Day 106! Another great day in Chiang Mai! This place is really growing on me. I didn’t give it the time of day last year, but I’m glad I gave it another shot this time around. Even though I’m probably leaving tomorrow, I’ll be back in a couple weeks with my cousins too! And I’ll have a new found knowledge of the area.

There was no sleeping in today! My alarm went off just before 8am and I got quickly ready for my morning.

I hurried downstairs and hopped on my rental motorbike to pick up Elise for our adventure of the morning.

A 15 minute motorbike ride later, we arrived at Central Chiang Mai. This actually is the mall that Dan and I went to to see Dune 2 at the movie theater.

The reason Elise and I were at this mall was because there was an immigration office located in it. We both needed to extend our visas another 30 days to make sure we could stay in the country longer without overstaying!

Elise had told me that we should get there at 8am, even though it opened at 9am. But I thought that it didn’t make sense to get there an hour early… but much to my dismay, there was a solid line already formed.

I definitely should’ve trusted Elise’s judgement on this one, but I did enjoy the extra sleep I got.

There was an extra form I needed to fill out before getting a number in line. I filled it out quickly and ended up getting number 31 and hopped in line to get into immigration.

Immigration opened at 9am and everyone in line filed in. This immigration office is specifically for visa extensions, there’s one near the airport as well which covers permeant residency and other immigration needs. I was told in Chiang Rai that the mall office gets packed, so get there early and even though there was a line, I was glad we got there just before it opened.

Elise and I met a couple while waiting in line. Lola was from the Netherlands and Jarmaine was from Florida. They were very nice and actually helped us find the office in the first place. Somehow they forgot to take money out before coming and the ATM in the mall was closed. So I lended them 1000 Baht with no guarantee I’d ever see it again. Later in the day she did money transfer me, but I was glad to help out and hope someone would do the same if I was in their shoes.

While I was waiting for my number to be called, I FaceTimed my parents!

This call made the wait time fly by. It’s always nice getting to call every week and catch up!

My number was called and I confidently walked up to the desk with all of my documents. They took them and inspected them, found most of them satisfactory… but then they told me that my passport photos (the ones I got back in Vietnam) weren’t acceptable.

NOT because they were bad quality… but because they were the same photo as my passport. This frustrated me because they refer to it as a passport photo, not a passport sized photo that isn’t your passport picture. Luckily they had a photo area in the office, but I had to pay 150 Baht and wait an extra 20 minutes.

After that, it was smooth sailing! All my documents checked out, I handed my documents off to the immigration officer, and then shortly after I was given my passport back, a new (larger) stamp, and a receipt for my purchase. It was 1900 Baht for my 30 day extension.

In the end it took 2-3 hours from start to finish. But it was totally worth it since I can now stay in Thailand till May 30th before I’d have to extend again.

By this point, we were starved. So we drove into town to try and eat some Khao Soi. Now before we even made it to the restaurant we drove past a couple police stops… this gave me quick flashbacks to Vietnam and Laos where I got pulled over.

We drove up to a stop and a police officer started waving us to stop… but my last police experience from Laos popped into my head. And as I got closer the cop was still waving and stepping slowly infront of us. But instinct kicked in and I didn’t stop. I kept my head forward and drove past the cop as he quickly stepped back once he realized I wasn’t going to stop for him.

Was this the legal or right thing to do? I’m not sure… but with already having to deal with multiple corrupt cops on this trip, I had no intentions of wanting to deal with more. Thankfully, no one pursued us and I’m happy my instincts were correct. I feel sorry for whoever got pulled over after me though.

After that hubbub, the Khao Soy restaurant Elise and I wanted to go to was closed. So we drove towards my hostel to join Dan and Sam for breakfast. We also popped by my hostel so I could extend for one more night. I think I’ll be heading to Bangkok tomorrow with Dan and Sam!

I devoured a tasty stir fried chicken sukiyaki which was just as good as I remembered. I believe this is my first or second one of my time in Thailand so far. This is one of my favorite dishes though, so prepare to see plenty more of it!

After breakfast, we parted ways for a short amount of time to prepare for our afternoon activities.

I started my time with a subpar smoothie. But it was refreshing on this hot day. I also extended my motorbike rental for another day so we could go exploring.

I then dove into more hostel guitar playing while I waited for everyone to get ready.

Dan, Sam, Elise, and I set out on a 20 minute motorbike ride to an area Dan found! Dan told us about a planetarium and that’s where we were heading!

We unfortunately showed up 25 minutes after the planetarium show had begun. But we paid 50 Baht and were able to make our way into the show still for the last half hour.

The show was all in Thai. The showing at 11am was in English, but we didn’t really look into this before hand. The videos were very cool and a bit nauseating as we flew across the galaxy. All of us, but Sam, fell asleep at one point or another in the 30 minutes in the show.

The planetarium also has an exhibit on the bottom two floors. So we walked around and checked it out. It was a very impressive space museum and I’m glad we made the journey out to see it!

All this learning made us work up an appetite. So we headed back into the city and grabbed a toasty on the way back. I actually branched out a bit and got a spicy chicken toasty. It was alright, still nowhere as good as the cheese toasty

We then got back into the city where we met up with an American couple, Wren and Nate! We grabbed some snacks and headed down the street to a beautiful park to have a picnic!

We had a whole assortment of snacks ranging from weird fruits to Chang Beers! It was a really nice way to finish off the evening and be outside! It did however make me miss my Kansas City Sunday night dinner crew!

We hung out for a while in the park, talking about life. Eventually though I got very hungry for a real meal. So we hopped back on the motorbikes to a restaurant called Its Good Kitchen. The food lived up to its name too!

After a nice dinner with an even nicer group of people, it was time to say our See you laters.

I’ll most likely see Wren and Nate in Bangkok. But Elise will be staying north for now, so the odds are much lower unfortunately.

My friends Abi and Tia left tonight as well for Bangkok. I think I’ll see Abi again as well, but Tia is probably not going to happen until I visit her sometime in England!

It ended up being a wholesome and productive day! Tomorrow though will ramp up my solo traveling adventure to the max as Dan, Sam, and I make our way to the bustling city of Bangkok… but more on that tomorrow!

– Elie