What kind of adventure are you looking to partake during your limited time of traveling?

For my one week in Thailand and another one week in Cambodia, I had “loose” outline of how I want my travel to be shaped up; so all I really needed was just accommodation for first night at the popular destination and few flights from point A to point B. That’s it.
There was not much time in hand, but small preparation has switched my mind to auto-pilot mode and enabled me on flexible traveling.

My next travel destination followed by 3 days in Southern islands was Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.
After spending about 3 hours of oversea/land travel from Koh Phangan back to Surat Thani Airport, I caught another AirAsia flight back to Bangkok and transferred the flight from there to Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai is old city with many cultural and historical backgrounds.
This beautiful city in the North holds some of Thailand’s top attractions: Rich concentration of country’s oldest temples (Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, Wat Chiang Man), unique culinary experiences (Khao soi) as well as great jungle hike trails and elephant farms!
As you can see, there’s infinite awesome options to explore here.

Before we parted our ways at Surat Thani, Jon, one of our travel mates wrote me a note on the back of Lonely Planet’s “Thai for Beginner”. He scribbled down few words in Thai along with words ‘crispy noodle curry’ and told me it is our mission to taste Chiang Mai’s most important delicacy: Khao Soi.

So that’s exactly what we did upon our arrival to Chiang Mai that night.
My friend Ross and I wandered around the night streets searching for Khao Soi to calm our ever growing hunger and loudly growling stomach.

The problem was – Neither of us knew what Khao Soi looks like, and of course we had no Thai language ability to back us up (or ไม่พูดไทย “mai poot tai”). So what we thought to be easy walk to grab a dinner actually became one hell of adventure!

Luckily, turns out people in Chiang Mai are very friendly and AMAZINGLY sincere.
Soon we stumbled upon small gathering of local college students at noodle stand and started to roll a conversation with minimal set of Thai vocabularies that I have picked up from aforementioned “Thai for Beginner” book. Everyone was so welcoming and also humble to study English language – this helped us greatly in “getting the point across”. Instantaneously, we started a small language-exchange session.

One thing that all travelers must not fear to remember is that:
People will try to understand you if you try to speak their language, so don’t fear to approach people just because of seemingly enormous language barrier!

Believe me. English is more prevalent language in the world than ever was.
Even if all else fails, hand gesture works all the time!
Don’t be shy and miss out on chances to have great conversation with locals!

I want to give you a simple tip:
When you ask for direction, ask for nearest landmarks or something that is recognizable to use in navigation.
Bridge and train station near your destination are generally more familiar for locals to understand what you are talking about.
Look out for post office or main streets that are close to your destination. Drawing the picture of landmark on piece of paper can help this process as well. Asking for direction to specific address to restaurant or tour company will be much difficult to communicate without comfortable language skills.

Also, many tuk-tuk (3-wheeler) and taxi drivers can speak English in most tourist busy destinations so rest assured you will less likely to experience that much difficulty in transportation from one location to the other.

After 10-15 minutes of charades, our attempt to ask for direction to restaurant (that serves mysterious Khao Soi) started to bear a fruit. One of the girls in the group pointed to the opposite direction of the street we came from and gave us simple direction like turn left on the big street and such – like what I have mentioned above, it is always good idea to ask for landmarks that is recognizable in case you get completely lost.
7-11 was very common and obvious landmark for us in this case; with its vivid green and orange signs there is virtually no way of missing the turn. So we thanked the college kids and went on our way.

Another exciting thing about traveling is that any wrong turns can only take you to somewhere new and interesting.

…

Ok, I will admit. We got lost. Like completely lost. We sucked really bad at following the first direction and forgot where to go from the 7-11!

We could just give up at this point, but instead, we decided to speak with other locals and continue on our hunt for Khao Soi.
Over the course of an hour we spoke with many people – girl working at cellphone store who wanted to go to US to study, Japanese man working at izakaya karaoke restaurant, and few random pedestrians who did/did not speak English.

Everyone was extremely nice and friendly, so even though we could not find Khao Soi that night we had pretty good time talking to locals and seeing different faces of the city.
At the end of the night we stumbled upon a small food stand that served quite possibly the best pad-Thai ever.
So there you go – spontaneity wins at last!

Once the loose framework of traveling is set, you are on the flow.
The flow will take you on a wonderful ride to new experiences.
This is exactly how I approached to improvise my travel itinerary.

I stayed in Chiang Mai for total of 3 nights, of which the first and the last day are spent mostly on traveling to-from Chiang Mai.
Day 2 and Day 3 are left completely open and I had not booked any tour in advance for those two days.

