Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai – Our Journey

Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai – When Olly joined me and Lauren in Bangkok we spent a day planning everything we wanted to do and made a list.. then we made a list of realistic things we could do with the time and money we had together. One thing Olly was so excited to do was to see the Elephants, so I made sure that this was the first thing we did! We traveled north to Chiang Mai because in my experience and knowledge, this was the best place to see the Elephants as no where in this town can you ride elephants. All the Sanctuaries are dedicated to saving and helping the growth of the Asian elephant population. So we jumped on a over night bus, which was great as the seats reclined and we had a lot of space to spread out and of course I downloaded 8 hours worth of Dexter for us to watch! In typical fashion Olly was out like a light and left me to watch netflix on my own the whole journey.

Lauren joined us a day later and off we went to the Elephant Jungle Sanctuary! Even though elephants are beautiful and kind creatures, there is something terrifying about a 7 ton animal walking towards you with no intention of stopping. I think you can see the fear in my face in a lot of these photos.

The only time I show teeth.. when I am scared I am about to be crushed and have it caught on camera.

The baby wasn’t too scary..it just had its mum standing over me which is the trunk on the right hand side while the photographer was shouting smile!

Lauren floating in mud and poop!

Trip adviser came in so handy when I got to Chaing Mai. Me and Olly wasn’t on a huge budget but we still wanted to experience nice restaurants and food, so with the ‘cheap eat’ filter on Trip Adviser it was great! We found a place called Tikky Cafe which was hidden away down the back streets but it was voted No1 so we had to try it out seeing as it was  cheap eat and it was delicious! Yellow curry plus sides and drinks for about £2! Would highly recommend!!

Me and Olly went to a lady boy show, because when in Thailand, and after we were wondering home looking to have one last drink before bed and found a food park called Ploen Ruedee night market which was really cool. It was hipster vibes with food trucks all around and a DJ which we found just by chance, would definitely go back if I wanted a chilled night out!

Lauren of course found a bar called HTC which was pretty cool.

On mine and Olly’s list of things we wanted to do was the White Temple, so we asked our hostel owner who was a hilarious old Thai man who just wanted to help travelers as much as he could and he found us this trip which included heaps of things along the way and for a good price. The White Temple was slightly more north so we jumped in our mini van for the day with what we were expecting a tour group of tourists.. but turned out to be just us with a Chinese speaking guide. Bless his soul he tried so hard to answer our questions with his translating app and limited English speaking skills. But it was great we got to lay down in the bus and sleep the whole 4 hours to our first destination which was the Natural Hot Springs.

Then we arrived at the INCREDIBLE White temple. This temple was built by a Thai artist called Chalermchai Kositpipat who didn’t want to be influenced by religion and politics Wat Rong Khun, perhaps better known as the White Temple, is a contemporary, unconventional, privately owned, art exhibit in the style of a Buddhist temple in Chiang Rai. He wanted to portray his art as ‘ you have to go through hell to get to heaven’ which is shown in the walkway of hands, representing things holding you down, leading onto Heaven which is the temple its self. Inside we weren’t allowed to take photos but the back wall was meant to show hell so it had Osama bin Laden with George Bush riding a nuke, evil super heros and well known figures being conqured by the hero’s such as Spider man and Pikachu, yano normal temple shit.

The tour guide became our personal photographer for the day. And yes.. I did wear white for the photo purpose of the day!

The detail among the grounds were amazing

We brought a heart and signed both of our names as it is meant to bring good luck and hung them on this.. thing above us!

Next we went to the Blue Temple which was built by a student of Chalermchai Kositpipat.  The blue color represents the Dharma, the Lord Buddha virtue code of moral that spread all over the world becomes the doctrine of logically naturalistic as the bright blue sky. This temple displays the contemporary Buddhist art that implied the Lord Buddha ‘s doctrine.

Such a good photographer he turned out to be!

We then went on to some Chinese styled temples and this mamouth of a land mark. If you have good eye sight you might be able to see the bindi spot.. that is where the next photo was taken!

From here I am going to travel even further north, to Pai! I have been looking forward to this ever since I landed in Thailand and I cannot wait to get there!..Even if it is 5 hour bus ride with 762 turns in the road. Great.