I have been dreaming of visiting Thailand for as long as I can remember, so naturally I did a lot of research before heading there. Now, I am no travel expert, but I will tell you what we did and what we thought of everything. We spent a total of three weeks there but could have easily spent four. We went to three different areas and spent a week at each. We saw Bangkok, northern Thailand and the islands in the southern part of the country.

We flew with Delta and Korean Air to Bangkok. I had never flown Korean Air, but I was immediately impressed when they offered my free wine and ice cream after our meals. (It really doesn’t take much to impress me lol).

When we got to the Bangkok airport we bought a SIM card for our phone. We got the one month plan since we would be there a little over 3 weeks and it was cheaper that way. This was much cheaper than adding an international plan for us, but I do recommend calling and asking your provider just to check.

We did not rent a car when we got to Bangkok, we chose a hotel that was close enough to the sites we wanted to see, so it really wasn’t neccesary. We walked or took a tuk tuk everywhere. We stayed at the Casa Nithra and it was a lovely experience. We had a big breakfast every day so we could fill up and then be on our way.

Bangkok

The Grand Temple

We started our sight seeing with the Grand Temple. You might have some local tuk tuk drivers try and tell you that it is closed until 11 or 12, and that you should take a tour around the city with them first, but that is a scam. We walked past three or four of these drivers on our way there. Check the times and get there when it opens, because it is super popular and can be very crowded. Also, with all temples in Thailand the women and men must have their shoulders, mid drifts, and knees covered. Some temples are a little more lax than others, but the Grand Temple is strict. Men wear pants. Longer shorts are not good enough (we made this mistake).

Wat Arun

After the grand temple we walked to the public ferry and crossed the river to Wat Arun which was gorgeous and much less crowded. We saw a lot of temples in Thailand and this was one of my favorites!

The Floating Market

The floating market is a must! There are a lot of tours and different companies that will take you there, but Gabe and I roll on a budget and we didn’t want to do a tour. So, after some research, we found that you can hire a taxi driver to take you there, wait for a few hours, and take you back for 2000 baht (about 63 usd). This was the cheapest option for what we wanted. We did quite a bit of shopping and tasted as much food as we could. It was definitely worth the trip!

Bangkok Bonus:

Unicorn cafe- to make all your Lisa Frank dreams come true

Ayuttha

Now, we are not guided tour people, honestly researching the history and telling Gabe about it is one of my favorite parts of traveling, but we were running short on time and Ayuttha has an overwhelming amount of history so we decided to do a semi-guided tour. We booked it through our hotel (Casa Nithra). It was a small group and they told us the history of each temple on the way there. Everyone roamed freely at each stop which gave us time to truly explore the space alone and break away from the crowds.

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai was, by far, our favorite city and I will likely write out a detailed blog post of all our or favorite spots, but for now I will just hit the high points. We stayed in a condo that we found on airbnb, and I’m not joking when I say it was 22 dollars a night! It was just a studio apt, but it was perfect for us. We rented a scooter to get around town from Mango Scooters, they were great! I would like to point out that Thailand drives on the left side of the road. It was so hard to remember to look right first before crossing the street. Also it should be noted that the drivers seat is where the passengers seat is here in America. So I would not recommend renting a car (or a scooter) unless you are comfortable with all of that, and of course, you must have your international drivers license.

The city of Chiang Mai is built around the old city, which is surrounded by a moat and has four gates/entrances. The amount of amazing restaurants, and street food vendors we got to experience was unreal. Again I will have to do a separate post on Chiang Mai alone.

Night Markets

There are so many night markets in Chiang Mai. Some only on certain days of the week and some every single night. One of the nightly markets is at the Chang Phuak aka the Elephant gate. It is full of authentic food to try and just a wonderful space to relax and have a beer. This is the market where I decided to try Durian and then almost immediately decided that I didn’t like it. To me it tasted like a trashcan with a hint of garlic and sweetness.

The Night Bazaar is another wonderful nightly market that you could spend hours at. It is huge and there is so much to see!

Thailand is a wonderful country to practice your haggling skills. I am terrible at negotiating any kind of price, so I left this up to Gabe, who did a great job at scoring us some deals.

Temples in Chiang Mai

There are many small and beautiful temples scattered throughout the city. The most well known is probably Wat Phra That Dom Suthep, the golden temple that sits on top of a mountain over looking the city. It is not only a lovely temple, but it has great views.

Elephant Sanctuary

We couldn’t go to Thailand without seeing the elephants, but we wanted to be certain that we chose a sanctuary that was truly helping the elephants. You would be surprised at the amount of “sanctuaries” that are still forcing elephants to pick up tourists with their trunks and let people climb on top of them to ride around like they are in a circus. It truly is the saddest thing to see and the fight to free these animals from this type of behavior is far from over.

We chose to go with Elephant Nature Park and it was honestly one of the best decisions of our entire trip. They are slightly more expensive than others, but again, they are a true sanctuary and are helping to heal so many tortured elephants.

We chose their “Care for Elephants” package so we were able to go to a smaller portion of the park with a small group of people. I believe there was about 8 or 9 of us and three elephants. Gabe and I basically had an elephant for a day and it was INCREDIBLE! Her name was ThadDao, which we were told meant “shining star”. We started the day by making rice balls and chopping up watermelons to feed her and the other elephants. After they ate quite a bit, we packed a satchel full of bananas and started a hike to the river. We walked with ThadDao and fed her every few minutes along the way. When we got to the river we all got in and splashed water on their skin to cool them off. We had so much fun and the elephants really seemed to enjoy playing in the water. The rest of the afternoon was spent hanging with the elephants by the water, only taking a short break for lunch, until our hike back. After we got back to the camp we went over to the main grounds to see some baby elephants. It was truly the best day ever.

The White Temple : Chiang Rai

Gabe and I were dying to see the White temple, so we rented a car for the day and made the drive to Chiang Rai. This temple did not disappoint. It was by far our favorite, mainly because it was just so creepy and unique. We got there before it opened, so we could see it with less people, and I highly recommend doing this to beat the bus tours. The White temple is a newer temple and it is truly a work of art. Totally worth the drive.

Pai

Gabe and I thought it would be a good idea to drive up to Pai (only 2 hours away) on our scooter one day. I don’t know the last time you spent more than an hour on a scooter, but OMG it is painful. The ride up there was absolutely gorgeous, but we were borderline miserable. Once we arrived we got some coffee from ‘Coffee in Love’ and went to explore the town. This town is known for attracting backpackers. Many of them plan on just passing through and end up staying. We went hiking through Pai Canyon and though we didn’t get the best views, because it was burning season (so it was smokey out), it was still an awesome hike.

Krabi

We spent the last part of our time in Thailand on the beaches and traveling around the islands. We wanted to end our trip on a relaxing note before heading home. We stayed in Phuket for a couple of days and honestly it was not for us. It was very crowded and heavily focused on partying, which we were not super in the mood for, but if you are then definitely check out the night life in Phuket. We ended up being more comfortable in Krabi staying in little bungalow beach resorts along the beach.

We discovered the boat Co-op while there and took a long tail boat to Poda island one day and to Ko Hong another. It was much cheaper to chose the group option since there was only two of us. The boats were never crowded and the ride was not very long, so I recommend this for anyone. We spent a lot of time on the beaches and exploring the islands.

Honestly, Thailand is the best country that I have ever visited. Everyone we met was friendly and it was extremely affordable (minus the airline ticket). There were so many hikes and activities to do, and so many sights to see. We started planning our return trip the moment we left. This country will forever have my heart.