We arrived in the “Thai Highlands” & the spiritual capital of Thailand: Chiang Mai. It’s our first time in the north and quite a breath of fresh air after the beautiful chaos in Bangkok.
It’s exciting to go to a place we have never been before. We (have to) trust the taxi driver because we neither speak nor read the Thai language (no more English here…). Our “La Maison” is about an hour north of Chiangmai city. In fact, it feels like being in the middle of nowhere. And that’s fantastic! Finally, we arrived in the little village, together with the cows.
Life here seems very laid-back and it is a fantastic place to experience different things in life and turn your usual 9-to-5 (or 8-to-7 lol) routine to 180 degrees. That’s exactly what we were looking for.
Doing „nothing“ needed to be practiced at first. Now we got the hang of it and cannot stop it anymore (good that this vacation continuous…). Also being bored can be wonderful. Besides, we had so much time for sleeping. Plenty of time for relaxing. Time for swinging! Time in the hammock. Time for reading. Time for listening to all those natural exotic noises (a bit scary sometimes, too). Time to see the sun set at 6pm (we missed the sunrise). No appointments (just breakfast, dinner and elephant dates).
It was very relaxing living for the past days in this wonderful lush green garden. So calm. So peaceful. We spent 24 hours every day more or less outdoors for the past days. It’s been wonderful. We fell asleep listening to crickets and the birds woke us up in the morning. A healthy natural paradise.
We keep enjoying >30C degrees, which feels much cooler (and still hot) in the north compared to Bangkok. Doing not much helps to cope with the heat.
Our accommodation, a heaven of peace, the kindness of the host, the place, the calm, everything was perfect!
No WiFi. No A/C. Surrounded by rice fields. 3 dogs, sometimes 4. 3 cats. Geckos (good for eating the mosquitoes). A pool with very refreshing cold water. Fresh cooked Thai-French style dinners: simple, fresh and so delicious.
May I introduce the most wonderful 3 elephant ladies who are 84, 42 & 8 years young, gorgeous & all the time hungry.
Elephant Sanctuaries are committed to the rehabilitation and rescue of elephants. We learnt about their habitats and feed and bathed them in the river. They are magnificent creatures. Elephants are holly in Thailand, even islands and beer are named after them: Chang.
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We had a traditional lunch at Mae in the Akha tribe with these beautiful ladies:
Another beautiful day is leading us to the Wat Ban Den, the „Blue Temple“.
Wow! Those vibrant colors! A pink elephant. A baby blue elephant. Blue roofs of the temples. Opulent golds. We found the entire temple truly mesmerising, maybe one of the most stunning temples we have ever seen!
Climbing up a sticky waterfall „Buathong waterfall“, named after a mineral deposit, which is very grippy. The water is cold and crystal clear, and comes from a mineral spring.
Goodby, little paradise! We are on our way south to Phuket.
Stuttgart547 