CITY: Bangkok

HOW LONG: 2.5* NIGHTS

I met my good friend & mentor KT for our first trip together! How fun that it’s all the way in Thailand! We took an overnight train to Chiang Mai so technically it was two nights in the hotel & one night on a train.

ACCOMMODATION:

As a break from hostels, we stayed in a very nice Marriott hotel with sweeping views of the Bangkok skyline. Very fun for me and a nice change of pace!

WHERE TO EAT:

Breakfast Story– leave it to me to always crave a Western breakfast, but I still just love a cute cafe to start my day.

We also had some lovely street food at the Floating Market, where our chicken friend rice was cooked on one of the boats – pretty cool!

WHAT TO DO:

So honestly, I don’t LOVE big Asian cities. I find them overwhelming, loud, & hot so I purposely only spent 2 days here. The highlight was visiting the Maeklong Railway Market & the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market. It’s a little ways out of the city but both visits were pretty fun! It’s always wild to see the market completely close up the 8 times a day that a train rolls through. Definitely worth the visit. The floating market is cool because instead of walking around, you hop on a boat and just cruise through the canals to see all the stalls. It’s slightly hokey, but we enjoyed the fanfare and grabbed some fragrant coconut pancakes from another boat stall that was gliding past us at one point.

We also enjoyed a cool afternoon in a mall. I know it sounds weird to head to a mall, but the malls here are beautiful, luxurious, air-conditioned and had tons to do. We actually went to a fancy movie theater and got stuffed with popcorn. Sometimes it’s nice to do familiar things in very unfamiliar places!

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

Yeah so Bangkok wasn’t ever going to be my favorite place, but KT & I had fun exploring and just catching up!

Time for the Night train to Chiang Mai.

CITY: Chiang Mai

HOW LONG: 3 NIGHTS

ACCOMMODATION:

We stayed at Thapae Loft Hotel and it was in a great location, within the walled in old city. Very clean, spacious and had all the amenities we needed: Small pool, attentive staff, decent wifi. The staff helped with recommendations and booking of activities.

WHERE TO EAT:

Obviously there’s plenty of street food that is delicious here, but it’s hard to recommend specific stalls haha. Here are my favorite restaurants we went to:

• Kati breakfast and brunch
• Coconut Shell – KT ordered the Khao soy soup, which is local dish.
• Lemonn– Great for brunch – I had a yummy bacon egg omelet 
• Konjohn coffee 2– cute afternoon cafe vibes – I had an iced cacao drink & we played cards
• See you soon cafe – another cute cafe option

Also, I loved getting Mango sticky rice for dessert. In Chiang Mai they use pea flowers to turn the rice blue!

WHAT TO DO:

Fresh off the overnight train, we decided to treat ourselves, and I mean TREAT ourselves, to a 4 hour spa treatment at one of the nicest spas in Chiang Mai: Makkha Spa Ancient House. I had a Thai Massage, Salt Body Scrub, Aromatherapy Massage & Facial (each an hour long). It was luxurious. Because this was at a higher end spa, it was “expensive” at $131… pretty wild.

Chiang mai is home to more than 300 temples so it would be impossible to see them all, but luckily there is a high concentration in the old city, so we just slowly meandered around town and saw plenty of them.

Our favorite activity was doing a Thai cooking class at a farm just outside of town! We had a blast trying to make some of our favorite dishes. It was a fabulous experience, and our culinary leader was very patient and great at explaining things to us. We were so stuffed by the end, we didn’t need dinner that night. Highly recommend doing this if you visit Chiang Mai!

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

I liked Chiang Mai far more than Bangkok. It was a great size, with a mixture of it being walkable but also not overwhelming. Plenty to do, but also you could have a lazy day just getting a massage & sitting at a cafe too. Just make sure to avoid burning season when you visit as the air quality can get pretty bad.

CITY: Pai

HOW LONG: 2 NIGHTS

ACCOMMODATION:

We stayed at Ai Pai hotel, which was a cute, boutique hotel located near the end of one of the main roads. The grounds were lovely and the pool was very nice (although very cold while we were there). We enjoyed our stay here.

WHERE TO EAT:

There were tons of cute cafes here so we spent plenty of time sampling different drinks while playing cards, escaping the heat of the afternoons.

Highlights:

• The Peddler– This was my favorite cafe. Great wifi, yummy breakfast options, lots of table options, and strong AC. It also happened to be a 1 min walk from out hotel. We ate here twice, and I also sat here and worked on the blog for an afternoon.
• Lemon Thyme Bistro – another cute cafe with lots of great breakfast options – all day!

We loved going to the night market for dinner each night! Sometimes we’d get small snacks along the way as we perused so we got try lots of things and sometimes we would sit down and just order a big bowl of noodles. So many yummy things to try here!

