Day 121! It ended up being a super fun day! It was full of good food, friends, and nature! We also had to change hostels, not only because of allergies, but also they booked our room for other people.

I slept much better than the day before… and this time, woke up without puffy fingers. But I still broke out in hives. Something in the bed must not like my skin (or vice versa)!

But it didn’t matter, as today we were checking out and saying good riddance to this allergic reaction bed. I did really like the hostel though, so I was disappointed to be leaving so soon.

We had booked another hostel the night before. But before we headed there, we walked down the road to the breakfast place we enjoyed the day before!

After enjoying another wonderful breakfast, we waited at the hostel for a grab that would take us to our next home for a couple nights.

A quick grab ride later and we had arrived at Premier Hostel Chiang Mai, which was a very modern and nice hostel.

We couldn’t check into the hostel till 1pm, so we waited in the lobby playing an intense game of jenga and then more cards! We played Shithead (which I thought them a couple nights before) and also started a game of Egyptian rat slap. But before we could finish we got interrupted saying our room was ready.

The beds were easily the biggest bed I had seen in a dorm room, I couldn’t believe it was less expensive than our last hostel AND had less people.

After settling down for a bit, it was time to set out on our big adventure of the day. Today we were going to the Sticky Waterfall! This was actually something I did last year during rainy season, so I was curious to see how it compared.

It was a long 1 hour drive out to the waterfall and we met up with my friends (now our friends) Joya and Miri!

We then plopped our things down on and under a bench and set off down the staircase to the bottom of the falls.

We made it to the bottom and found some very sturdy vines to climb around on.

After monkeying around for a bit, we started our ascent up the Sticky Waterfall! The sticky aspect of this waterfall comes from the limestone, mineral deposits, and calcium buildups. It makes the rocks not slick even though they are submerged in flowing water!

We stayed at the waterfall for an hour and a half and had an absolute blast! We splashed around in the falls, sat down in it; and had lots of laughs as all of us had a number of close calls with slips (yes… some parts of the falls are slippery, might need to change the name).

After thoroughly enjoying ourselves, we hopped in our grab back to our hostel. The drive there and back was an hour each, so a pretty long car ride! But it was totally worth it as my cousins thought it was awesome, we got to hang out with our friends from Switzerland again, and I had a blast even with being there before!

We got back to the hostel, showered, and started getting very hungry. Conveniently, our new hostel was directly next to a nightly food market (yeah, every night) that I had been to a couple times.

This was super convenient! We had such cheap food without even having to search for a while.

The food was also fantastic and since it was super cheap, I was able to get 2 Bao buns, a chicken Khao Soi, and a smoothie for 110 Baht!

Ben and Sam also got Khao Soi, which made me really happy! This was a super new dish for them and it was also a dish that’s special to Chiang Mai! It’s also a favorite of mine, so I’m very glad they liked it.

After a bit of a feast, we went on a short walk and then headed back to the hostel to enjoy some AC. We chatted for a bit while in our room and then Ben suggested that we go get massages.

Now, I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of massages. I’ve only had one ever and it was a Thai massage and it was PAINFUL.

Mina was tired, so she didn’t join us… but I was convinced to try it again with Ben and Sam.

We found a fairly cheap 30 minute Thai massage, which Ben and I got. Sam opted for the 30 minute foot massage since he had a Thai massage yesterday.

As I said… I was skeptical to say the least that this would be good. But WOW, I really really enjoyed it. This time it was super relaxing that I almost fell asleep. Until the large Thai lady masseuse started throwing me around! She was swinging me and popping my back, massaging the heck out of my neck too. I most likely would do that again!

To cap off the great day, my friend Elise was in town! So we met up to catch up on our last couple of weeks!

It was very lovely seeing her again. We started by the food market and then wandered over to the jazz coop (where I went a few times a couple weeks ago). The entire time we were chatting about anything and everything!

I came back to the hostel after around an hour or so and stayed up for another hour chatting with Ben and Sam!

It ended up being a long but great day! We’re finally starting to check off major tourist sights too. Even though we skipped the temples in Bangkok, there’s plenty of places to experience temples all across Thailand!

Tomorrow, we’re thinking about heading to Doi Inthanon. I hope that’s the case because it’s another item crossed off my Thailand bucket list!

– Elie