I am living my best life here in Chiang Mai! I nailed another great hostel called ‘Green Sleep Hostel’. Great location and the people working here couldn’t be more helpful.

On my first night I went to a Muay Thai boxing match with Grace, a girl I shared a room with in Bangkok.

Myself and Grace also went to a jazz bar one evening called ‘The North Gate’. The music was incredible and we had a great night here!

I also did a Thai cooking course which I absolutely LOVED! For starters, look how amazing the cooking school was!

The day started by being picked up from the hostel and brought to a local market where the ingredients were explained and purchased.

From there we drove to the cooking school, about 30 minutes from the city. Each person cooked 4 dishes each. To start, I chose to make spring rolls. Someone else chose to make these uncooked spring rolls which were actually so delicious! Definitely hope to recreate these when I get home 🤞🏻

Next up I made Pad Thai and traditional soup. Some ingredients I hadn’t heard of so may need to go hunting when I get home, but both were also very tasty!

Finally, I made a massaman curry and we watched local desert being made, traditional ‘Mango and sticky rice’. It’s not for everyone, but I loved it! But find me a desert I don’t love 🤷‍♀️

Overall, it was a great day and we went home with a cookbook to recreate the goodness!

With Thai food on the brain I have a new local -‘It’s Good Kitchen’. I have visited a few times now and each dish below cost under €2! For whatever reason, the rice is always in the shape of a teddy bear (or else I look really young 😂)

Markets are a huge feature in Asia in general, but Chiang Mai took markets to a whole new level! I spent time at the Sunday Street Market which is roughly a kilometre long, selling anything you could imagine as well as really good street food. You could spend hours here! Huge crowds attend this market every weekend.

I am all temple’d out at this stage, but there were some incredible ones I did make a visit to in Chiang Mai also.

Doi Suthep

Doi Inthanon Twin Pagodas

I took a day trip to ‘Elephant Nature Park’, a rescue centre for retired, injured or distressed elephants. There were 116 elephants in the park in total but there were also some cats, dogs and buffaloes. The park is funded by visitors and relies on volunteers also. It was very clear that the animals here are very well treated and tourists are just allowed to observe the animals from afar unless they decide to come close to you. Each elephant has their own story with some coming from the circus, riding schools or logging elephants. Logging elephants were used to drag logs through water with their trunks or with chains, which is horrible.

I couldn’t go to Thailand and not get a thai massage – in fact, I got 2! One in a monastery, and one from a centre run by ex-prisoners. These centres are quite common as prisoner woman are trained in prison to have a skill when they are released. They were both interesting! Not the most relaxing and lots of body cracks! But you feel great after. I also got my nails done, so I am like a new person here! Everything is so cheap here which is great.

One last market -‘Night Bazaar’ and a catch up with Patrick from Switzerland, and his brother (who I met in Nepal ) and it was time to say goodbye to Chiang Maiand goodbye to Thailand for now.

Next stop, Melbourne 🇦🇺