Chiang Mai on Bikes (Thailand, Day 1)

We arrived to the airport in Bangkok on our first day around 8:15pm, and immediately took a connecting flight to Chiang Mai airport. From there we took a taxi to our hostel inside the city, called Tipsy Manor. After checking in and dropping our stuff in our room, we decided to take a little walk around the city close to our hostel. Although we were tired from all the traveling, we were eager to see the city of Chiang Mai.

It was after midnight at this point, so nothing was open, but eventually we came across a small street bar, just a block away from our hostel. It was run by a small, Thai man named Bom. He was very funny and friendly, and we ended up returning to visit and have a few beers with him every night we were there. On our last night, he gave us a gift of a small Buddha pendant and we immediately learned that we were not allowed to put it in our pants pocket because Buddha is not supposed to be held or carried below our waist.

The following morning, after a good night's rest, we set off to find some breakfast. There were places to eat everywhere, but we wanted to find something especially good for our first day.

Along the way, I took pictures of things that I soon realized were a common and abundant part of Thailand... beautiful buildings and motorbikes, 'stray' cats and dogs, funny signs in English, and flowers everywhere.

After breakfast, we returned to the hostel to prepare for the day, pack up and check out. We wanted to stay the remainder of our nights at this place because we though it was a good one, but it was booked.

It was too bad that we couldn't stay though because this room came with a big balcony with a decent view.

The next hostel we found, call Jay's Guesthouse, was definitely the cheapest we were able to find at 100 bot per night. (That's about $3). This one also had a balcony with a view that overlooked the wat in the picture below. It was a lot grungier that the previous one, but we figured we could deal with it for such a cheap price.

After checking into the hostel and unpacking a bit, we headed out to explore the city in day light.

There were so many things to see and discover along the way... resorts and construction (or reconstruction).

...huge, unique trees with very interesting roots that grew where ever they wanted...

...the city's hospital...

Eventually our wanderings led us to the outside of the square, with the three lane, busy roads on either side of the moat that surrounds the square city.

Here you can see the left side of the road that wraps around the inside of the square and part of the moat that runs between the two sides of the road. (They drive on the left side of the road in Thailand).

The moat was clean and actually very pretty, so we posed for lots of pictures around it.

In the distance in the picture above, you can see the mountain, Doi Suthep-Pui National Park that we drove to on the second full day.

After walking around a while, we were very thirsty so we stopped at a little cafe for a drink and to talk about what we were going to do for the remainder of the day. We decided to rent bicycles and ride around the rest of the city to fully explore everything it has to offer. It took a little while, but eventually we got used to riding on the left side of the road.

There are over 40,000 wats (temples) in Thailand. A 'wat' is defined as any place of worship that isn't a mosque. In Chiang Mai alone, there are over 300. It was obviously impossible to see that many in the short time we were there, but we did choose to stop at about everyone we spotted on our bike tour around the exterior of the city.

Our first stop was a Wat Chiang Man, the one we could see across the street from our hostel. It is the oldest temple in Chiang Mai, built in 1297.

Our next stop, on the exterior of the square, was Wat Rajamontean.

After that, we stopped at Wat Lok Molee.

Wat Lok Molee is famous for this giant chedi. A chedi, also known as a stupa, is a structure that contains the ashes of a Buddhist monk, to be used as a place of worship.

On a wall on the street behind the temple, I noticed a familiar looking piece of graffiti.

For lunch, we stopped at this small restaurant on the street. One thing I love about Thailand is that everything is wide open. There are rarely walls blocking the inside from the outside, so everything seems more welcoming and natural. It was nice to be able to eat in the shade, but still feel as though you were outside enjoying the gorgeous weather.

We ate our first taste of authentic Pad Thai for lunch, and it only cost $1.50! You can't beat the prices in Thailand, for food, souvenirs or lodging, everything is so cheap!

After lunch, we became a little bored with our continuous route around the perfect square, so we decided cross outside the square onto one of the main roads that lead away from the city to explore that. Here we found Wat Suan Dok. This one had a whole field of while chedi with a giant gold one at the center and the temple off to the west side.

Shane wore his "훈남" (handsome man) hat for much of the trip and it was here that we met our first Koreans thanks to it. They of course noticed the hat and laughed and it was enough to spark a conversation in which we struggled through trying to speak Korean and they did the same with English. Afterwards, we remembered to take our first group picture.

Inside the temple, there was a graduate kneeling and praying. It seemed out of place to us at first, but then we realized there was a dentistry university just across the street from this temple. After a while, we noticed the loud cheering and chanting coming from it and walked over to see what the graduation celebration was like. We go a lot of looks from people who were no doubt wondering why foreigners were attending their graduation ceremony.

After finally biking around to reach the south side of the square (we had started on the north east corner), we stopped at this park for some water, ice cream and some rest. The place was packed with both foreigners and natives relaxing, eating and playing all sorts of games. We even found a basketball court and played a little together before deciding to continue on our bike ride.

On the east side of the city, about halfway to the river is the location of the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. Although it had not opened yet (it wouldn't until dusk), we decided to ride through and explore what it looked like in the day hours. It was interesting to see everyone setting up for the big night ahead of them.

We soon got hungry and began our ride back to the hostel. On the way, we crossed the east gate of the city, Tha Phae Gate. It's amazing to see the sections of wall that are still standing from their construction hundreds of years ago.

On the north side of the gate, we got a good view of the moat at dusk, when the lights of the city are starting to turn on and everything is reflected beautifully in the water.

It actually took us a while to find our hostel again because we got very turned around on the maze of roads inside the square. Eventually we found it, got some dinner and then took a taxi back to the night bazaar to buy some souvenirs, street food, and even pay for 30 minutes of getting the dead skin of our feet eaten by fish! Before the night was over, we stopped back at our new friend, Bom's, bar for some beers with him and didn't go back to the hostel until very late into the night.