Thailand – Chiang Mai & Koh Samui
Jan 18-25, 2014
Mr. Jo and I were expecting our first baby, Jo Jr., at the time of this trip. We wanted to go somewhere fun but also relaxing to celebrate the end of freedom as we knew it! Thailand was the perfect romantic vacation.
Thailand Trip Itinerary:
Day 1:
- fly Bangkok to Chiang Mai
- settled in at Aruntara Riverside Hotel
- hotel shuttle to Sunday night walking street
- back to hotel
Day 2:
- picked up by tour guide from hotel
- Chiang Mai Discovery Tour
- Maesa Elephant Camp
- fed elephants bananas and watched them get baths
- saw elephants paint and play soccer
- went on elephant rides
- visited Long Neck Tribe
- shopped at the handmade craft market
- went to Tiger Kingdom
- had lunch
- visited silk, jade, and silver factories
- Doi Suthep
- famous temple with amazing mountaintop views
- Maesa Elephant Camp
- tour guide drove us back to hotel
Day 3:
- picked up by tour guide at hotel
- drove 1.5 hours south of Chiang Mai
- Doi Inthanon tour
- highest peak in Thailand
- added on a hike
- met up with hill tribe villager
- hiked to two waterfalls and through rice paddies
- lunch
- drove to top of mountain
- saw a temple, waterfall, and stopped at farmers’s market
- tour guide drove us back to hotel
Day 4:
- relaxed at hotel and got massages
- early afternoon flight to Koh Samui
- arrived at Le Meridien Koh Samui
- went to the beach and relaxed
Day 5:
- More beaches
- More relaxation
- went to the Fisherman’s Village night market
- ate dinner and shopped
Day 6-7
- More beaches and relaxation
- option to do day trips to Ang Thong Marine National Park, Koh Pha Ngan, and Koh Tao
- hiking
- kayaking
- snorkeling
- diving
Thailand Trip Details
Saturday, January 18, 2014 (Arriving in Thailand)
We arrived in Bangkok, Thailand in the evening and stayed one night at the Best Western near the airport. It was reasonably priced and a pretty decent hotel.
Sunday, January 19, 2014 (Chiang Mai, Thailand)
Aruntara Riverside Hotel
Early Sunday morning, we flew from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, Thailand on Thai Airways. Our flight was short and sweet, only an hour and fifteen minutes. We arrived before noon and our tour guide picked us up from the airport and dropped us off at our hotel. We stayed at Aruntara Riverside Hotel. Our cute little boutique hotel was nicely decorated, clean, and well-maintained. Of course, Mr. Jo chose a hotel with complimentary breakfast since he knows I get hangry in the morning, especially being 12 weeks pregnant. Our breakfast was very good; it had all the things you would expect as well as a nice variety of fresh tropical fruits. We had the option of eating lunch or dinner at the hotel too at reasonable prices relative to US standards. I still had to eat every 2-3 hours, so room service came in handy.
We were surprised to find out that an hour long spa massage at the hotel was only about $20-30. Of course, you can also get massages at the street markets for even cheaper ($10-$15). However, it’s not usually a private experience and you have to drown out a lot of noise.
The only downside we saw to our hotel was that it was not in the city center or inside the old city walls. However, it was easy for us to take a cheap, 5-10 minute tuk tuk or taxi ride to get there.
Sunday Night Walking Street
We rested at the hotel until nighttime and then took the free hotel shuttle to the Sunday Night Walking Street. Going to craft and food fairs or street markets is my absolute favorite thing to do on vacation, particularly international vacations. I love trying all of the interesting foods and “window” shopping. I love browsing and hunting for that really special item you can’t get anywhere else. The Sunday Night Walking Street was my favorite kind of market – tons of vendors with a large variety of goods. Even better, everything was cheap!
Monday, January 20, 2014 (Chiang Mai, Thailand)
Our Tour Company
The tour company we used was Gem Excursion Advisor. We chose them because they had good Trip Advisor reviews. Paew is the contact (or at least she was in 2014), and she was very responsive. Our tour guide, Jimmy, was fantastic. He was friendly, punctual and knowledgeable. He’s also a part owner in the company, so he had motivation to provide an excellent experience. I would request him if you decide to book a tour! You have the option to customize your tour or switch things around last minute (pending availability) if you just tell them what you’re interested in.
Maesa Elephant Camp
The first stop on our Chiang Mai Discovery Tour was the Maesa Elephant Camp. We were told that the camp was a sanctuary for elephants that would otherwise be hunted by poachers. It was incredible for us to see these majestic creatures so close up. They ate bananas right out of our hands and we watched them get bathed and play in the river.
Afterwards, we saw the elephant show which included an elephant soccer game (amazing!). They also painted actual works of art with their trunks and large paintbrushes. Of course, we purchased a painting to take home. We knew elephants are among the most intelligent creatures on Earth, but this experience showed us just how amazing they really are. Finally, we topped it all off with an elephant ride!
Long Neck Tribe
After the elephant camp, we stopped at the hill tribe village. Our tour guide, Jimmy, took us around the village and taught us a little bit about each of the seven tribes. We met members of the Karen Tribe , which is the largest of the seven. The women of the Padaung subgroup of the Karen Tribe wear brass rings around their necks to elongate them as a sign of beauty.
