The Free Land - Chiang Mai

Okay. I finally talked myself out of laziness and wrote this.

I'm gonna share a little bit of my traveling experience. This time, I went to Thailand.

Back when I was still in Canada, I met a Thai girl named Jariyamart Chawandit, or Jo for short.

To be honest, I never really wanted to go to Thailand.

To me, Thailand wasn't very appealing. It's just a south-east asian country, similar to Indonesia. what's the fuzz?

Jo had been asking me to come to Thailand for a long time.

well, basically every summer holiday, when we got to talking.

So, here I was, in Indonesia, talking to her through windows live messenger, complaining about how hard it is to get a visa to travel to Europe, when she said I should come to Thailand.

"it's closer and cheaper and you don't need a visa." that's what she said.

She was right.

So when I had nothing to do and my parents were dying to kick me out of the house, I decided to go to Thailand.

and here's my first stop: Chiang Mai

Coming to Chiang Mai made me realize that Thailand is divided into at least three parts: North, Central, and South.

Chiang Mai is a city in the North of Thailand with its own uniqueness.

My very first stop in Chiang Mai was the Night Market.

I bought some stuff in the Night Market. They had some very interesting stuff, but the most interesting things are the food.

Below are what Jo and I had for dinner.

Thailand is damn famous for papaya and mango salad.

This is something similar with those salads, but this one is with meat/seafood and noodles.

The left one was mine: pork free.

The right one was Jo's: with pork all over.

Yeap. they cook lots of pork in Thailand, which is inconvenient for me.

Above is my most favorite meal in Thailand.

It's some kind of rice noodle, cooked in some kind of chicken curry.

It has the perfect kind of taste that I like and it is a northern style cooking.

Of course they also have different kinds of curry with fish and pork in it. I like chicken the best.

And this kind of noodle is the Thai's style of fast food.

One of the most fun thing in the night market, besides the shopping is the busker.

It's very interesting that this group of busker just sat on the road, where the night market was, and played their music. They were sitting in a line, instead of sitting in a circle, as most groups do.

Too bad I didn't know any of their song as they were only playing Thai songs.

The funniest thing on my whole trip to Thailand was seeing Panda.

Even before I came to Thailand, Jo told me about how crazy the Thai people about Panda. When I finally got there, I couldn't help but laugh because of their craziness.

They got Pandas from China and they treat them like Panda is one of their gods.

They put the Panda in two huge fully air-conditioned areas. It was a one way area, so when you left the areas, you can't go back and forth to see the Pandas.

The one way ticket to see Panda would be worth it, if the Pandas didn't sleep all the time and gave their butts to everyone. I was there for almost an hour, the Pandas didn't move at all. I would think they were dead.

And really, Thais are dead-crazy about these Pandas. They have 24-hour cable tv that shows Pandas. and among those 24 hours, the Pandas were only awake for 8 hours.

and of course, what's the point on coming to Thailand without visiting any temples?

Temples are basically the main tourism point in Thailand.

Very similar with Bali.

So Chiang Mai is a city with more than 300 temples and we went to the biggest and nicest one.

But I didn't mean to be rude, I am just really not a fan of gold color, so every time we went to the temples with lots of gold color in it, I didn't really see the beauty in it.

But the visit to temples (or any other religious place, for that matter) is always interesting.

My visit to Thailand made me learn that the Buddhists basically have to pay respect in every single Buddha sculpture that exists whenever they bump into one.

And can you imagine how many Buddha sculptures there is in the world???

I also went to a cultural center where there was dances and food.

The food was good. Some of the food taste very similar to Indonesian cooking. I was a bit surprised.

Basically, coming to Chiang Mai made me learn a little bit about Thailand's culture.

I learned about where Thai people were from, originally.

They have a large number of Chinese immigrants in the country. In the northern part of the country, they still have a quite large numbers of primitive tribe people. It's very interesting that tribes are rather sensitive subject. It is rather not polite to ask people which tribes they are coming from.

That is very different than Indonesia. I would proudly say that I'm a Mandailing/Bataknese if I was ever asked. I would proudly explain my tribes' traditions that I still practice until today. I would wear my tribes' clothing as a fancy clothing to a special occasion.

On the picture below, it's my picture with Jo and two dancers wearing their tribe's costume, which I found very similar to Mongolian (which I saw back in Beijing).

On my last day in Chiang Mai, I went to the elephant camp.

I was debating with myself whether or not I should go to the elephant camp.

I mean, we got a lot of elephants in Indonesia and I've been to many elephant rides in my whole life. I felt like I don't need to see another elephant show and ride any elephant.

But then I did some re-thinking and I thought, "I am in Thailand! I HAVE TO do stuff with elephant!" as they are really go gaga with all this elephant stuff.

So I did. I went to the Maesa Elephant campm which said to be the best elephant camp in the whole world.

And I didn't regret it to the least!!!

Below is the picture of a painting that was drawn by an elephant.

YES!!! the elephant was drawing!!! I turned out buying a bunch of postcards with elephants' painting on it!

And the elephant ride was one of the coolest things I did!

It was like a small roller coaster ride/a very bumpy rocking chair.

It was a bit scary, especially when the elephant decided to scratch herself. She would just move the way she wanted and we were sitting diagonally on its back.

It was scary enough that the elephant went through the small path in a little forest, then it did some turning and suddenly we were riding through a small river with pretty strong current.

It was an extraordinary elephant ride!

Chiang Mai was a very interesting place.

I was uncertain when my sister went to Thailand for the first time and she only came to Chiang Mai. I was like, "what's up with Chiang Mai?"

And I finally got my answer. It was a must visit place in Thailand!