In my latest installment of travel reportages, I’d like to take you along on a trip to Thailand. My wife and I had traveled a big part of the country during our SE-Asia trip in 2009, but we enjoyed our time in Thailand so much we decided to come back. During out last visit we didn’t make it to the Northern part, so we decided to rectify that this time around and flew straight on to Chiang Mai.
During our weeklong stay in the city, we visited many of its ancient temples, including the famous Wat Doi Suthep, which towers over the city from one of the many lush hillsides.
The more centrally located temples may not be as famous as Wat Doi Suthep, but are definitely worth a visit as well.
Two of the larger temples in downtown Chiang Mai even have a ‘monk chat’ corner, where everyone can come and have a talk with the monks and learn more about the daily life in the monistary, or whatever it is you’ve always wanted to know about the Buddhistic beliefs. I enjoyed an enlightening conversation with the two monks below.
In the countryside near Chiang Mai, we visited an elephant sanctuary, hiked to a Karen ‘long neck’ hill tribe and got caught in a monsoon while floating down a river on a bamboo raft.
After a week in the North, we flew down to Trang and spent a week of R&R on the idyllic island of Koh Ngai. In one word: paradise.
