Thai Time: Northern Edition

After finishing my year teaching in Korea, I headed off for the warm mountains of northern Thailand, Chiang Mai to precise. After spending a day in transit (Seoul to Hong Kong to Bangkok to Chiang Mai) I arrived at the Eagle House 2 in Chiang Mai. My room was big and clean, but those are pretty much the only good things I have to say about the place. It was noisy, the staff was unpleasant, the restaurant was plain bad, and their tour guides were not very knowledgeable. Apart from that I had a great time in Chiang Mai. It's a really laid back city, a great place to unwind from a crazy couple weeks in Seoul. While I was there I took a day trip to the highest mountain in Thailand, Doi Inthanon 2500m, and visited a Karen (one of the hill tribes in the area) village. I did that with a guide, but everything else I went and did on my own.

Chiang Mai is a city of temples, and I visited three of them, but I could have easily visited 30 if I had been so inclined. The first temple I went to was Wat Chiang Man, just up the street from my hotel. It was a pretty serene place, but not too visually spectacular. It's the oldest temple in Chiang Mai and did have a rather impressive stupa, with a number of elephants carved around it.


The next day I headed out to visit two temples. The first one I went to was Wat Phra Singh. This is generally considered the most impressive temple in the city, and it certainly was beautiful. I walked around there for an hour or so and then headed for a forest temple, Wat U Mong. This wat turned out to be the most impressive Buddhist temple I have visited so far. I think part of the appeal was because I was the only tourist there; just me and the monks. it was built by a group of monks, led by an alleged clairvoyant monk. I don't know if he was clairvoyant or not, but he certainly made a beautiful temple. there were a number of brick lined meditation tunnels underground, with random shrines every few dozen meters. It was an eerie place to walk around alone. I tried to take some pictures, but the light wasn't quite good enough. This however inspired me to buy a small tripod when I got back to Chiang Mai, now i should be able to get some really good low light shots.

Those were pretty much the higlights of my trip to Chiang Mai, but problems getting my visa for Myanmar forced me back to Bangkok 2 days earlier than planned. Without going into great detail my guesthouse told me they'd have no problem getting a visa for me, days before I needed to leave. Next thing I know they told me there were no Myanmar visas being issued to anyone; I didn't believe this. I went to another travel agent and was told no visas until the 22nd; I didn't believe that. So I decided to take matters into my own hands, and after some Lonely Planet online searching changed my flight back to Bangkok and was able to get my Myanmar visa in one day, on the 13th. I did have to be at the embassy at 6am, but I got it done in one day for less than they wanted to charge me in Chiang Mai. If the job has to be done right, you have to do it yourself I guess.

So tomorrow I head back to the airport and set out for Rangoon, Mandaly, Bagan, and Inle Lake. I did the Thailand portion of my trip on quite a tight budget, but I think I will spend a bit more in Myanmar, stay in some nicer places. I have no idea what internet access will be like in Myanmar, but I expect it's rather limited. On the 28th i head to Cambodia, and will probably blog about my Myanmar trip at that point.