Day 4 starts out kinda crazy on the night bus to Chiang Rai… it’s kind of a silly story now, but in the moment it could’ve not been great 😅

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The night bus I took was shorter than all of the other busses because it only stopped once (in the middle of no where). However after we stopped (about 3 hours into the 9.5 hour ride) the driver gave no indication of how long the bus was going to be stopped for. I honestly debated not getting off because of this, but I thought it’d be nice to stretch my legs and use the bathroom. Well luckily I was fast enough because right when I get on the bus the bus driver closes the door and starts to drive off. All of the people on the bus started looking at each other like “where are they going” because we were missing about half of the bus (including some peoples friends). One of the people near me was walking towards the bus, his friends started pounding the window to get his attention, he just waved at us and then a wash of fear came over his face as he realized what was happening 😅 luckily he got on the bus but there was still many people missing. What ended up happening was they were moving the bus to a different spot to fuel up… but didn’t tell anyone, so when the bus eventually went back to the spot the people coming on were a bit shaken up.

After that weird situation we went on with the bus ride. I slept a lot more than I thought but it still wasn’t great.

I got dropped off at the bus terminal in Chiang Mai around 6:30am, where I got the number of a guy I met on the bus, so we might try to meet up at some point!

I called a Bolt (Uber) and went straight to my hostel. But check in wasn’t until noon, so when I got there I had to store my stuff in a side room that they have and luckily they let me go take a shower! I then went and found a bean bag by the pool and chilled out and was about to take a nap when I noticed my Bolt transaction didn’t go through. I set up a travel notice but I guess my bank wanted to make sure. So I spent 30 min on the phone trying to get it all figured out and luckily it is now all good!

After this I closed my eyes for about 30 min and then a friend I made at my hostel in Bangkok woke me up! We chatted for a bit and then wandered around Chiang Mai for food! It took us a bit to find something open because it was around 9am and most things didn’t open till 10am. Along the way though we saw a ton of temples, which apparently Chiang Mai has 75 historic temples.

But we found a small Chinese restaurant and it was really good!

After “breakfast,” we moseyed our way back to our hostel and stumbled onto a historic wall that surrounded the city. Here’s a brief description and picture of it!

We then got back to the hostel and hung out until our friends from our Bangkok hostel woke up. I guess they must’ve had a long night because it took a while, but eventually they did!

We actually ended up wandering around again to get food for one of them. And we got some smoothies on the way home too!

Also just of note, Chiang Mai’s wires are pretty crazy. They can’t put any underground because of flooding and they don’t remove them when they’re not being used anymore.

Another amazing thing is there’s a ton of alley ways that are just beautiful and really reminds you of what part of the world you’re in! Bangkok didn’t really give me this vibe but I love this city so far!

For lunch we wandered until we found a restaurant with only Thai locals in it and got some fish soup with noodles. It was very good!

After lunch we walked back to our hostel and no one was really up yet. So we hung by the pool as people trickled in. I guess it was National friendship day so we took some Polaroids too for the hostel!

We hung out until 2pm when my room was finally ready (it had been about 7 hours since I got to the hostel). And then I joined my friends in the pool for a bit! The hostel we are staying at is a full party hostel unlike my one in Bangkok which was a hybrid of party and chill. So of course there was a pool party today and they had alcohol being sprayed out of water guns.

As fun and goofy as this was, I wasn’t really in the mood for the party since I had been up with little sleep and I also wanted to explore the nature in Chiang Mai over partying/pooling all day. So after a few hours I made plans to meet up with another friend from Bangkok; Lola, who also came up north but was in a different hostel!

I ended up meeting her about a 20 min walk away from my hotel and we ended up just aimlessly wandering around all of Chiang Mai. We really had no plan of where we were going but wandered for 4 hours, which was lovely! It ended up sprinkling and raining hard on us every 30 min or so for like 15 min at a time. But it was nice to walk in the rain and try and find places to escape the rain when need!

We then found a place for dinner and I got Panang Curry, which was phenomenal!

After dinner we walked a very long way back to my hostel where we hung out with some of my other friends from Bangkok!

A while later another friend of mine shows up and tells us about a night market that was going on nearby! So we wandered over, got another smoothie (I got a watermelon one which I’ve never had before)!

The night market ended up being super cool and a lot bigger than we expected! I ended up getting a bracelet and a ring! It was super fun haggling with the vendors and fun finding things I liked for cheap!

After the night market we walked back to my hostel and sat outside for a few more hours chatting with other dorm mates!

I’m falling asleep while writing this BUT tomorrow is about to be really fun as it’s my first big day excursion that I’ll be embarking on! Lots of cool nature around Chiang Mai is about to be seen!

The day started slow but it ended up being one of my favorite yet!

I can’t say this enough, I’m really really enjoying this trip so far! It’s been amazing even with the minor blips so far!

– Elie