We arrived in Chiang Mai around 6 am and took a tuk-tuk to our hostel, Green Tiger House. This place is really cool; nice vibe, super helpful staff, delicious food and a great view over the city.

We only had two days to spend in Chiang Mai so first thing we did was get a shared tuk-tuk to the Doi Suthep Temple, a 45 minute ride up in the mountains. Once arrived, a beautifully decorated serpent stairway leads you up to the temple. Even for the ‘templed-out’ tourist, this one is pretty cool. We made a donation and got blessed by one of the monks with a white bracelet, for good luck.

We headed back into town to walk around and see some of the other temples. At this point, we were indeed a bit ‘templed-out’ and decided to just walk around and let Chiang Mai surprise us. We ended up watching monks read and study while enjoying fresh fruit shakes.

On our second day, we booked a half day tour with Happy Elephant Home followed by a cooking class at Asia Scenic. Both activities were incredibly fun. A lot has been written about the elephant tourism industry in Thailand and neighbouring countries, incl. here. Increasingly, tourists are becoming aware of the fact that these elephants are being exploited and riding them in baskets actually hurts them. So, new organisations have sprung up which offer a different kind of package that doesn’t involve an elephant ride, but rather lets you feed them all sorts of treats and bathe them, which is exactly what we did.