Total Miles Traveled: 45,132
Chiang Mai is considered Northern Thailand’s largest and most culturally significant city. It is home to over 1 million people and located in a mountainous area near the ‘golden triangle’ of northern Thailand – the point at which Thailand borders with Laos and Myanmar.
It attracts ex-pats by the droves and has become a very popular spa/yoga/meditation retreat. Many resorts offer a multi-day ‘detox’ package that keeps visitors on strict schedule and diet … just the thing to clear away the city slicking blues. After three months visiting parts of Asia, where ‘wai ren’ (westerners) are rare, it was odd to be surrounded by so many Westerners.
While Chiang Mai offers Westerners lots of adventure activities like zip-lining and white water rafting, we opted to see a different side of Chiang Mai – we went on what we call a half-day “biking through the suburbs” tour.
We first stopped at a local Chinese temple which had a very cool dragon statue/”building” that one could walk through. The sides of the tunnel had very elaborate paintings.
Next up, we visited what Tony thought was an outdoor BBQ. He was sort of right. It was a local crematory. The locals cremate their relatives, collect the ashes in an urn, and then put the urn under a sacred tree for a few days before taking the urn home.
After a pretty ride through the fields, we stopped at a local elementary school. This was my favorite part! We visited several classrooms with kids of different ages. Here’s a very cute photo of first graders practicing for an upcoming children’s day show.
After the school we visited 3 local businesses – one was a candy making business. The candies are made and wrapped by hand. Here’s a sheet of the gooey candy drying.
Next we visited a small bakery that supplies locals with their doughnuts. Mmmmmm doughnuts.
Tony tried one… what did he think? Well, they’re not Krispy Kreme, but they’re not bad.
We also stopped at a pottery-making studio. First, they cut the clay into cylindrical blocks. Then the pots get shaped using a pottery wheel. The pottery wheel guy can crank out a pot every 2 minutes!
After the pots are shaped, they get fired in the kiln for about a day at high temperatures. They produce 200 pots per day and everything is done manually. Pretty impressive! How much does one pot cost? $0.33 USD!
We also stopped at an old leper colony. We understand that there are still a couple of people with leprosy who live in the village, but it’s now a village for locals that is undergoing a lot of modernization (below a worker installs power lines into people’s houses.)
We visited several local and old “wats” or temples. Some are very old – at least several hundred years old.
We thought it was interesting that the Buddhas at each temple were ‘dressed’ in cloth and had umbrellas. We were told that the Buddhas wear clothes during winter to keep them warm. In the summer, they go au natural. But they always get shade.
We loved how elaborate the temples were.
For lunch, we stopped at a local orphanage. You can see I made a little friend while waiting for lunch. This little girl is five months old and very adorable. ☺
Lastly, we visited a local market and tried a few of the local’s favorite foods. These sausages were very yummy!!
To see the full set of photos check out our slideshow:
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