Chiang Mai: from the city to the jungle

When Will and I woke up this morning on the night train, you could already tell we were close to Chiang Mai. Outside our window it was such lush jungle greenery that Will and I joked was probably filled with those snakes we learned about at the Snake Farm.

Since we arrived too early to check in, we took a songthaew to our hotel where we left our backpacks.   A songthaew is basically a mini jeepney (Filipino bus) which is a pick up truck with two benches in the back and a roof covering. They are used as a bus or a shared ride.

From our hotel, we took another songthaew to Doi Suthep which is a large temple in the mountains.  

Will wanted to chronicle the underarm hair of the lady next to me. 

Once at Doi Suthep, Will and I were feeling nauseous.  We really didn't eat dinner on the train last night except for some junk food snacks and we didn't eat breakfast today. Plus, the roads were crazy winding up the mountain so we were feeling a little sick. This was easily fixed with some snacks.  We got some delicious pork skewers, yummy corn on the cob, and some mango. 

Now we were ready to conquer Doi Suthep. It is famous for its massive stairway up but it really wasn't too bad. It was really peaceful and beautiful up there. 

Here we also encountered some beautiful Hill Tribe children that really wanted to take control of our selfie stick. Haha. 

After seeing Doi Suthep, we went to the area around Chiang Mai university where there are lots of fun restaurants and stores. Chiang Mai definitely has more of an artsy fartsy vibe than Bangkok and I really liked that. At some point, it started raining pretty heavily (monsoon season) so we decided to avoid the rain by getting... Wait for it.. A foot massage!  It was $7 and an hour well spent!

After walking around some more, we found a fancy mall that had all kinds mod restaurants. We ended up going to. Japanese BBQ restaurant that was a nice break from Thai food. It was all you could eat with lots of delicious beef and seafood choices. Best of all, it wasn't lame gas grills like in the US but it was hot wood logs. It was pretty darn delicious. 

Afterwards, we walked around the famous night market. Will even went to McDonalds with the hope of finding a regional flavor of Thai cuisine. He hit the jack box with a Pineapple pie! Yum!! Now it's time for bed. 

*pardon the weird layouts, fonts, & photo justification that might occur. This was written from my iPhone and the blogger app stinks!