Day 9: Next Stop, Chiang Mai

December 28, 2024

Sadly, we finally had to leave our perfect room at the Banyan Tree in Krabi and start making our way to the airport en route to Chiang Mai. We had really made ourselves at home in Krabi because I think subconsciously we did not think we would ever have to leave. Our transfer to the airport was a bright and early 8am for a 10:30 flight, so you know we had to grab one more breakfast before we left. As we were pulling away from the resort, the staff lined up and waved as the van pulled out of the driveway - a fitting send off from the ever-attentive Banyan Tree team.

The ride to the airport took a bit longer than expected, but we still had plenty of time so weren't too stressed...until we got to the airport and the line to check bags was already to the back of the roped off area. The line didn't move for the first few minutes of us standing there, but it soon started moving and we were on our way (after paying over 6,000 Baht for our oversized checked bags— not in line with our self-imposed savings mode).

The Krabi airport is fairly small so we were able to get through security and to the gate with a bit of time before boarding, but before we knew it they were calling our boarding group and we grabbed our seats for the two hour flight to Chiang Mai on AirAsia.

After an uneventful flight with no in-flight service, we quickly deplaned, got our bags, and were greeted by a representative from our next hotel to shuttle us a short 15 minutes to The Anantara, where we will be staying the next 3 nights. When we got to the hotel, we were given a flower necklace, some tamarind juice, and treated to short chair massages as a welcome! Having now received the first 3 massages of my life in the last few days, I would say this was a top 2 massage!

Our room wasn't ready yet, so we decided to explore Chiang Mai a bit in the meantime. The first order of business was to find some food as we had an 8pm dinner reservation and hadn't eaten since our early breakfast in Krabi. We ended up eating at Kat's Kitchen as it had decent reviews and was in the Old City section of Chiang Mai. There, we ordered our first Khao Soi of the trip and thought it was just okay. The other noodle dish we got we learned afterwards that it was ramen noodles like you would get in a grocery store, but they were delicious. Emily got her first Thai Iced Tea with its distinct coloring and that was quite tasty. I got another Chang beer that they generously served in a coozie to keep the Chang crispy.

Then we headed out in search of our new favorite dessert: mango sticky rice. Emily found a place called "Fruiturday" that was back towards our hotel to grab our sweet treat. While the sticky rice wasn't quite as tasty as our first one, the mango was perfectly ripe and flavorful and we were very pleased with our dessert.

We took a different route back to the hotel so we could walk through the Tha Phae Gate, which is and was the entrance into the Old City. It was a busy area with large groups of young women having photoshoots in front of it. From there, we walked down the Tha Phae Road towards the Ping River as our room was now ready. As we walked, we decided to stop into Wat Buppharam, a Buddhist temple, along the way. The temple was built around 1500 and had a number of buildings on the property, each more ornate and gilded than the next!

By this point, we were pretty sweaty and tired and were excited to see our new hotel room! When we got back to the hotel, one of the members of the staff led us on what felt like an endless journey to our room. We were welcomed in the room by rose petals everywhere! The bathtub was half filled with rose petals floating and covering the whole surface; The bed had rose petals arranged in the shape of a heart. They also gave us some desserts, fruit, and a bottle of red wine!

The room itself is really amazing - this trip has really ruined other hotels for us. We have a balcony that overlooks the pool area and river, and has a direct view of "Bubbles," a rooftop champagne bar on top of the spa, which hosted the cocktail hour for a wedding tonight and another one tomorrow night. What the Anantara did not likely anticipate was that our rose petal bath would not be used in any romantic way, but would in fact be used to soak Emily's tired and swollen feet after a long travel day with many steps...

Then it was time for, you guessed it, a quick nap! The quick nap ended up being a bit longer than anticipated, so we frantically got ready for our dinner at 8. We were running a couple of minutes behind, but nothing too crazy and we weren't concerned about being too late because we had heard about how fast and reliable Grab was to get rides in Chiang Mai. That was not our experience. The Grab that we got paired with was not going to arrive for 20 minutes and the restaurant was another 30 minutes from our hotel, so we decided to call an audible and make a different dinner plan.

We really wanted sushi, which is what we thought our original reservation was for (it turns out it wasn't even a sushi restaurant, but we had mentally already committed to sushi). Emily found somewhere that looked good nearby, so we headed out. On the way to sushi, we were temporarily distracted by a night market and wandered around that a bit and vowed to come back after dinner for a more thorough exploration.

When we got to the sushi restaurant, we were the only two people there - a welcome break from the hubbub outside. We each got miso soup and sushi platters, which were really good! It was a pretty quick meal and a nice break from all the Thai food, so we set out to find a different night market before circling back to our original target.

People had been telling us to check out the Saturday Night Market, but after doing a bunch of research we realized that was on the other side of the Old City, so we settled on the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. This night market was really large but was quiet and our hypothesis was that most people and vendors were at the Saturday market, which was just as well. We then ventured back to the Anusarn market by our hotel. "Chill Square" was the food section of the night market and where we got dessert: Emily got a banana nutella roti and I got a sampling of 5 mochi's.

Finally, it was time to get back to the hotel and go to bed. Before we went back to our room, we decided to take a stroll around the property as we hadn't really had the opportunity to previously. It's a really large property and a quiet oasis from the insanity of the cars and bikes on the surrounding roads and has a great view down the river. When we got back to the room, they left us a nice little note on a leaf as a part of the turndown service.

Tomorrow is another early day, but one we are very excited for...the Elephant Sanctuary! We're going to bring the fancy camera, too. Until then, hope all is well in America or wherever you are reading this from.

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Love,

Max