10/29/2025 - 11/27/2025

We left Istanbul in the afternoon and took an overnight flight to Thailand. Travel time was pretty long – the first flight was about 8.5 hours, but we upgraded our seats to allow more leg room, so at least we weren’t as cramped as we usually are.

Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand with a population of 1.2 million people. It is located in Northern Thailand near Myanmar and Laos. It is hot and humid! We left Istanbul where we were dressed in fall attire and landed in 90 degree heat with high humidity (about 80%). It rains pretty much daily, but usually not for long. Doing my hair is a complete lost cause… don’t judge my appearance in the photos!

Our (my) initial impression of Chiang Mai wasn’t great! I had read and heard SO many positive things (and literally ZERO negatives) that my expectations may have been too high! And to be fair, we were jet lagged, grouchy, and hot and sweaty, which didn’t help our first impressions. It is a poor country (average annual income of about $10,000) and it shows. The sidewalks are broken, uneven, underwater, or non-existent, so walking around was challenging (until we got used to it) and was putting me in a bad mood for our first couple days! It didn’t help that Google maps takes you on the most jacked up walking routes (random crappy little side streets, alleyways, paths between houses with dogs barking at you…)

But once we got over the jet lag, embraced the hot sticky weather, learned some decent walking routes, and started enjoying how cheap everything is, we really started liking it a lot. It is just a very different culture that you need to get used to and embrace. The people are SO stinking nice and I am rather enjoying not having to be so hypervigilant looking out for scams like we did in Istanbul.

The Old City of Chiang Mai is a big square approximately 1 mile x 1 mile. It was once enclosed by ancient walls and moats. Several gates and parts of the walls still exist, and the moat is still there. We stayed about 10 minutes (walking) south of old town. If we were to return… or for anyone reading who is ever considering a visit, I would suggest looking at the area to the northwest of the square called Nimmanhaemin. There are all kinds of jazz clubs and restaurants. We haven’t spent any time there (yet), but drove through it and it looks pretty cool. It has Dan Davis written all over it!

In general, the town is a weird juxtaposition of ramshackle buildings, beautiful temples, cool markets, and random little monuments/offerings which are called spirit houses. You see them around temples, but also around houses and buildings (we have one next to our air b&b). It is a place to leave offerings for ghosts so they protect the property! We feel very safe! There was even one in front of the 7/11 😊

The temples are pretty incredible! There are over 300 in Chiang Mai, 117 of which are in old town. 117 temples in ONE square mile! Some are pretty small and you walk right by without really noticing, but most are full complexes with a pagoda and some other crap along with the temple. I was going to attempt to organize the photos by temple, but decided that it was an impossible task and that no one really cares about the facts of each individual temple! So they are randomly mixed up!

The oldest is from 1296 and most are from the 14th century. There was one temple that didn’t allow women! Grady said it was the coolest one of them all (figures!). He got some pictures. One had a series of bells on the outside that you walk through and ring and make a wish at each bell. It was a lot of wishes… I will be pretty happy if even half of mine come true.

We saw multiple different Budda statues … there is a different one for each day of the week and “yours” is the one for the day of the week you were born. Grady’s is the Wednesday Budda with a little elephant and monkey at its feet. Mine is the Monday Budda – it is standing with it’s left palm out like it is saying “talk to the hand”! I had a whole temple for my Budda with a ginormous gold Monday Budda at the front! And then, of course, there is also the fat one (that looks a bit like Grady and me) 😊.

Monks live on the temple grounds in residential areas called monk houses. That’s literally what they are called – not very original, huh? You often see them walking the grounds, doing chores, or hear them chanting. Some temples also serve as monastic universities where monks study Buddhist philosophy and meditation. A temple must have at least three resident monks to be officially recognized as a "wat" (temple).

One temple we went in had wax statues of a bunch of old monks. It was so creepy!

We saw a monk doing legit work out on the temple grounds.

And my personal favorite… a fat monk sitting around playing on his phone!

The markets are great! They are everywhere, and then night market opens in the evenings and have lots of food options. Saturdays and Sundays have even bigger night markets that they call Saturday Walking Street and Sunday Walking Street. They close down a huge street each night (different locations) and it is all vendors and street food. And everything is so cheap! We probably spent about $5.00 - $8.00 (total) grazing our chubby selves through the Saturday Walking Street for dinner! It is so much fun!

One afternoon/evening we did a cooking class… it was INCREDIBLE!! A definite must do for anyone who visits Chiang Mai! They picked us up from our apartment at 3:30 and we didn’t get home until around 9:30. First we went to a market that was about 20 minutes outside of town and our guide toured us around and explained the various fruits and vegetables that we’ve never seen before and talked about typical ingredients used in Thai cooking. This market was beautiful… super clean and nice!

Next we drove about 25 minutes to the farm/cooking school site, which was quite the set up! It was clean and huge and incredibly well organized - there were probably 6 or 7 groups doing classes when we were there. We were in a group of 12 with our instructor Lily (who was the cutest thing ever!). They put us all in matching aprons to keep track of the different groups and we each had our own cooking station with our own wok. I was seriously impressed!

We started with a tour of the grounds and gardens. All the vegetables and herbs were grown on site and all organic. In addition to the gardens, there was a beautiful area with a pretty pool where we could chill and have a beer between courses, and a pen with a couple resident turtles.

Then we started cooking! The way our instructor kept everyone on track and adding the right ingredients at the right time was nothing short of amazing. We weren’t all cooking the same thing! We started with spring rolls which was the only course that was the same for everyone. The next 3 courses (main, soup, and side) we each selected from 5 options in each category. We made the curry pastes completely from scratch by pounding the ingredients in an old timey stone bowl. Everything was so delicious!! This ranks up there as one of the highlights of the trip!

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