Thailand 2025: Chiang Mai

 Continuing our Thailand adventure...We flew from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, flight was about 90 minutes and we got an unexpected snack onboard.  Thai airports are super efficient and we were soon in our taxi on a 15 minute ride to centre of Chiang Mai and to our beautiful hotel, Tamarind. A small, very old, traditional style boutique hotel. Named after the 200 year old Tamarind tree it was built around.  

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We were out a lot exploring and our room was a beautiful. refreshing, retreat, and such a pleasure to return to after a full on day out in this busy city.  The Tamarind is well situated, within walking distance of all the tourist 'must sees' yet very quiet, a  peaceful oasis despite the noisy streets beyond its walls.  The famous Monday night market wraps around this hotel.

We took a walk to the three King's monument. The oldest buddhist temple in CM and the womens prison vocational training centre, where prisoners can learn massage and catering skills to prepare them for a career when their sentence is completed.   We had a Thai massage (pictures of inside and of prisoners not allowed).  I had a full body massage, steve had legs and feet, both were excellent.  

We ate lunch here twice. the food was delicious and very low priced.

We really enjoyed our visits, the women were really friendly and keen to please (you give a score card 0-5 to the wardens on leaving. My masseuse cheekily asked for a 5 and deserved it, she was great!)

Food was vegetables in oyster sauce, spring rolls, and steamed rice day 1 and day 2 morning glory and rice. Very tasty.

The temples are open all the time, decorated with flowers and visited by many Thai people and tourists.

We were booked on a bed and breakfast basis only as there were plenty of small bars selling Thai or western food, beer and soft drinks, all around us, also some great backpacking hostels with catering.  

Below : local.hostels

Below: Annie's bar where we ate lunch and dinner or just enjoyed a few cold beers.

This is one of the best night markets I have ever seen, there were whole streets lined with masseuse for foot massage. It's astounding how many Thai people stop for a massage, cost is about 5 uk pounds or less.

 We spent many hours in the Monday night market, which ran right outside our hotel and stretched for 5km, maybe more,  through all streets, the police close the area to traffic once a week for this and hundreds of stalls line the road, 3 deep in places, with fresh cooked food, clothes, jewellery, souvenirs, bhudda, carvings, fortune telling, pavement artists, there are street musicians and police put barriers up to ensure people keep to one side of the street as its so congested.

on our last  night in Chiang Mai, we ate delicious Thai curry in the Tamarind.

Mango colada

Spring rolls 

Deep fried mushrooms 

Beff curry for steve and green tofu curry for me

Macarons, first time I have had them! 

Next stop Kao Lak!

Thailand 2025: Bangkok

 It's more than 30 years since we last visited Bangkok and much has changed.  The skyline is now crowded with sky scrapers and there's a new Skytrain and also a Metro tube train service.

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We stayed at Movenpick Bangkok for 2 nights and as soon as we had dropped our bags off we headed out to Soi Cowboy area, a red light district, populated with plenty of bars and restaurants and an easy walk from our hotel.

On the way back, We ate at Chowpatti, an Indian restaurant chain with authentic dishes, beer and a happy hour, what more could we ask for!  We shared poppadoms; Steve had tandoori chicken, a tray of assorted  dishes and dips, consisting of chicken tikka masala, black bean curry,  yellow lentil curry, naan bread, rice, gulaab dessert and for veggie me the same but  replacing the chicken with paneer green curry washed down with Tiger beer.

The following day we took the tuktuk to the skytrain and bought return tickets for the river terminal where we bought hop on hop off tourist boat tickets for about 4 pounds each.  You can use the tickets all day to jump off at tourist landmarks.

We took the boat to the end of the route (13 stops) and then went back, jumping off to explore the flower market, a vast area full of wholesale flowers, brought in by boat, packed on ice in warehouses and distributed to shops, hotels and temples all over Bangkok.  Many stalls in the market were busy making the flowers into intricate displays for temples.  The scent of roses (30 UK pence a bag) filled the air.  There were red roses as far as the eye could see, marigolds, chrysanthemums, leaves woven into beautiful displays with white buds and flowers I had never seen before!

Yaowarat Road is where China Town begins.

Then we went back on the boat and jumped off at China Town.  China Town is a huge,  sprawling area that runs into many streets and alleyways, a never ending street market full of food vendors, all kinds of little wheeled stalls selling clothing, household goods. Mopeds loaded with small trolleys that stop and cook noodles or stir fry, and many people offering massage in chairs on the street, every available space on pavements is utilised..

We had a cold lemon soda in a cafe and headed back by boat and train then tuk tuk, in total walking 8 miles that day.

We ate just round the corner from our hotel at Chowpatti again.  It was just too good to pass by!  This time we had the same as before with smashed samosa starter to share.

The following day we flew to Chiang Mai....