Temples, elephants, lanterns, and poo in Chiang Mai

So Steve started "nesting" back in January and said we should catch up on this blog before B3 (aka Charley) arrived. So he wrote this and then set it aside for me to find photos. And well we can see how long that took...

We finished 2016 in the city of Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. While it seemed off the beaten path at first, the more we read about it, the more excited we were about visiting, and in the end, it may have been our favourite part of the trip. We did a bit of sight-seeing of the city’s temples, which are beautiful in their own right, but we most enjoyed taking things a bit slower, taking in the culture, eating the street food, going for a Thai massage (Abby that is – one hour for $7 can’t be beat), pedicures for Abby and Emma (because once again you couldn’t beat the price, or so Abby claimed) and checking out the markets (day and night), all of which was a welcome contrast to the bustle and tourism of Singapore, Bangkok and Siem Reap. Aside from being an extremely inexpensive travel destination, it was a beautiful blend of old and new, historic with some modern emerging amenities. We stayed at a great Airbnb, used Uber several times, and also rode in the traditional Songteaws or red trucks a few times as well.

Here's a glimpse at the beauty of a few of the temples found all over the city of Chiang Mai...

Street market feast, just around the corner from our Airbnb. All for less than about $8 total.

One of the first things that interested us in Chiang Mai was reading about the Loy Krathong festival, celebrated by releasing floating “kathrongs” in the river and launching thousands of paper lanterns into the sky. While initially disappointed that we couldn’t make the trip during the November festival, we were quite fortunate that there was a traditional lantern release to celebrate the western New Years as well. As Emma had been looking forward to the lanterns for the entire trip (with visions of Rapunzel “Tangled” in mind), we tried hard not to wear her out during the day (and even tried to bribe her to stay up late with desserts and evening market shopping). But we failed miserably and when it came time for the release, she had been fast asleep for an hour. Being the loving parents we are, we forced her to wake up so that she wouldn’t miss the experience…I think she’s glad that we did. The sight of the lanterns floating through the sky was truly amazing as was the feeling of releasing our own as family (after of course watching and learning the right and wrong tactics of attempts by several other people and a few veer a little too close to trees and power lines).

The western New Year was a big celebration all over the city.

Emma passed out much too early into the celebrations...

But then woke up and loved helping daddy get the lantern ready!

There was an art to lighting and filling your lantern before letting it go. It was fun to watch Steve succeed after watching others and let our lantern fly! What an incredible scene that played out around us...

Our other favourite part of Chiang Mai was the elephant nature park. While there are many in the area, we decided to visit Baanchang Elephant Park, which had a good reputation for the treatment of their elephants, and couldn’t have asked for a better experience. There were several experience options, but we opted for the full day “Elephant Day Care” program. We got to know the elephants, helped prepare food and feed the elephants (sticky rice balls and sugar cane), went on a long walk alongside them, watched them take a mud bath (one of the elephants decided to share a little mud with Emma too, she must have looked dirty) and joined them for a cool bath in the river afterwards. While it wasn’t a cheap excursion, it was one I would highly recommend to anyone visiting the area. What incredibly beautiful animals they are...

Getting to know our elephant by feeding it sugar cane.

Getting kisses!

Emma loved going for walks with the elephants!

Making sticky rice balls!

Learning how to use a machete to chop sugarcane!

The elephants were always checking our pockets and bags for sugarcane!

Time for a mudbath

They all knew Emma still had sugarcane!

A real bath at the end of the day!

Our guide for the day loved Morgan and snapped a selfie while we were bathing the elephants!

We enjoyed our day caring for the elephants so much, we decided to spend a bit of the following day at the Elephant Poo Poo Paper Park, where we learned how certain “traditional” papers are made …we even gave it a try ourselves!

It was a truly incredible four days in Chiang Mai. A bucket list worthy destination. One where you are certain to fall in love with the Thai people, food, culture and traditions, and certainly their treasured elephants. Until we meet again Chiang Mai...