4D3N Chiangmai: Nov 2010

Day 1

It was supposed to be the 2nd week into winter and we were expecting some cool weather . The weather forecast on the temperature was between 21 - 32 degrees. It turned out to be very hot throughout and nothing less than 30 degrees.

Surprisingly there was no flight delay and we arrived Chiangmai at 8.30am. Custom was smooth and our driver Keng was already waiting for us at the arrival hall with our names. We went straight to Amari Rincome Hotel, a 4 star hotel that is located at Nimmanhemin Road. They checked us in there and then and even upgraded our rooms to deluxe rooms. We were quite suprised that the hotel and rooms' condition were quite old and are nowhere close to the pictures in the internet. Just look at the safe deposit box. It looks more like a post box to me than a safe and I do not feel safe keeping my stuffs there. Anyway the hotel staffs are very friendly and it is safe. There are a lot of tuk tuk and taxis outside the hotel too.

After settling down in our rooms, we went for our buffet breakfast at the hotel. The buffet cost 375 baht and food was not that great. We had a few hours of rest after that a we were all tired from the early morning flight.

We went for street shopping after the rest. Nimmanhemin Road is the modern side of Chiangmai. You will find many nice modern cafes and funky shops here. Shopping here can be quite expensive. If you like the night bazaar and be close to lot of massage shops and high traffic then this is not the place for you. It is a little far to the night bazaar and you need to get a tuk tuk to reach there.

These are some of the funky shops that I mentioned. They are located to the left of the hotel as you walked out.

You can get some nice notebooks here. They sell for 190 baht but at the indoor night market they have similar ones for only 120 baht.

We stopped by for some cold fruity drinks. They have free wifi here. The hotel does not provide complimentary wifi but you can easily find cafes with wifi outside the hotel.

Incidentally, we found a place near our hotel that serves American breakfast for only 46 baht. We shall try this out the next morning.

That evening we had buffet steamboat for dinner. The choices are aplenty and only cost 120 baht per person.

Some of the selections of cooked food and fruits.

Our steamboat pot before and after we start :-)





They were obviously too engrossed with their food to pose for the photographer.

After dinner we visited the night bazaar. This is the indoor and outdoor night bazaar. They sell almost the same items at the outdoor bazaar. If you do not have intention to buy from the stall, do not even open your mouth to enquire about the price. Some of them can get quite offended and rude when you do not buy from them after enquiring the price and this is before we even start the bargaining process. We were only curious on the price of the item.

Some of the items sold in the indoor bazaar including the notebooks I mentioned above.

Day 2

We had breakfast this morning at the cafe that serves cheap American breakfast. They also have wifi here. The hotel does not have any complimentary wifi but you can find many cafes like with free wifi outside the hotel.

Our driver picked us from the hotel at 9.10 am for our day's activities. Our first stop was the Maesa Elephant Camp.

The first show was the Elephant Bathing. I didn't know that watching the elephants bathe can be so entertaining. The elephants were really enjoying themselves playing in the water.

The naughty one .....





Next, we moved on to more shows, watching the elephants parade, play hula hoop, throwing darts, football and many more.

Have you seen elephants paint? I have seen it in National Geographic but not as real as this. Yes, the elephants do paint and nice paintings too. At least better than me! If I can paint as well as the elephants, I wouldn't have failed my arts.

These were the paintings from the 5 elephants and 4 of them were sold on the spot.

We were also given the opportunity to get close to the elephants, feed them and play with them

Then, we moved on to the Nursery to feed the baby elephants.

There is also a shop there that sells all the elephant paintings. They are not cheap and it is hard to believe that the elephants really painted all of them. Sometimes I wonder how much torture the elephants must have gone through to be able to paint this well.

We had our lunch at the nearby Tiger Kingdom. Buffet here cost 120 baht per person if you pay through your licensed guide. The choices are limited but they do have some good food here.

You also get to take pictures with the tigers but you have to pay for it. The prices go by the size of the tigers and the smaller the tiger the more expensive it is. They have S, M, L and XL but the XL tigers are not opened to the public. The tiger below is a M size.

