Sawadeekap! And I say it that way because that's how females say it, the males say sawadeeka. That's how people in Thailand greet their visitors. Yes, in this post, I share to you one of my vacations in Thailand, in the beautiful city of Chiang Mai.
Chiang Mai is a city in the mountainous northern Thailand. It is the capital city of Chiang Mai province, and is the largest city in northern Thailand. It is located among the rolling foothills of the Himalayan mountains, 700 km north of Bangkok, the nation's capital.
Chiang Mai is a culturally and historically interesting city, at one time the capital of the ancient Lanna kingdom. Back then, it could only be reached by an arduous river journey or an elephant trek until the 1920s. We arrived there in a much more comfortable fashion, thank God. We flew in from Hong Kong by Cathay Pacific, and landed at the Chiang Mai International Airport, which handles both domestic and international flights.
We went there in 2007, and yes, it was such a long time ago. The sad thing is, I accidentally deleted all my photos before backing them up, and these are the only photos that I had on CDs, which is very sad indeed. I have them on print, but taking pictures of my photos will take time, so I will just share what I have stored digitally.
We stayed at the very swanky Four Seasons Resort, and this picture is the view from one of the swimming pools. Most of the time we were inside the resort, just swimming, lazing around, doing nothing.
This is the entrance of the resort, and the way it is set up, there is a main receiving area, but rooms are actually individual cottages, which gives you the feel that you are home away from home.
And this my friends, is the swimming pool we swam in almost every single day we were there. Mind you, there are other pools in the resort, but this was just our favorite. There's actually another pool below it, but isn't it just so relaxing to be looking at the fields and the mountains in the background while you are floating? Pure bliss.
And when you walk around the resort, this is what you see. Everything is green. We were there in October, so the weather was just perfect, not too hot/wet like in the summer months of June-August.
Lounging in one of the couches inside our cottage. Sad that I lost all the other pictures, but I have to move on.
Our very own cottage looked like this, it may even be it, although I could no longer remember, ha ha ha. So it was 2 stories, and it even had a small kitchen if we wanted to cook, but who wants to cook when you can eat by the pool or order room service?
Aahhh, the days when I was younger. And thinner. Ha ha ha.
This would be what a suite looks like. At the time, it was the General Manager and his family who was staying here as they haven't found a place of their own yet. I met the wife by the pool and she was asking me if I could recommend a nanny to them. Who would want to live in the mountains though, far from everything and everyone? It's just nice for a vacation, but not when I live there.
This is where nature and luxury meet together. The resort was definitely a place to relax and enjoy a vacation. We did go out on some days though.
These flowers were also a common sight all around the resort, and their vibrant color always drew me in to take pictures.
This plant was a curiosity to me- as a child we had a plant that was somehow similar to it, so I guess I was just reminiscing my childhood. In our local dialect we called it 'parangipang'. It is a palm variety.
Now, I'm not sure if I ever took a picture of this view at night, but it must have looked beautiful as well as there are lanterns hung on some trees. There would have been some mosquitoes though.
On the days we went out of the resort, we went river rafting. Notice the water is brown, and we were told it rained hard a few days ago, so the river was actually at almost flood stage. We didn't do the actual paddling, of course, there were experts who did it for us.
There was also this beautiful hanging bridge that we crossed, as we visited a village where they produced silkworms to make fabric.
To get to the village, we did elephant trekking, and this was the pathway of the elephant. Poor things. But they were huge!
See how big my ride was? It would sway from side to side, and yes, we also had seat belts so that we would not fall down on the parts that are narrow just like the picture above. It wasn't the most comfortable ride, thinking about the poor elephant, but we got there in an hour, if I remember correctly.
We also visited an 'elephant school', and we were shown how the elephants relax by taking baths in the river. Again the water is brown, not because it was dirty, but because it rained a few days before we got there. It was nice seeing that the elephants were able to relax as well.
We passed these logs in the river, so imagine being hit by it when the water current is very fast and strong. A scary thought.
This was the elephant school, where they were performing. I liked seeing that the elephants were treated with respect, and they were taken cared of really well.
They look fit, not gaunt and thin, and they were really big!
The river was quite deep, but as a kind I swam in deeper waters than this. It was fun to see a sight that reminded me of my childhood on the province.
And these are all the pictures I have, I know we also visited a temple and a market but I just don't them digital copies of them.
Anyhow, it was very memorable being able to travel in luxury, having buffet breakfast at the resort every single day, and we always ate our hearts out, knowing that we would burn them by swimming or walking around.
Hope you enjoyed this post, and for more travel articles, please go to this page.
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