In truth, it meant eliminating only three locations from my itinerary of thirty-plus so didn't mean I had to wholly reshape my plans. I felt like focussing my efforts on destinations I'd never visited before could be a great way to ensure some new experiences on my travels and also it would mean me having no safety net in terms of previous experiences and knowledge.
This strategy has both its positives and negatives; The unfamiliarity of being in a new place sometimes means I take a while to settle in. If I was going somewhere I had been before I feel like I would be more confident about knowing my way around, where to get food and in certain situations which places to avoid.
It does, however, mean that I am more likely to be pleasantly surprised when I enjoy a new experience, and this often gives me a sense of achievement from having accomplished something I had not previously done. I do enjoy doing new things, and going to unfamiliar places - I feel like it brings the adventurous nature in my character to the fore.
After a couple of days there, I realised that it was totally different to how I imagined it would be and I didn't encounter anything like what I had heard, or what I had read about it's 'seedy underbelly' (that's not to say it doesn't exist). My experience of the city could not be more positive, but I do understand that other people's views may have been completely different depending on where they stayed and what they did. For me, Bangkok surpassed expectations and should an opportunity present itself in the future, I wouldn't hesitate to visit there again in the future.
Although I mentioned in a blog post the other day that I try to avoid looking at too much information about the places I am visiting, it is only natural that I am going to come across the occasional picture of the city itself, or a somewhere that I might be going. Sometimes I feel like seeing photos can give me a good idea of what I am getting into, but often they create a false impression, or can be quite misleading about what I should expect.
This is very true of my current location which is in the northern region of Thailand. From hearing people talk about it, and looking at pictures I thought that it was going to be a huge sprawling metropolis - not quite to the same standard as Bangkok, but I certainly thought it was going to be larger than I discovered on my travels today.
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Despite booking myself a flight to leave Bangkok at around lunchtime, I still had to wake up quite early this morning to prepare myself to make the journey. I made sure to have some breakfast to start what was sure to be another tiring day and I shuffled some stuff around in my bag to try and make it less uncomfortable, which I have noticed it has become on arrival at my last few destinations.
I was leaving out of Don Muang airport, which is the same one I arrived into on Wednesday evening, so I was making the reverse journey using first the Skytrain and then the bus. Considering I had used public transport to get there when I first arrived and had used it yesterday as well, I was pretty confident about knowing where to do, but still set off about an hour and a half before I needed to be at the airport, as I had no idea what sort of schedule the buses to the airport run on - particularly at the weekend.
Predictably the train was very crowded so I had to stick my rucksack on the floor to avoid whacking anyone with it and when I changed after three stations to get onto the correct line to go to the furthest station it, I managed to find myself a little corner to stand in so as not to be in anyone's way.
The train journey probably took about 35 minutes so I still had plenty of time, and once I managed to find the bus stop was which goes to the airport, it was only another five minutes before I boarded the A2 and was on my way.
I arrived at the airport at about 10:15 am, checked in and then went to my boarding gate. Don Muang airport isn't huge, but it still has quite a few gates in the domestic departures terminal, there were at least five or six shops which I was able to browse whilst waiting. Aside from when it has been self-inflicted because of my arrival time, I don't ever feel like my waiting time in the airport has been excessive. Air Asia, who I usually fly with, tend to set boarding times on their flights about 35-45 minutes before they are due to take off, and they usually stick to them meaning that you don't feel like you're sitting around endlessly waiting to go somewhere.
Due to the fact that I was relatively early, when I got to my gate, there was actually another flight just about to depart. I sat and watched as despite the flight time being at 11:10am, they were still doing 'last calls' at 11:30am and people were still moseying onto the plane at a leisurely pace. I'm not sure whether they were being patient due to a connecting flight being late, or they were just pretty blaise about the whole thing.
I took a look carefully what airline it was, and realised that it was a flight with Lion Air, the same company I'd travelled to Bali with, and who had made me arrive about three hours late due to huge delay in my journey - might explain a few things.
Thankfully my plane boarded on time and we were actually about ten minutes early when we touched down into Chiang Mai airport. My flight wasn't completely full and I slept through most of it, but it was quite bumpy on the way down. I had been reading online yesterday that due to forest fires in this region (a common occurrence in Northern Thailand) arrival into Chiang Mai can be turbulent and they weren't wrong as the plane seemed to sway from side-to-side as we descended through what looked to be thick smog before eventually touching down with a light dab on the runway.
Whilst waiting for my bag to be returned to me, I picked up a couple of maps and noticed that on one of them, my hotel was actually printed on there. I think that must be the first time in my life that I have picked somewhere notable enough for me not to have to show a taxi driver the address of my hotel.
