In our heads Thailand was going to be a hotter, maybe not as clean third world country where we had to watch carefully what we ate and keep our kids no further than arms length. It’s safe to say it has exceeded our expectations in every way.
Transportation is very easy and cheap. While a Taxi charges about ฿250 baht ($7.00) for a 15 minute ride, ubers are a remarkable ฿60 baht ($1.80!) for the same trip. Once we figured this out we relied strictly on ubers as they are plentiful in the city. By contrast the Songthaews (red truck below) were ฿20 Baht per person but its basically like hopping in the back of a pickup truck with a bunch of other people heading to different locations. You will eventually end up where you want to go but it will probably take a while. Tuk Tuk/Rikshaws (blue car below) were common too but those don’t have doors on them and thus aren’t the best options with a 16 month old toddler wanting to escape her parents grip!
Our first stop was to get some Pad Thai and Red curry of course! We went to a nearby mall reasoning the food would be safer to eat there, and we weren’t disappointed. The Pad Thai was only ฿40 baht ($1.25) and Red curry the same. Mango sticky rice and fresh coconuts became our favorites as well. We also experienced the return of plentiful napkins, which were severely lacking in Taiwan!
The apartment we found was near the Nimman area, which has a lot of coffee shops and restaurants. While a little more expensive, it is ideal for us to be able to walk outside and grab something to eat without having to call an uber. Our apartment came with a washing machine and a pool which the kids have been taking full advantage of. We also had a good view of Doi Suthep, and allowed us to determine whether the AQI was high or not depending on how visible the mountain was in the morning…haha.
Speaking of air pollution….In Taiwan we had to breath in all the smoke from people burning paper money, and here in Thailand it is the burning season where they burn the remains of last years crops to make way for the new plantings. So there is a haze that starts to permeate throughout the city. As the haze gets worse, more travelers leave for a few months before coming back. Lucky for us we are leaving right about when it is supposed to get much worse, so hopefully it won’t affect us too much.
One of the very interesting things to happen to us while in Thailand was the sheer amount of foreigners here, most of whom speak English. They come from all over, Canada, Austrailia, UK, as well as many travelers from China, Germany, and Korea. By far it’s the most diverse place we have traveled to to-date. Most of the people we come across would call themselves “Digital Nomads”, and earn their living online by blogging, marketing, SAS (software assisted solution) businesses or online drop-shipping stores. Each restaurant or coffee shop that we visit, you are sure to see them typing away on their laptops and enjoying a different office view each day.
One passion they all seem to share is traveling. These people are not just good at it, they are experts. If you want to know about going to a nearby city or country, its just a matter of time before you meet someone that has gone there recently. Ellie made friends with Issy from Austraila and Vera with Bear from NYC. We try to go on play dates as often as we can arrange them, but of course it all depends on if they cooperated!
Part of the charm of Chiang Mai is all the temples. 7 elevens is to Taiwan as Temples are to Thailand. Every few blocks there is a new temple with historical significance dating back to the 12th century. Often times the shrines are Indian (with Ganesh statues), which we thought was pretty cool.
Night markets – We were very impressed with the night markets as they were an order of magnitude bigger than the ones we had in Taiwan! There was a good mix of clothing, food, and crafts, combined with stall after stall of Thai massage stations! We have yet to take the plunge into one of those stations however, due to questionable sanitary conditions of the towels…haha.
The fruit selection here is better than Taiwan – All the usual suspects like dragon fruit, mangoes, cloud apple (which Vera ate every day), but with the added benefit of jack fruit, pumelo, gac fuit, vu sua (translation “breast milk fruit” – purple fruit at bottom) and of course mangosteens! Ly couldn’t believe it because it’s not supposed to be in season at the moment. Needless to say she nearly cleaned the lady out as soon as we realized that it was perfectly ripe and only ฿150 per kg ($2 per lb)! Our only regret is finding it so late in our stay here. We only had 4 more days of mangosteen eating before we packed our bags to our next destination!
Up Next: Vietnam!