. Even though it was much smaller than the one in Singapore we liked the little one better. 

The we all got back in the "bus" and went to the elephant park, which was like a 40 minute drive. The hills and turns we had to make to get there got me a little car sick, but thank god i didn't get sick. The elephant park was pretty cool. Its not every day you see an elephant. They are such huge animals, when we pulled up one was standing in from of the car and I thought it was a statue of one until it started to move. I was so shocked. We then proceeded to ride the elephants. We probably had a 30-40 minute ride on the elephants through the hills/ mountains of Chiang Mai. It was so majestic and unbelievable. Riding on an elephant through the mountains with a beautiful river down below (however Jess hated being so close to the edge of the mountain haha), mountain views in the background and rice fields we passed occasionally. So great, an experience ill never forget. Once we reached our destination we got off and feed the elephant some bananas.

 Then we walked down a trail in the forest down to the river. To cross the river we got in this cage that transported to u the other side. It was pretty cool. Once at the other side we had lunch. They gave us all these little bundles of leaves with a rubber band around them. To our surprise it was pad thai! It was also more than we thought would be able to fit in the little "elephant eggs" as they called them.

After lunch all climbed back into the "bus" to get to the pass of our mountain trek. It took us 40 minutes to reach the water fall and 40 minutes back down. It was pretty cool though. Our guide showed us and explained about the local tribe villages we passed along the way. The people that live up in the mountains, quite a different life ann the city as you could imagine. I was right behind our guide, i saw him pick up a leaf and in the back of my mind wondering what he was going to do with it. He ended up making me a hat. It was pretty cool how he did it so fast. 

After the water fall we climbed back down and got in the "bus" again and headed for white water rafting. The raft looked like a normal raft you see people white water rafting on. We got all our gear on and got in the boat. It was pretty mild white water rafting.

 Nothing to crazy happened, however once we got down the stream we were all instructed to get out of the white water rafting tubes and onto the bamboo rafts. We all did as told. You would assume them to float.... yeah not the case. We all sunk haha! Literally everyone was sitting on the raft with water up to their chest. We couldn't help but all laugh as our guide struggled to pull or push us a little down the stream as the bamboo raft grazed the bottom of the stream haha. I think if we all stood up and walked the water would of been up to our knees and we could of gotten to our next destination faster haha. It was so funny. Once we got to our next destination I changed into dry clothes and after a little bit we got on the "bus" and headed home. The ride home was about 1.5 hours. We got back and showed Jess and I grabbed some dinner. After dinner we got our bus tickets for the next morning to Pai, and decided to get some banana Nutella pancakes and wine. Best decision of the night haha. After we went back and went to bed, tired after a long day. 

The next morning we got up early and got on the bus to go to Pai.