The past few days have been pretty packed. All the better as my travels abroad are drawing to a close at the end of this week. I am having a hard time believing it but I’m sure the reality will sink in once I’m sitting in the airport waiting to board the plane.
Saturday I joined a tour group to visit Doi Inthanon National Park. “Doi” means “mountain” in Thai and Doi Inthanon is the highest mountain in Thailand rising 2,565 meters (8,415 feet) above sea level; oddly not my record for elevation this trip with Haleakala clocking in at 3,055 meters. Doi Inthanon and the surrounding mountains are part of the Himalayan mountain range so I can check visiting the Himalayas off my bucket list (still want to visit Nepal though). The tour was a full day packed with plenty of amazing sights, sounds, and smells. Our first stop was a two hour trek along the Kaew Mae Pan Nature Trail. The jungle was lush and full of life and after hiking a few kilometers we popped out into a meadow with a stunning vista of the valley below.
We walked along an exposed ridge a ways taking in the views of the mountains and valleys that extended off into the distance. Eventually we came to a viewpoint where you could see the Two Chedis honoring the King and Queen of Thailand. We would tour these up close later but the view from the nature trail was pretty picturesque.
After we finished the hike along the nature trail we headed for the peak of the mountain, the highest point in Thailand. It was actually pretty anticlimactic after the views we had along the nature trail. The peak wasn’t exposed at all so there was no view apart from jungle and a shrine to King Inthawichayanon, the last ruler of the Lanna Kingdom and the namesake of the mountain. It was a quick stop and we got this photo of the tour group at the sign announcing the highest point:
We were quiet the international group! Going left to right there was a Canadian woman, a family from Belgium, a young man from the Netherlands, a Chinese couple, a German man, and myself from the US. We had a great time together on the tour and enjoyed each other’s company. After this photo was taken, we piled back in the tour van and made our way back down the mountain to visit the Two Chedis. Up close, we got to explore the Chedis themselves and the gardens around them which were quite beautiful.
On the way back down the mountain, we stopped for a very late lunch before hitting up the last two stops on our tour: the Queen waterfall and the King waterfall. Both stops were pretty quick compared to the earlier stops on top of the mountain but it was nice to see these attractions as well. The waterfalls were pretty swollen with water as it had been raining a lot the previous week. Normally you could go swimming at the Queen waterfall but it was closed due to the high water flow.
And after a long day of touring Doi Inthanon, we returned to Chiang Mai around 6pm. The touring wasn’t over yet though! I met up with my friend Patrick and we made it downtown to experience the Saturday night market. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a street market as huge as this one. There were thousands of vendors selling all kinds of things. Clothes, carved soap, leather goods, foods of all different sorts. Stands lined the main market street but spilled over into side streets and allies. We grabbed dinner there and explored just a small part of the market. It was very busy and after a while we decided to bail and return home so we could rest up for our activity the next day, Thai Farm Cooking School!
Patrick joined me for this adventure out to a cooking school located on a farm that grew most of the food we used to cook with. It was interesting getting to tour the property then cook with food that was grown there; a real farm-to-table experience. Our instructor, Kim, was a sweet Thai woman who was bubbly and cheerful as she gave us a tour of the farm, demonstrated Thai cooking techniques, and taught us all about Thai food. That day we made tom kha soup, spring rolls, a green curry, cashew nut chicken stir fry, and mango with sticky rice for desert. All of them were quite delicious and we’ll see how well I can re-create these dishes at home without Kim’s help.
We returned to Chiang Mai stuffed from a full day of cooking and eating delicious Thai food. The next day I set out with another tour group to go visit an elephant sanctuary about an hour and a half outside Chiang Mai. The sanctuary was located in a lush valley in the mountains alongside a river. The first part of our tour involved donning blue clothes for visiting the elephants. Apparently blue is a color they can see very well so we wore them to stand out a bit. After that, we created medicine balls for the elephants. These consisted of tamarind, palm sugar, salt, and green bananas mashed together with a mortar and pestle then formed into balls. The ingredients provided the elephants with vitamins, minerals, and digestive aids they wouldn’t normally get in their diet. We also cut up chunks of sugar cane to feed the elephants which was more of a tasty treat for them.
After we fed the elephants our medicine balls and chunks of sugar cane, we walked with them down to the riverside where there was a huge mud pit. This is where things got messy. We coated the elephants in mud to help them cool off and our guides were bent on covering us in mud as well. Almost everyone got mud on their face and I was the first. I asked one of the guides to take a picture of me which required another guide to come up and get me all ready for the shot:
After all of us and the elephants were sufficiently covered in mud, we made our way into the river to wash off. The elephants were quite happy in the water and honestly the swim was quite pleasant for me as well. We splashed the elephants and scrubbed the mud off with brushes. The elephants were quite well trained and the guides had one more trick with them. While I was standing next to an elephant, a guide coaxed the elephant to take a trunk full of water then pointing the trunk at me gave a cue to the elephant to blow! It was quite an interesting experience getting a trunk full of water in the face and the guides certainly enjoyed soaking the guests with their elephant super-soakers. It was all in good fun and I enjoyed my experience there.
We returned to Chiang Mai after a pad thai lunch, making it back around 3 in the afternoon. It turned out to be quite a long half-day tour and I was exhausted by the end. Tuesday I rested and got some work done in the morning then met up with Patrick again in the afternoon for another tour up Doi Suthep to visit Wat Doi Suthep again. Patrick hadn’t been yet and it was his last day in Chiang Mai so I thought I’d give him a tour. It was a nice encore tour and the view from the top was even better with the low sun and clear skies.
And that catches up with today! I still have the Loi Krathong festival scheduled for tomorrow which I’m looking forward to then Friday evening I depart Thailand and return to the States. It’s been an incredible trip and I hope I get an opportunity to return sometime. There is so much more to explore of Thailand and Southeast Asia. It’s a remarkable part of the world with lots to offer.