Northern Thailand

After returning to Bangkok, our plan was to work our way northbound using buses and trains. We have been taking many flights up to this point, so we thought we would slow things down and travel by land. We planned to spend one night in Ayutthaya, two nights in Sukothai, three nights in Chiang Mai, two nights in Chiang Rai, and then back for a night to Chiang Mai before flying to Hanoi, Vietnam.

Ayutthaya

Most people would visit Ayutthaya for the day from Bangkok since it is only about 1.5 hours away. We figured that since we were already headed northbound that it made sense to stay there for the night. Ayutthaya is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was the second capital of Thailand, formed in 1350. It was a major trading centre back in the day with merchants travelling from all over Europe and Asia. After several hundred years of successful operation, the Burmese moved in and attacked Ayutthaya, burning it to the ground, destroying much of the infrastructure (including beheading most of the buddha statues), and leaving the city in ruins.

We arrived in Ayutthaya by train. It was a “Rapid Express” train that made the GO train look like a Japanese bullet train. This thing must have made 30 stops on the way there. Anyways, it was a good experience and the first real train ride that we have taken on our trip so far. We stayed at a hotel called The Old Palace. It was a $35 hotel room that was, well, a $35 hotel room. Small, old, and passable for one night’s sleep. We took a tuktuk into town and hit the night market. We walked up and down grabbing different things – meat sticks, sausages, fruits, desserts, etc. The market was located beside the ancient ruins which looked very cool lit up at night.

We spent the morning checking out Wat Chaiwatthanaram and then made our way over to see Wat Mahathat. We were running a bit tight on time and figured that the ruins were much of the same, so we headed back to the hotel to make our way north to Sukhothai. Overall, it was great to see the old ruins, but it is one of those things that once you’ve seen one, the rest are pretty much all the same.

Sukhothai

Arriving in Sukhothai after a long six-hour bus ride, we were very relieved to arrive at our hotel (Foresto Sukhothai Guesthome). This was a huge step up from our previous place. It was a little oasis set back from the road, very quiet, full of palm trees and ferns along the walkway. We dropped out things and walked down the road to the closest restaurant. We stopped at one called the “Poo Restaurant”. No idea why they would call it this, but it was very nice, and we saw some familiar faces – people staying in our hotel and people that had been on the bus with us. Afterwards we grabbed some Thai pancakes from a street vendor – basically a thin crepe filled with fruits and chocolate or Nutella – before making our way back to the hotel.

In the morning we headed to the Sukhothai Historical Park (Old Sukhothai City). Our hotel manager set us up with a tuktuk driver who would take us there and make a detour for us to pick up bus tickets for our travel to Chiang Mai on the following day. This must have been the slowest and most uncomfortable tuktuk yet. The was a cushion missing from the backrest, so if we were leaning back and hit a pothole a sharp metal bar would dig into our backs. For some reason though, the guy was so nice and we kind of felt bad, so we arranged for him to meet us to drive us back (we could have easily got a cheaper, much more comfortable Grab car, but what would be the fun in that!)

The drive left us just outside the gate of the Historic Park at a bike rental spot. We rented bikes for $1 each – so cheap!! This was so much fun – we had a blast cruising through the Old City of Sukhothai which was a large rectangle of land that was closed off from vehicles. We would stop at the various temples and statues dotted throughout the park. After a couple of hours, we ventured outside of the park and down some random roads and found a bike path the led through some villages and eventually led us back to the main street (thank goodness for smartphones!). We looked for a place to eat lunch and spotted this German guy eating at a place (who we had run into multiple times in the last couple of days) who gave us the thumbs up that the food was good. We had a nice lunch, returned the bikes, and very slowly made our way back to the hotel. We chilled at the pool for a while, and then went out for dinner at a little spot near the market. As we ate, we spotted our Austrian neighbour from our hotel, so we invited him over for a beer. We chatted for a while. It turns out this guy has travelled to an incredible number of countries. He was retired and his wife was still working, so he was off on a 4-week solo trip – nice arrangement!

Chiang Mai

We took another 6-hour bus ride to Chiang Mai the next day. Chiang Mai is a very popular spot and for good reason – it’s a nice city with lots of good history and activities to do. We stayed in the Old Quarter, a large rectangular part of the city surrounded by a moat. Our hotel, Baan Chern, was nicely located at walking distance from many of the markets and temples. As we arrived on Saturday, we walked to the Saturday Night Market. Totally jammed packed with every type of offering imaginable, we grabbed food at one of the stalls and sat in a communal eating area (at a very short table!). The kids played a dart game (pop 5 balloons and get a stuffed animal – which of course we wouldn’t be able to fit in our luggage).

