One of the places I wanted to visit while in Thailand is a city named Chiang Mai. It’s located about 435 miles north of Bangkok up in the northwest corner of Thailand. I’d been told it’s a nice place to visit and has a lot of neat places to visit.
New, her son Foi, and I left for Chiang Mai at 10:00pm on a bus ride that would take about 9 hours. We would like to have flown instead, but Foi doesn’t have a photo ID so getting on a plane wasn’t an option. Luckily for us, the Chiang Mai – Bangkok route is a popular one and they offer VIP buses that make the ride a lot more enjoyable. Rather than taking a standard bus, the VIP buses are configured with only 32 seats that resemble lazy-boy chairs with built in massagers. It makes for a very comfortable ride. The best part is that it’s only about $17 for each person each way.
We spent 4 days in Chiang Mai doing a variety of things. The hotel we stayed at was located about one block away from a huge night bazaar that had a lot of different items for sale, and also had a huge variety of places to eat. We spent each evening walking around doing some shopping and trying out the different foods.
One of the places I wanted to visit in Chiang Mai was a temple located up on a hill overlooking the city. The name of the temple is Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep. It’s a sacred temple dating back to the 1300’s and includes pagodas, statues, bells and shrines. It also provides a really nice view looking back down on Chiang Mai when the rain clouds go away.
The temple was beautiful and we spent several hours wandering around looking at everything. It was definitely worth the visit.
