Chiang Mai Only Us, Day 2: Doi Suthep & Meo Village Tour and Sense Onsen Spa

The hotel has a gym and swimming pool! I bet that was why I booked it, but their gym opens only from 7am to 10pm. We were going on a half day tour and the car was picking us at 8am. There wasn’t enough time for gym; I had to make a decision of waking up early for a HiiT or pretend that people don’t grow fat during vacation. The truth is cruel and I dragged myself out of bed at 6am. 

I thought of doing my kicking HiiT by the pool but there was barely any space and I ended up punching and kicking away outside of our room. 

After burning some calories, it was time for bfast. But Daddy Lim told me a bad news - he forgot how bad the sewage system was and had threw the toilet paper into the toilet bowl. Yes, he had choked up the toilet. He had to shamelessly call the reception to ask for housekeeping help. Hahahaha. He guilty left THB100 for whoever needed to clean up the mess.

The bfast spread was simple. We had a choice of eggs and some then fried spring rolls, nuggets and hash browns. 

They served mangosteen! It was very sweet! But very small, the skin was hard to peel and big seeds. It didn’t feel like it was worth the effort though.

A van picked us up. We were the 1st to be picked up and the there were 12 in the tour group.

The 1st stop was Doi Suthep, which is a temple. The guide, C, told us that there are 1,400 temples in Chiang Mai. Why did we choose to visit this one? Bcos I was browsing Klook and somehow picked it. Lol.

Th temple was about 45 mins drive away. Everything in Chiang Mai seems to be pretty close by. We like. The temple was on top of a mountain. The uphill climb was very long and quite steep but we saw so many people cycling! I felt very tired for them already. 

We finally arrived at the temple and the 1st thing is to take this elevator up. The pulley system was visible and so cool. Daddy Lim thought I was very mountain tortoise to go wow over the simple pulley system. 

We all took the needed toilet break. The kids would be amazed at the toilet. Their flashing system was so much more powerful than what we had in the hotel. Maybe gravity pull helps?

This was our ticket to the temple and the smaller one was the ticket to the elevator down to ground level. Otherwise, there is always the stairs option. I am going by the stairs. 

The story goes - a white elephant was appointed by the king to carry the Buddha relic and select the spot for the temple. The elephant walked for 3 days and then started circling at a particular spot. After decided on the spot, the elephant passed on. Thus, this is where the temple stands. 

I am aware that ladies have to have their knees covered to visit the temple. I wore the long elephant shorts that we bought the night before. It just nice covered my knees, depending on how low I pulled down the shorts. What I didn’t know is that the shoulders need to be covered too and had to loan a scarf for that. 

The temple was built in the 1400s. Is the pagoda made from real gold? Only the tip and apparently don with diamonds too. This is a royal temple, and the royal umbrella is the indication.

That was me in my elephant shorts and light blue scarf. I feel like little light blue riding hood. 

Inside the prayer hall, where people have to be seated, lower than the Buddha statues and monks to show respect.

We had 1 hour and so we roamed the temple grounds and found coffee! 

There was a viewing platform. It was very foggy and we couldn’t see anything. As you can tell from our dressing, it wasn’t even cold, but cool at most. 

We decided to make our way down. C said that there are 320 steps. If we had taken the stairs, this is the entrance to the temple. 

Let’s go!

I decided that I would try climbing the steps to temple and started counting. I only manage 289 steps bcos the last few are past the ticketing point. Can you see me? 

The next stop - Moe Village, which was another 20 mins uphill drive from the temple. There was nothing to shout about at the village and felt more like a tourist trap. 

The moment we entered the village, shops lined the street and the people were eager to sell us their wares. We bought some candies and a rattan bag, thinking that we were helping with their livelihood. 

There was a little garden and mini waterfall and we paid THB20 each to enter. There wasn’t much to see too. 

At least we fed some fishes. 

We were given 45 mins to roam the village. It was actually mainly used for shopping. I didn’t really know how the village really looked like or what is so special about it, except that the ladies have superb embroidery skills, we saw a few sewing away. 

We were sent back to the hotel, which was about 50 mins drive away. It was perfect time for email clearing, just that the windy downhill proves to be a perfect attribution for car sickness. We were the 1st to be dropped and went searching for lunch. 

We found a small market and went for Nana’s Kitchen. 

I only remembered the picture midway through lunch. We had crispy pork basil rice, green curry and egg omelette. The food definitely tasted nicer than my bad picture taking skills. Ya, crispy pork again.

We had 2 hours to burn before our next activity. Daddy Lim decided to try their hair cutting skills for THB350 that comes with a hair wash. 

Not bad. 

We decided to head back to the hotel for a little rest, then took a cab to the outside of Old Town for our onsen and massage. 

Atas de! We even get to pick our aromatherapy oil, but I didn’t smell much of it during the massage though. We were served some nice and chilled berries drink. 

The 1st part of the activity was the onsen. We had 1 hour to soak and were thinking that it was a long time for onsen but time interestingly passed quickly. The signboard says that it is onsen mineral water from some Japan onsen. Hmmm.. I am not sure. Special onsen water or not, we had a good and relaxing soak. It rained and stopped while we were contentedly soaking. 

Then, we were brought to another room for the aromatherapy massage. I am quite sure I dozed off at some point, wasting the message. Hmpfff.. 

The massage ended with another drink. This time, it was some warm tea. 

Bcos we had no more activity for the night and the rain had stopped, we decided to walk to some nearby market that we saw while traveling in the car yday. Google map says that it was 30 mins by foot. We walked by interesting sights - are these frogs or tortoises? Lol.

Chiang Mai didn’t quite feel like a good city to walk thought. On many parts, there were no proper pavement and we had to walk on the roads. 

I was just telling Daddy Lim how great and comfortable the weather was for our walk, only to realise shortly that the rain had come back. No wonder it was so cooling. The rain literally came hard and went and that repeated for a good hour. Each time it rained hard, we found somewhere to hide. 1st was a huge pet shop and we were hiding with many other people. Then we walked and the rain came and we decided to have some dessert. I wanted dessert but this dou hua with ginger syrup was impossibly spicy, so only Daddy Lim benefitted. 

We were done, left and found that it was still raining very hard and went to the next door’s coffeehouse. Lol . They only served sandwiches and that was what I was after. They claimed to use handmade bread.. ooooooooo….

The shop had retro decorations. 

Who is he?

Coffee! So wet outside. 

The sandwich that made us wait a long time. In the shop, there were various posters telling customers to wait for good sandwiches, possibly to manage customers’ expectations. The sandwich was so good, toasty and cheesy. It was worth the wait. 

The rain finally stopped and we continued our walk to the Chiang Mai market. We eventually got there in 2.5 hours. Hohoho. It was a food market but the sandwich was still comfortably sitting in my tummy. 

We decided to head to the Night Bazaar. The hotel staff said that it wasn’t opened on weekday nights but Google said otherwise. We decided to take chance and got a Grab down. The Night Bazaar was so vibrant and I got to finally eat my mango sticky rice, but the mango was not sweet, in fact a little unripe. #sad

There were alot to see at the Night Bazaar and we kept walking. There were quite some buskers too and we often stopped to listen. All of them are young and some put remarks on their tip box that they are saving for education. Like that how to resist from helping? At the last one, Daddy Lim got a beer, as if at a pub.

After a while, we found the stalls selling the same thing and decided to leave. I was very happy, finally made it to the night market and the only night left to visit one. 

Mummy Lim