I was told that the best way to get there was to take an airport taxi so I went outside and grabbed one for the reasonable price of 160 Baht (just over three pounds).
I didn't know a great detail before I arrived, but I had read enough to understand that the main city of Chiang Mai is inside a now crumbling walled area. Though you see many people cycling or riding mopeds, it is actually fairly easy to walk around - as I discovered once I had checked into my hotel and collected my thoughts about what I was going to spend the afternoon doing.
If you imagine the main city centre to be a square (which it is, essentially is due to the city walls) I am staying in the top right hand corner and came from the airport which is on the bottom left hand corner. As we drove here I noticed certain sections of the wall which remained, and was able to get a better view of them after a two minute walk from my hotel to the Sriphum Corner:
Chiang Mai is filled with temples and the map which I had picked up and was carrying with me showed the location of each and every one within the city. I felt like that was probably where I was going to spend the bulk of my time so set off around the perimeter of the wall to find the best point to see as many as I could.
It felt quite strange to be walking around the perimeter of the wall instead of inside it, but it was quite pleasant as there was a canal running around the outside with fountains and flowers used for decorative purposes. Despite the haze on my arrival by plane, it seemed to have cleared up somewhat - and I was feeling rather warm as I came across a couple of little bridges which gave you access into the centre of the city itself.
There are four gates around the outside of the city - they are relatively well preserved and I tried to photograph some of them as best as I could:
When I got to the first gate I decided that considering how much I had been enjoying walking around and looking at everything that was going on, I was going to continue walking until the next gate. Eventually when I arrived there I decided to complete the whole 2km by 2km square and get back to where I started, entering by the most northerly gate which gave me good access to a street with about five or six temples on.
There was nothing spectacular to the scenery which I was walking around the outside, but it was very relaxing in the lovely weather to take things at my own steady pace.
I noticed that both right hand side of the square I was walking in seemed to be quite built up with restaurants and bars, and felt like this would be a good place to get some dinner later on.
The canal around the outside of the walls, I am presuming used to be a moat when they were at their height, but it seemed as though some local people had taken to swimming in it despite it not looking like the cleanest water I had ever seen in my life:
In fairness the few times I walked past a fountain and got a little bit of spray on me from it, I could see why they thought it was a good idea to jump in and cool themselves down - still didn't make me have any desire to do so though.
Eventually after about an hour or so I had completed my circuit, and I entered through what is known as the Chang Puak gate which is the city's most northerly point. I was intending to find as many of the temples listed on the map as I possible could, but just before I had gone through the gate I had actually photographed a couple of impressive ones which I had seen on my travels.
The first I had seen was the Wat Lok Molee which required me to cross a ridiculously busy road to get there, but it was well worth it for some great views:
The second one I came across was on the inside of the walls and was called Wat Montien. I loved the architecture of the roof on this one and was quite taken in by the large golden statue of Buddha:
Continuing on my way I came to the first of the temples on the main Prapokkao Road which was Wat Mor Khum Thuang:
Continuing down the road I also visited Wat Pantao:
Before eventually getting to the one which I thought was the most impressive which is Wat Chedi Luong:
Chedi Luong is one which is recommended on a couple of websites I'd looked at and it is easy to see why just by looking at the picture above of the main temple building itself. I went inside for a little while and sat as there was a ritual going on. There were actually quite a few tourists in there witnessing the action, and it gave me a good opportunity to take some pictures of the interior of the building, something that it's not always possible to do:
From here I continued round the back of the main temple as came across this impressive stone structure:
This is the part of Wat Chedi Luong which makes it so impressive as it looked to be ancient, but still in excellent condition. Unfortunately you weren't able to access it, but I was able to get some fantastic pictures of it from various angles:
The sun was starting to set on Chiang Mai at this point and having gone from north to south I was going to head back around the first side of the wall I had walked around where as I mentioned earlier there were lots of restaurants. I am fully aware that as a solo traveller in Thailand, I have to be extremely careful about where I choose to spend my time once all the bright neon lights have come on. I saw there were a few places with 'bar and restaurant' in the title which were playing loud music and clearly getting ready for a busy Saturday night.
I thought best to avoid those and instead, showing my sensible side, went to a restaurant which was just off the main road. I looked at the menu and it looked nice, and even more reassuringly there was a sign on the door which said: 'No Soliciting'; perfect.
I ended up eating something called Lumh which was minced pork with vegetables and I had this with some rice and Thai iced tea. I have to praise myself slightly on how my eating habits have definitely improved in both Malaysia and Thailand. I think it is partly because of how much more accessible food is here than in the Philippines for example.
Once I'd finished I took a short walk back to my hotel which looked to be living up to it's on the map reputation now that the lights had gone out completely:
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Keane
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