I didn’t think it was possible to see so many cities as beautiful but Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand definitely is beautiful. We made this bus journey overnight from Bangkok.
We did an over night bus journey and as my ankle was still bandaged up, we got the front seats with a little more leg room…much to our delight!
The weather was still hot and humid as we stepped off the bus at 6am to check into our hotel. The process didn’t take very long so we went to our rooms for a power nap and to freshen up before going to explore.
One of the best ways to explore is the famous tuk tuks. The roads seemed a little calmer in Chiang Mai so the tuk tuk wasn’t quite as scary.
We spotted a beautiful temple and made our first stop, it was the Wat Phra Singh. This was possibly the strangest but most beautiful temple I have ever been in! There was a replica fiberglass of a principle monk perched in the temple who served for 77years and died at the age of 98. The temple was very busy with tourists everywhere.
There are some beautiful markets around Chiang Mai also and I found they were a little cheaper than those we came across in Bangkok. The main market is called The Night Bazzar. There was a huge array of food stalls, fake bags and accessories and clothes.
We also did a day trip up the mountain to visit a local tribal area and ended up at a Monkey Show for 200BHT. There were 15 male monkeys and 1 female monkey, I felt bad for her. I really don’t know any other way to describe it so I will let the pictures do the talking.
From Chiang Mai we organised our trip to Laos which cost us 900BHT each…what a long trip that was! We packed into a small mini bus and travelled at night and went through the most ferocious thunderstorm I have ever witnessed! We crossed the border at the Friendship Bridge where we paid $35USD for our visas.
We reached Vientiane at 10.30am where we grabbed a quick breakfast snack before getting our second bus to Vang Vieng.
The scenery in Laos is breath taking. We travelled winding roads around the mountains and got honked at… A lot! Houses are small and don’t look like much but people seem happy and that’s all that matters!
When we reached Vang Vieng at 1.30pm, we checked into a hotel where we paid 200BHT each to stay. We settled quickly and got ready to go tubing…wow this was an experience!
We arrived to the starting point and the first thing was to hop into a boat to cross the river…bearing in mind, I wasn’t suppose to get my foot wound wet yet!
I experienced everything from fast river currents to Thai Whiskey being poured down my throat..there were 12 to 15 different bars along the river and to move from one to the other, you had to jump into the river in your tube and float down until someone threw a rope out to pull you in.
Some bars were small and others were very big with slides, volleyball and mud-wrestling..yes mud wrestling!
It was not long before I realised where all the scary videos came from as we saw how crazy some people got. We didn’t leave with so much as a scratch, however, my head was very sore the next day but that wasn’t from a fall!
We really wanted to stay longer than one day but time didn’t allow it.
We left the crazy tubing town of Vang Vieng the next day to make our way back to Vientiane. There, we had to get another bus across another border on a 22hr journey on sleeper bus to go to Vinh, Vietnam.
Thanks for reading! ♡
Lifestyle by Lily 