WHAT TO DO:

The main things to do here are the drunken tubing on the river (lots of tour agencies will push this on you as you walk around the town). Luckily KT & I were on the same page that this was not of interest to us 🤣 beyond the tubing, folks like to rent scooters to explore the nature and see some waterfalls. However, due to the state of the roads & the prevalence of alcohol & drugs, Pai is notoriously filled with bandaged and bruised backpackers. Truly KT & I were astounded by the percentage of westerners that had some form of casts, bruises, or gauze wrapped around legs/arms. Pretty scary. We decided it wasn’t worth it to us. Given we only had two days here we just focused on walking around the town and enjoying its vibrant, hippie energy. 

I also got my nails done here! 

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

Pai was such a cute, sleepy, hippie town. It’s no wonder so many backpackers flock here. It’s very social, easy to get around since it’s so small, filled with cute restaurants & hostels, and just a lovely place to hole up for a while. I thoroughly enjoyed my short time here.

CITY: Chiang Rai

HOW LONG: 2 NIGHTS

ACCOMMODATION:

After seeing reviews about how this small hostel quickly feels like family, I knew I needed to stay here. I’ve said this before, but big hostels tend to end up feeling more like hotels and it becomes hard to meet people. Small hostels (like less than 20 beds) create an environment where you quickly meet everyone who is staying there, thus making it incredibly easy to plug into an plans being made by others. Together Backpackers Hostel also hosted nightly dinners where they would walk us all over to the night market and get us a table. Inherently this meant, at 7pm the whole hostel would gather and you would meet any new arrivals. Loved it! 

The beds were comfy, curtains provided privacy, lockers were big but also you quickly feel safe that no one in your room will steal your stuff if you leave it out. AC was strong, showers & bathrooms were clean, and WiFi worked great. Location was also close to everything you’d need. They also arrange for motorbike rentals. 

Can you tell I loved this place? I wish all hostels could foster this environment. 10/10 would stay here again! 

WHERE TO EAT:

The main place we ate was at the night market for dinner. I loved all the different options and we had some yummy dessert one night too! 

We also visited the cat cafe in town for a drink and a snuggle with some cute cats.

WHAT TO DO:

Within 10 min of getting into my room, I met Flo (German), Mr T (Finnish), and Sonja (German). We hit it off and quickly made plans to explore the region on motorbike the next day! Sonja, ever the planner, had a whole list of places she had wanted to see so we just deferred to her as our tour guide. 

The boys kindly drove and Sonja & I were happy to be passenger princesses ☺️ 

The highlights: 

The White Temple – recently completed, this sparkling white temple is truly stunning! My jaw was open the entire time as we walked through. This might be my favorite temple I’ve ever been to! A must do in Chiang Rai. 

The Akha Farmville sheep farm – when Sonja first suggested it, I looked at her as if she was crazy haha. Like what? But all the way up the hills above the clouds, you can find a very cute sheep farm! You even get a drink included in your entrance ticket. It was nice to get into some cooler air and hang with the sheep for a bit. 

The Doi Chang view point– no one else was here, we even weren’t sure if we were getting ourselves lost on the way following google maps, but we eventually arrived. Beautiful views of the region.

Khun Korn Waterfall! A short hike brings you to a beautiful and big waterfall. We didn’t encounter too many people and the Germans even swam (I was too wimpy with the cold water 😆). Def with a visit!

Big Buddha (Wat Huay Pla Kang) – this is one BIG BUDDHA!! You even can take an elevator up 25 floors to take a view out of its eyes. 

The Blue Temple (Wat Rong Suea Ten) – we were quite tired by this point, but we still enjoyed walking through the temple. It’s a stunning shade of blue!

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

I have very fond memories of Chiang Rai, and we packed in a ton of stuff in my one day there! I also met Sonja, who I would end up overlapping in Laos and we might even be planning to see each other in Japan & beyond 👀). I’m not sure if me loving Chiang Rai was more about the people or the place itself… probably a lovely mixture of both. 

BUDGET FOR 10 DAYS IN Northern Thailand:

Accommodation: $239 ($23.90 per night)- this was a mixture of small hotels with KT & a hostel while on my own in Chiang Rai. I also saved one night of accommodation on the overnight train!

Food: $88

Groceries: $0

Activities: $217

Local Transportation: $132

Miscellaneous: $34

Total: $710 (Daily average: $71) You can certainly spend less than this as I did plenty of spa treatments & stayed in some private rooms with KT. You would also spend less than this if you ate more street food & less at western style cafes (but they bring me so much joy!!).

Transportation to next destination: $180 (flight to Laos)