We didn’t learn the history until later, but many of the tribes are political refugees from Myanmar/Burma. They crossed the border into Thailand but are not granted Thai citizenship. They are confined to the villages and generate income from selling handmade crafts and trinkets to tourists. Our take of the village was that it was very touristy, and we were right.
Coincidentally enough, we ran into my mother-in-law’s friends from Freemont, California, whom I stayed with during a medical student anesthesia rotation at Stanford a few years before. We thought, what are the chances? It was then that we realized how the hill tribe villages were used by the government and tour groups to make money off of tourists. Of course, the option of returning to civil war in Myanmar is not that attractive either. I have to say, though, that the handmade scarves and quilts were really one of a kind.
Tiger Kingdom
Next, we headed over to Tiger Kingdom. On arrival, we ate a quick lunch at the restaurant on site consisting of pretty decent Thai food and french fries! We had the option to get up close and personal with several different size tigers, but we ended up purchasing tickets for the baby tigers and the largest tigers. We had so much fun snuggling and playing with the baby tigers. The trainers told us it was their nap time, so that’s why many of them were sleeping.
Then, we went into cages to take pictures with the full grown tigers. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. I think I even let out a little yelp at one point when I tripped and almost fell on one of the tigers. Seriously, I thought it was going to eat me, but it was surprisingly calm. Hopefully they were not given sedatives, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were.
Tourist Shopping
We were taken to silk, jade, and silver manufacturing companies. They taught us about the manufacturing process and of course, let us shop. It was actually kind of cool to see the silkworms making silk, but the rest of it was purely to milk more money out of us. One silk scarf was about $50 US at the time.
Doi Suthep
Finally, we concluded the tour with a visit to Doi Suthep, the mountain that overlooks Chiang Mai. There is a famous temple at the top where we walked around and took in the views. In Thailand, the temples are very holy and we were asked to remove our shoes before setting foot inside. We thought about going to another night market afterwards but we were pooped, so we headed back to the hotel.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014 (Chiang Mai, Thailand)
Doi Inthanon Tour
On this day, we tackled the Doi Inthanon tour. This was probably my favorite part of the trip. Jimmy drove us about 1.5 hours south of Chiang Mai. We added on the hike to our package last minute, and it was totally worth it. First, we met up with a hill tribe villager. He and Jimmy took us on a pretty easy hike to two different waterfalls you can only reach on foot. I was 12 weeks pregnant and wearing ballet flats, so it’s definitely doable for the novice hiker.
On the way, we walked past the villagers’ rice paddies and various other farming fields. They pointed out to us several interesting plants and trees including the tiger balm producing tree and cinnamon tree. Even cooler, they showed us how to recognize and cut water vines in case we ever get on an episode of that survivalist TV show, Naked and Afraid. Haha… no.
Several of the fields grew coffee trees, so we got to try some homegrown and home-brewed coffee at the end of the tour. This part of the tour was my favorite activity on our trip because it felt so authentic. Seeing the unending acres of rice paddies and being one with nature was a beautiful experience for us.
We ate lunch at a local cafeteria-style restaurant with open-air seating, which was included in the tour package. The food was quite good. After lunch, we drove to the top of Doi Inthanon mountain, the highest summit in Thailand. We caught some nice views and visited the temple on the top. We also stopped at a very nice waterfall and then bought some fresh tropical fruit at a local farmers market.
Jimmy drove us back to the hotel and we passed on the night market once again in favor of sleep.
Wednesday, January 23, 2014 (Koh Samui, Thailand)
Moving on to Koh Samui
We got massages at our hotel in Chiang Mai in the morning and then took an early afternoon flight to Koh Samui. We flew Bangkok Airways direct on a 1 hr 45 min flight. The other options we found, including Thai Airways and many other discount Asian carriers, also fly to Koh Samui. However, they required a layover in Bangkok.
Mr. Jo booked the Le Meridien Koh Samui hotel with Starwood points. This was unlike any other hotel we had ever stayed at. It had a small private pool for each room, which we definitely enjoyed.
Thursday, January 24, 2014 (Koh Samui, Thailand)
The Beach Life
Since I was pretty tired from being pregnant and traveling, we mostly just went from beach to beach on Koh Samui. We enjoyed the sounds of the ocean and napped on a towel on the sand at least once a day. Koh Samui has a wide variety of food options. The food is generally more expensive than Chiang Mai since it’s mostly a tourist destination. The restaurants we saw ranged from cheap local hole-in-the-wall places to upscale restaurants with meal prices you’d expect to see in the US.
Fisherman’s Village
At night, we went to the Fisherman’s village where they had a big night market. We ate dinner there and walked around the market. There was lots of good browsing here, but the prices were definitely more expensive than in Chiang Mai.
Excursions
Since I had the pregnancy fatigue and was still a little bit nauseous, we didn’t make the extra effort to go on any excursions. Mr. Jo did some research though and there was lots of other stuff to do.
- Ang Thong Marine National Park
- collection of very small islands
- kayaking
- limestone cliffs
- emerald waters
- Koh Pha-ngan
- snorkeling
- diving
- Koh Tao
- snorkeling
- diving
Trip Tip
We found that flying around Thailand can be pretty cheap, especially if you book early. Thai Airways and Bangkok Airways are both upmarket carriers. There are also many discount carriers such as AirAsia and NokAir. The airlines are all pretty decent but the schedules of Thai Airways and Bangkok Airways worked better for us.
Friday, January 25, 2018 (Back to Dallas)
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