Today we finally discovered Chiang Mai, this town North of Thailand that attracts so many travellers. We left Sukhotai in the morning and started our trip by a pleasant short ride to the bus station in a mototaxi for Bh40. We could not book our bus ticket the day before but we easily got a place in the first bus to Chiang Mai.... 6h later we finally arrived (cost of bus ride: Bh229/pers). The bus station in Chiang Mai is quite far from the centre so it is better to catch a tuk-tuk. We started walking but soon gave up and managed to negotiate a tuk-tuk for Bh50 to our guesthouse. We were lucky as we got the last room. We then went to discover the town and realised that it is a big town and renting a bicycle or a motorbike will be a good idea. From our guesthouse it took us 30min to get to the old historic centre where are most of the guesthouses and restaurants. We were very happy as we found a great Italian restaurant where we had delicious pasta and very good wine...however the bill was quite high, well for Thailand, that was still a cheap meal (less than £5 each) compare to prices in Europe!
The next day we took some time to rest, the last few days had been quite intensive, too many visits of temples (!)...and we also tried to figure out what we wanted to do/visit in Chiang Mai. The main attractions in Chiang Mai are the Jungle treks and the cooking classes. Both are expensive activities, as the daily rate is around Bh800, so we were not sure we wanted to spend that much money. We finally opted to go and visit the mountainous area North of Chiang Mai close the the Myanmar border. From Chiang Mai there is a scenic road going to Mae Hong Son via Pia, it is called the 1864 curves road. We hesitated to go first to Pai by bus and then rent a scooter to discover the area or rent a scooter from Chiang Mai. We thought that our stomachs will prefer going through all those curves on a scooter so it was all decided, we were going to do a 5 days trip with a scooter driving to Mae Hong Son via Pai!
The next day we took some time to rest, the last few days had been quite intensive, too many visits of temples (!)...and we also tried to figure out what we wanted to do/visit in Chiang Mai. The main attractions in Chiang Mai are the Jungle treks and the cooking classes. Both are expensive activities, as the daily rate is around Bh800, so we were not sure we wanted to spend that much money. We finally opted to go and visit the mountainous area North of Chiang Mai close the the Myanmar border. From Chiang Mai there is a scenic road going to Mae Hong Son via Pia, it is called the 1864 curves road. We hesitated to go first to Pai by bus and then rent a scooter to discover the area or rent a scooter from Chiang Mai. We thought that our stomachs will prefer going through all those curves on a scooter so it was all decided, we were going to do a 5 days trip with a scooter driving to Mae Hong Son via Pai!