When you stay at hostels or guest houses, there will be many chances to connect with other travelers and/or will be exposed to various adventure options. So booking the expensive tour in advance will only hampers you from flexible decision making.
For all 3 nights in Chiang Mai, I have booked the room with Spicythai Backpackers Hostel not too far from city central (only 200m from the old city) and received recommendation on awesome 2 days trekking tour right at the door!

Spicythai Backpackers was very nice hostel and I would highly recommend it to anyone intending to stay in Chiang Mai for short term or long term. The offered tour involved intensive day hike in the country side of Chiang Mai and staying at the lodge in the middle of Hmong hill tribe, and also an elephant ride and bamboo rafting!
Many activities are spread across two days and included all transportation, food, and accommodation.
The tour price was around 3800 baht which converts to $118.
It is actually much easier and sometimes cheaper to book tours through local tour company or front desks.

In this post, I will include some snapshots from the 2 days adventure in Chiang Mai guided by very talented bamboo craft maker, Maxi, from Chiang Rai. I just cannot thank him enough for his great sense of humor and pure hospitality to show us around the most beautiful landscapes that I have ever seen in my life!

These photos are taken with Kodak Ektar 100, Ilford PAN F (expired), and Expired Agfa slide (cross-processed).
I especially like the result of large format B&W film!

Hope you enjoy:

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(Kodak Ektar 100)
Chiang Mai adventure started at the local market.
Here you see various kind of fruit drinks in colorful cylinder.

Matthieu and Armandine getting coconut pancakes.

Cow and her child in the middle of remote village in Chiang Mai.

Domestic scene in the village.
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Ross standing in front of old house in the rural side of Chiang Mai.

His day starts from here. Every day.

About 1hr ride on pickup truck, we stopped at remote village in Chiang Mai and ate pad-thai for lunch. This is my friend Shuki (on right) buying a can of coca-cola from the lady that works at the food stop.

After lunch, our tour guide Maxi took us through moderate jungle hike into Hmong tribe in the shade of hilly landscapes. My Hmong friend passionately explained to me his love for Japanese motorbike!
Well maintained, isn’t it?

Meet our tour guide Maxi.
He is comedian, bamboo craft maker, and machete warrior from Chiang Rai.

This is how most of the hiking trail looked like. Doesn’t look too hard of a hike, eh?

This breathtaking view was waiting at the exit of bamboo forest.

 

We can kind of see Hmong tribe in the distance. That is the direction we’re heading to.

Taking a short break.

Machete warrior Maxi cut us some fresh papaya from the tree. What an awesome guy.

We walk passed cabbage field maintained by Hmong tribe people.

Maxi and some baskets of cabbage in the middle of field. We are really getting close to the Hmong hill tribe lodge.

 (ILFORD PAN F)
Young Hmong man crafting basket with bamboo fibers.

Arriving Hmong hill tribe.

This is a view from the highest hill at our lodge area in twilight hour.

Next morning. A break of dawn at Hmong hill tribe.

This dog was extremely friendly and loved our company. He even followed us on the hike to the jungle (well, he eventually got hungry and turned back home)! His human lives in the Hmong tribe.

The lodge was maintained by Hmong families. They are making some sort of seating platform with the wood pieces.

 

This guy. Screeched away the morning like Skrillex.

Day 2: another great weather.

Hmong mother and her baby.

Morning hours in hill tribe lodge was so slow and relaxed.
Here’s Shuki pondering on his Thailand journey so far.

This is the small garden in our hill tribe lodge (opposite view from above)

All packed and ready to go.
We slowly walked down the hills and passed this amazing looking hut.

Harvest season was on! Cabbage. Cabbage. Cabbage!

Hmong ladies harvesting cabbages.

(AGFA Chrome CT Precisa Color Slide – Cross-processed)Maxi crafting water cup out of bamboo.

Lunch break at local restaurant. This is fully functional old school Pioneer karaoke machine.

A boy and elephants.

Helmets for bamboo rafting.

…and FINALLY! We found Khao Soi!
This is what ‘crispy noodle curry’ looks like. Delicious stuff!

Thank you for reading my post!
I hope these photos and captions showed you how awesome Chiang Mai is! It was definitely my #1 favorite place to visit in Thailand.
If this story somehow inspired you to visit, please feel free to leave a comment with any questions and I would love to share more detail and recommendation with you 🙂

In next posting, I will share the second half story of Chiang Mai travel as well as over night travel to the old Thai capital: Ayutthaya!