The next day we were picked up by our tour guide to go to an elephant sanctuary. The van dropped us (and two other couples) at a trail head, and we made our way through the jungle to a waterfall. We ate lunch there (Pad Thai in these little banana leaf packets) on top of a rock beside the waterfall. After lunch we went for a swim beside the waterfall to cool down before continuing our hike to the sanctuary.

Seeing the elephants up close was an amazing experience. We were able to feed them bananas and sugarcane and then we took them for a walk through the jungle. Afterwards we walked into the river with them and bathed them by throwing buckets of water on them (and on each other!).

When we got back to the hotel, we went out to the Sunday Night Market – this was even bigger than the Saturday Market, though remarkably similar. We saw many of the same vendors, so the experience was basically just a repeat of the night before. In the morning, Mel was picked up to go to an all day cooking class on a farm. Mac, Liam, and I had the day together (which I learned was actually Father’s Day in Thailand – how appropriate!) and started out with a nice breakfast at a local café. We spent the day exploring Chiang Mai, stopping at a few different temples, and we each got a Thai massage (in the morning) and a foot massage (in the afternoon). A great way to spend the day!

Chiang Rai

We took a bus three hours to the east to visit Chiang Rai (not to be confused with Chiang Mai!). We arrived at our hotel later in the afternoon (Baan Soontree) and were very content to just chill, hang at the pool, and order in some pizzas. We were only in Chiang Rai for two nights, so we decided to make the most of our time by booking in a full day tour the following day. The tour picked us up at 8 a.m. the next day and there were eight different stops for the tour: The White Temple, Blue Temple, Black House (are we seeing a pattern here…), Long Neck Village, Tea Plantation, Bordertown with Myanmar, Golden Triangle, and an ancient city (forgot the name).

The White Temple was pretty incredible to see up close. It was built be this artist that wanted to covert an old temple into something more modern. The outside is incredibly detailed and has taken many years to complete. On the inside, the artist took a modern approach and did this crazy mural full of different characters (batman, wolverine, etc.), pop figures like Michael Jackson, etc., and in the middle of the back wall there is a large painting of an evil figure with the faint image in one eye of George Bush and Osama Bin Laden in the other.

Blue temple was interesting, but not much to talk about. The Black House was very cool – it is a property with several buildings constructed in different styles by this Architect/Artist guy (Thawen Duchanee). Each of the building was full of his art and collections of animal skins and heads. All very weird but cool.

The Long Neck Village experience left us feeling a bit weird/uncomfortable. We paid a handsome additional entry fee (which felt a bit strange to me) to enter the village. The village was full of people selling artisan products tended by women of different ages, each with varying numbers of rings around their necks. It felt like a bit of a weird freak show. I am not criticizing their culture, I just think it is weird that their way of life is entirely based on attracting tourists to come and look at them and buy stuff. The worst part, is while we were doing the tour, one of our fellow passengers, this older German guy told us that the people of the village were brought to the location from Myanmar by a guy whose intent was to make money of the long neck people. The worst part was that the German guy knew this and yet was excited to see it. I sort of wish we hadn’t gone to see it, and we certainly wouldn't have had we known the back story. In hindsight I would have opted out of this part of the tour.

The tea plantation was just like visiting a winery, but instead of wine there was just tea. So not that fun.

The border town was alright – we checked out the bridge that connects Thailand and Myanmar and learned a little bit about the history there. The border continues to be closed.

The Golden Triangle was cool to see. We visited the Opium Museum which was very well put together and educational (unfortunately no free samples 😊). The Golden Triangle is where the borders of Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos meet. It was a huge opium growing and trading region for many years.

After the museum, we did one more stop at an ancient ruin before making our way back to Chiang Rai at 7pm (an 11-hour day).

The next day we headed back to Chiang Mai for one more night (stayed at My Loft Hotel) in a different area than we stayed previously, before heading off on the next leg of our adventure to Vietnam.

Our overall experience in Thailand has been amazing. This is one country that I would recommend to everyone to come and see. The people are incredibly friendly and helpful, the food is amazing, there are tonnes of different activities and things to see, it is very affordable (especially coming from Australia and New Zealand), and it is a very safe country. It is also such an easy country to get around even though most people speak very little English. In fact, we decided that after Vietnam and Cambodia that we are going to come back to spend 10 days at Koh Samui (island in the south of Thailand).

Looking forward to our new adventure here in Vietnam!