Asia 2024: Pattaya and Chiang Mai

 

Pattaya

Pattaya, my god… What a city! On the one hand it has got it’s beaches, which are though not my favorite (packed with old people and russians, or old russians mostly…). On the other hand, you have the Pattaya Walking street – which really seems like a combination of New York, Malaga and Amsterdam Kalverstraat. It is a REALLY crowded street where the go go girls are around every bar to welcome you in! Going out is pretty commercial though (EDM / commercial music) so would not recommend, but Pattaya itself and the walking street on it’s own is a reason to visit either way!

Located though around 20 minutes north of Pattaya is the ‘Sanctuary of Truth” – which is an INCREDIBLE wooden temple (still in the works), made completely without using any nails (all the wood pieces are intertwined). This is really a must-visit stop, once you are heading down to Pattaya!

Also there is the “Floating Market“, which is basically a market on wooden floors “floating” over the water. A nice experience where i got to eat Crocodile (and as you can see they also sell scorpions). It’s packed with tourists, but there is good food and cheap clothes.

 

 

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is one of the key cities in the North, first to visit when travelling south from Thailand (in our case by car). It’s a giant square city which is already huge, but outside the city walls it continues. It has got a real city vibe and as such it is vibrant with it’s night markets and food courts. Also going out is very nice – all you need to do is go to “Zoe in Yellow“, which is the main bar where everything is lit (“Spicy Bar” is the afterparty).

In Chiang Mai we took a “free walking tour” with ex-monk “Charin”, which taught us about Buddhism and explained a lot about the local customs, all about the different temples we visited and basically showed us the majority of the city – ending up on the center temple where an actual ceremony performed by monks was happening.

The next thing we did is visit the “Elephant Sanctuary Jungle Chiang Mai“ – where freed elephants are fed every day by their care-takers, or in our case: tourists… And we got to feed the elephants close by! Such an amazing experience how these elephants brake bamboo like a twig and eat bananas like we eat skittles 🙂