There were some tuk tuk and taxis outside the Tiger Kingdom so I took a picture of it to show. Some of us didn't realize that the red vehicle is a taxi until few days later. You can flag down the taxi anywhere on the street and they charge by person.

We visited the long neck Karen tribe next. We were told that they have two tribal villages there. One of the villages was developed by the government for tourist visits. The village was beautified and the tribal groups were brought here for tourists to see. They are also given jobs in this village. In other words, this is like a "human zoo". Because of the effort placed in this village, the entrance fee is 500 baht. The other village is the original village and cost 300 baht. We chose the cheaper village. We were the only visitors there and there are many stalls that sell the same thing.

Some of them just sat there doing nothing and I wonder how they pass their time.

The ones who worked are usually the kids while the adults manage the stalls.





The bracelet that we bought from there.

We visited the Sa Paper Umbrella Factory next. It is quite a boring place and if you do not have any intention to buy the unbrella, you may skip this place. The umbrella does not open and close smoothly so we did not buy any. Entrance here is free.







Some of the ready made umbrellas.

One of our main itineraries is to visit the Pandas in the zoo. You have to pay extra to see the Pandas, on top of the zoo entrance fees. We also paid 20 baht for the tram ride as the zoo was too large to walk.

They also have 2 white tigers and an elephant wth the longest trunk that I've ever seen.

There are 3 Pandas in Chiangmai. Aren't they cute? They must be so tired posing for the humans. Poor thing! And yes, they have a few koala bears here as well.

That evening, we went shopping at Tesco hypermarket which is a short tuk tuk ride away from the hotel. There are many street stalls outside Tesco and we had a good time tasting the food at the street stalls.

Some of the food at the street stalls.

We also had our dinner at Tesco's food court. This is Chiangmai's fried oyster.

That night we went out for a massage nearby the hotel. The name of the shop is Rada and is about 2-3 blocks away to the left of the hotel. The Thai massage cost 200 baht and aromatherapy is 400 baht. There were a few other places nearby but it was expensive, like 800 baht. Be careful when you have your massage at Rada because they have transvetite masseurs as well. He/she came in to massage for me but I was not comfortable to have a transvetite rubbing my whole body so I requested for a female masseur instead. Their service is merely so-so. In fact they made us wait quite a while to be serviced.


Day 3


Today is an adventurous day for us. We had booked a half day leisure cycling tour to the North of Chiangmai with Crank Adventures. Early morning at 8.30am, we were transported to the base where our 25 km cycling starts.

Our first stop was at a temple with a big paddy field.

These are our guides, Damien and Win. Damien followed us behind in his van just in case anyone of us was tired and wanted to hop onto the van. Win was the cycling guide.





My dad of 71 years old can take the 25km ride. Who says you can't? Well, they were complaining about knee pain and backside pain in the evening but the pain was gone the next day.





The cycling paths were mostly flat with very low traffic. We cycled through villages, paddy fields and the journey was quite scenic. This is what you won't get to see if you follow a tour.

My dad having his deserving break. We were also served with ice coke and some snacks here.

After that the journey continues.

Stopped for some nature lessons.

A brief stop at the dam.

This was our last stop. We had some drinks and chocolate cake here before we head back to the base.

That evening we went shopping at Kad Suan Kew which is a short ride away from the hotel. This place didn't interest us so we left quite soon after. We decided to experience the tuk tuk ride back to the hotel and it turned out to be a very fun ride instead. Our tuk tuks were chasing each other on the road and as the taffic was building up, the took all the back lanes intead. We reached the hotel in a very short time. If there is traffic jam, take the tuk tuk!

This is Keng, our driver. He is a very patient guy and very accomodating. Amongst all the prices that I have compared, I found his rate to be very reasonable. Overall, we enjoyed our trip very much especially the elephant camp, the zoo and the cycling. If you have extra time, I think you should go for the cycling for a different experience. We tried the ATVs in Phuket so we thought of trying cycling in Chiangmai instead and we never regretted it. There are a few companies that offer cycling trips in Chiangmai but we are very happy with Crank Adventure.