SEA 2023 (9/17) – Chiang Mai: Itinerary

Nobody deplanes from a red-eye flight refreshed. The overnight train was a different story. When rolling into Chiang Mai Station at 7:15am, we were well rested and ready to go.

Day 6

We hopped on our very first songthaew an headed to the hotel.

We had contemplated a couple American chains, but ultimately decided to stay within the boundaries of old city walls where only local hotel options were available. This turned out to be a good call. What we settled on was Phor Liang Meun Terracotta Arts Hotel, which was conveniently located and had an artsy design throughout.

We knew it as Terracotta Arts Hotel but local drivers seemed to call it Phor Liang Meun Hotel

The friendly hotel staff gave us refreshments while processing our paperwork. However, the rooms weren’t ready at such early hours, so we headed out for our first adventure after dropping off the bags.

The Chiang Mai Gate Market was steps away from the hotel, and 8am was a prime grocery shopping hour. We strolled through it to soak in local vibes.

Next up was breakfast. I had my heart set on Khao Soi Khun Yai, one of the supposedly best khao soi restaurants in Chiang Mai. None of us had ever had khao soi, the curry noodle soup of northern Thailand, and we wanted to start with the best. Sitting along the northern wall of the old city, Khao Soi Khun Yai was 1.2 miles away. We still had 1.5 hours until its opening at 10am, but started heading over knowing that we’d need some pit stops.

Before we could go five blocks, we stopped at See You Soon Cafe. The drinks were tasty and cute, but I was somewhat fixated on its lack of AC and the cheesy cartoon fruits on each waitress’s headband.

Then we walked by this hotel called Chala Number 6. It was pretty, and used high-quality fake plants (lotus flowers, passion fruit flowers, and mangoes) to decorate its exterior. We had a brief debate about the those plants being real or deepfake. A couple days later Bah and Mah would be convinced (“We saw a tree with extremely plump mangoes! Thailand indeed has a better climate for this fruit than Taiwan.”) and we had to put in a lot of work to bring them to reality. This unusually large mango tree would turn out to be Mah’s deepest memory and favorite conversation topic from this trip.

Despite having made a second stop at a 7-Eleven for some AC and ice-cold water, we were scorched by the time we reached the northern wall at Chang Phueak Gate. The moat surrounding this square city was lovely, with its water the color of Thai iced tea.

At 10am sharp, we arrived at Khao Soi Khun Yai. It was a bit worrisome that its gate remained closed, but soon we noticed workers inside moving large pots around. Minutes later, the gate opened and we charged in.

This restaurant was nothing but a basic shack. When Ting needed to use the potty, we were told to go to the adjacent temple. I got to practice a bit of my Thai here, and the boss lady was very encouraging.

Khao soi, it turned out, was delicious. It appeared somewhat like laksa, but was simpler in construction and tasted more pure. Whereas laksa tended to be salty and fishy, khao soi was silky and heavy on coconut milk. I wasn’t a fan of the crispy noodle topping, but the side of raw onion and pickled mustard more than made up for it. We ordered two more bowls after the initial two. The family who was getting mad about walking so far in the sun turned around to agree with the destination.

Eating a hot and spicy bowl of soup on a hot Thai day, though, was best reflected in this sequence of photos…

After the amazing breakfast, we hopped on a songthaew and headed back to the hotel. With a coconut in hand to cool down, we waited for my parents to arrive from Taiwan.

It had been over 4 years since we hung out with Bah and Mah, thanks to the pandemic. Ting had doubled in age during this time, and my hair increased tenfold in length. The two of them looked about the same, but seemed older when they moved around. Sigh… it was good to see them.

Lunch was planned at Khao Soi Islam, another famous noodle joint with supposedly the best khao soi in Chiang Mai. This halal restaurant had a bunch of vegetarian dishes, so it was a good place to take Bah. Unfortunately, it was closed for the day, and we ended up eating roti and mataba from a small shop across the street. It was tasty, too, but felt more like a snack than a proper meal.

To make up for that disappointment, we went for dinner at Khaomao-Khaofang Imaginary Jungle. It was 5 miles south of the old city and took 30 minutes by car. Worth it, though. This restaurant was totally designed to impress. Its entrance and reception area looked like this:

This jungle restaurant was basically a real-life version of the Rainforest Cafe. It had real trees, bushes, and flowers. It had a real lake and waterfalls. Instead of animatronic animals, it had fish, mosquitos, and ants. Instead of simulated thunderstorms played over speakers, it was exposed to real rain… sure, not every aspect was pleasant, but it was a truly unique experience to dine in a real tropical jungle!

About half of the restaurant was covered under a roof, and the other half was around the lake. We were seated by the water, which gave us a comprehensive jungle experience: when it rained, it got all over our table and plates… thank goodness this was happening right as we finished up with dinner, but I was confused by how this restaurant could operate in such a climate with so much exposed seating.

