Two for the Road

Following the end of the lantern festival, Chiang Mai has gone a bit quiet (or at least as quiet as a Thai city with 1.2 million inhabitants gets anyway). We have taken the opportunity to visit some of the big sights in the area, including the blue and white temples of neighbouring city Chaing Rai.

The white temple (Wat Rong Khun) is probably the most visually stunning temple we have seen in Thailand (which is saying something, given the number and calibre of the others). It’s one of those places which it’s hard to capture the magnitude of in photos, but we did our best! Fun fact – a monk was meditating in the main room of the temple, which was really cool to see, but I was shocked when he blinked as he was so still I thought he was a statue!

The blue temple (Wat Rong Suea Ten), while still visually beautiful, felt more like a working temple compared to the white temple which felt like an art piece.

We have also spent a day on a cookery course at Smile Organic Farm about an hour outside the city. We had a fab few hours learning about ingredients and method of some classic Thai recipes.

The farm also had a few adorable pets which we made friends with. Tommy the Lorikeet was our favourite, but he was heckling us a bit while we were cooking!

Speaking of friendly faces, we’ve had three groups of friends who were coincidentally in Chiang Mai while we were here, it’s been lovely to catch up and have a slice of home life, thanks to Clara, Sophie, Livv, Rhys, Meg and Gwyn for taking time out of your holidays to catch up with us, it has been an absolute pleasure!

Tomorrow we’re off to Bangkok for our final couple of days in Thailand before we fly to Japan, just enough time to take in a couple of museums and a Chinatown food tour (an area famed for it’s Michelin starred street food – so obviously this is a priority stop for us!)

Iris