The Wandering Hart

We started our first day in Chiang Mai with the full intention of hiking the Monk’s Trail up past Wat Pha Lat and up to Doi Suthep….but things didn’t go quite according to plan. The first part of the hike was nice enough and it was cool to see Wat Pha Lat’s naga (serpent/dragon) staircases and stupa emerge from the woods as we hiked. However….we were sweating bullets at this point and still had over 1,000 feet of elevation to climb! It was easily 95 degrees fahrenheit and felt like over 100 with the humidity. So we decided to enjoy our time at Wat Pha Lat…and then take a ride up to Doi Suthep!

From Wat Pha Lat we caught a songthaew, which is a converted pickup truck now used as shared taxis, up to Doi Suthep and enjoyed the temple for about an hour before heading back down to town. While I was sad we didn’t complete our hike, it was maybe a relief when we saw all the stairs up to the temple! I can’t imagine how tired I would’ve been going up that after more hiking! The temple itself was beautiful with a large golden stupa at the center of it and views over Chiang Mai from the side.

In the evening we toured around Old City for a bit and saw the Old City gate (Tha Phae Gate), some cute boutiques, and some fun street art.

On day two we toured around Doi Inthanon National Park by private car. Private cars and vans are relatively easy to book here and this was actually cheaper and nicer than most of the group tours we saw of the park – our driver charged us 3,000 baht for the day which is around $80. We started our tour by driving straight to the top of Doi Inthanon, which is the highest point in Thailand(!), and then taking a short hike on the Ang Ka Nature Trail in the cloud forest near the top.

From the hike we checked out the King and Queen pagodas. These impressive structures were built to commemorate the previous king and queen. My favorite of the two was the queen’s, which was a striking purple color and was surrounded by beautiful gardens.

Our next stop was the Pha Dok Siew Nature Trail where we were guided by a member of the local Karen tribe along the trail and over multiple bamboo bridges. The guide’s English was limited but he still did a great job pointing out cool looking spiders and plants along the way as well as showing us a little of his village at the end. Before the village though we saw the Pha Dok Siew waterfall which was beautiful!

From the falls it was just a little while before we started seeing rice terraces and arabica coffee plants maintained by the Karen tribe. We even saw some water buffalo eating rice and getting chased off by another local! Our guide then brought us to a small shop to sample some local coffee, which was delicious, and hear more about the local history.

Once we were done with our coffee we made one last stop at Wachirathan Waterfall and then headed back to Chiang Mai.

For our last day in Chiang Mai we took a break from hiking and just toured some local temples including Wat Phra Sing, a beautifully restored Buddhist temple, and Wat Chedi Luang, which is known for the ruins of an old Buddhist 15th century chedi (a Buddhist monument similar to a stupa). We also spent some time in the Lanna Folklife Museum to learn more about early northern Thai culture, which was very interesting. Sadly with those last stops it was time to say goodbye to Chiang Mai. Onto Bangkok next!