The food was not bad, but what was truly memorable (according to Mah) was the restaurant’s artfully-decorated bathroom.

In between lunch and dinner, we went for Thailand’s amazing massage service. It worked out as follows: (a) Bah was the only adult who really did not care for massages; (b) Xuan and Ting were dying to spend as much time as they could get in the hotel pool; (c) Bah was happy to spend time with his granddaughters. So, he stayed behind to babysit while Mah, Hong, and I went down the street and sought out massage parlors. This would repeat not just on day 6, but also days 7, 9, and 10 (in Chiang Rai). That was so nice…

Day 7

Our main sightseeing day in Chiang Mai began with a hotel breakfast. It was nowhere near comparable to what Grand Hyatt had on buffet, but cute with a personal touch. And its coffee was better.

Then we hired a songthaew for a round-trip temple tour. First we went up Doi Suthep for Wat Phra That:

Then we returned to the old city and visited Wat Phra Singh:

In between those, of course, we needed a break with cold drinks. This was at Zohng Cafe next to the second temple.

Despite the icy beverages, though, the kids were overheated again before hopping on another songthaew to lunch:

Second attempt at visiting Khao Soi Islam was a success. It was a larger and somewhat more climate-controlled restaurant than Khao Soi Khun Yai. The waitress led us to a table. Five of us got settled. Then Mah rolled in and insisted that we all move to another table with better access to ceiling fans… and she felt really strongly about it 🙂

I loved the food. The soup wasn’t as thick and the noodles were softer than what we ate yesterday, but it was still an excellent bowl of soup noodles. They also had this awesome khao mok phea (goat biriyani) that we re-ordered within the same meal. Too bad Bah and Mah didn’t really have a passion for trying foreign foods so they just ate and had no comments.

First-time tourists to Chiang Mai were generally encouraged to plan their visit around a weekend, because of the city’s famous Saturday and Sunday Night Markets. We headed to the Saturday Night Market this evening, which began at Chiang Mai Gate right by our hotel.

It was… grand. Having grown up in Taipei, you’d think no night market could faze me. But the crowd here was seriously dense and we got exhausted before reaching the other end. That was a lot more fun than I expected. In hindsight I wish we had sat down for a proper meal toward the beginning, because once we started moving we kind of just drifted forward with the crowd. We had to bring some random snacks back and munch on them at the hotel.

Southeast Asian flavored ice cream bars with handmade finger guard. 10 baht each, or less than $1 USD for 3!

We also took mini a detour to see the Silver Temple.

Day 8

If we had to pick a single “best” day of the trip, it most likely would be the day of elephants. Visiting an elephant sanctuary was our initial reason to plan a trip to Chiang Mai, so I could argue that the entire 15-day awesome vacation was planned around this particular event. That, of course, warrants its own separate post.

After the elephant sanctuary, we washed up and went to the Sunday Night Market. Learning from yesterday’s experience, we sat down at a proper restaurant and had dinner first. It was very much of an okay restaurant, but served vegetarian dishes and cold drinks, so we were good.

Whereas the Saturday Night Market was south of the old city, starting from Chiang Mai Gate and heading southwest, the Sunday Night Market anchored at Tha Phae Gate and took up several main streets within the eastern half of the old city. It was similarly dense and expansive so we did not even try to explore it all.

Right from the very start, Xuan spotted a grilled meat stall advertising crocodile meat, and requested a skewer. This was among the very few things that she specifically asked for on this trip and… it made me proud! It wasn’t very tasty but hey, how would we know if we didn’t try?

And of course we all got some coconut ice cream to share.

We took two tuk tuks back to the hotel. They were fine, but not nearly as exciting as their peers in Bangkok.

Day 9

Because everyone else in the family seemed to have reached their limit on temple visits, I thought I’d get up at 6am and speed through a couple nearby ones before breakfast. Hong decided to join me, so I dragged her to Wat Chedi Luang and Wat Chiang Man. I would have been really sad to leave Chiang Mai without seeing the former, but the latter was rather passable.

On the way back to the hotel – Chiang Mai Gate and Chiang Mai Gate Market

Then we ate breakfast before more of the swim-babysit-massage combo.

Lunch was at Aum, a vegetarian restaurant 1/4 mile south of Chiang Mai Gate. So Bah and Mah had complained for a while before agreeing to join us on this trip about how Thailand had no vegetarian food. I countered with, “Um, hello? How do you not have vegetarian food in a Buddhist country?” To prove a point, I ~~did some research~~ typed some words into Google. Aum came up as conveniently located and well regarded. Thus we ate here for our last meal, versus going to another khao soi joint on my bucket list.