Lanterning in the New Year in Chiang Mai
Trip dates: December 31, 2016 - January 5, 2017
We flew from Luang Prabang to Chiang Mai on New Year's Eve. We originally had planned to spend NYE in Luang Prabang, but due to the schedule of things we wanted to do in Chiang Mai, we needed to move things around.
One of the biggest things to watch out for in Thailand around the holidays is compulsory gala dinners. These are extravagant buffets that can cost up to 5,000 THB (over $150 USD) per person! We booked at a more middle tier hotel that didn’t have mention of one, phew.
Coming to Chiang Mai, which happens to be one of the cleaner Thai cities to begin with, was such a change after spending so much time in Cambodia and Vietnam (and to some degree, Laos). Everything was just so clean, we couldn’t get over it!
After checking in to our hotel, we decided to grab an early dinner as we tried to figure out what we wanted to do for the evening. We were kind of pooped and had a super early morning the next day, but we knew that Chiang Mai is big on lighting sky lanterns for NYE and didn't want to miss out. For food, we saw a top restaurant nearby was known for Burmese cuisine (The Swan) so we decided to check it out!
Luckily, this turned out to be one of our favorite meals and not terribly expensive either. The food all had familiar tastes but subtle differences and many layers of flavor. Here are some shots of the meal:
After eating, we walked around the Thapae Gate and the night market that leads up to it. The goods were similar to ones we’d seen all over Thailand, so we didn’t really look much at them. There were street performers and areas for food/drinks that were all pretty local flavor. There were also sections showing local artists and paintings which were pretty cool.
There are also many temples around Chiang Mai as it is known as the ‘spiritual center’ of Thailand. We checked out a few and in researching the area, saw that one of the big ones (Wat Phan Tao) had a late evening Buddhist service followed by sky lantern releasing, so we decided we would check that out later!
We went back to the hotel to rest a little before heading out again around 10. At this point, we could see lots of little lights in the sky - sky lanterns! Neither of us have lit them before so we were excited to try it out. Turns out it’s a super big rip off! We read online it should be about 40 THB for one, but the locals who were making them as fast as possible and selling them were marking up from 80-100 THB for big ones (supply and demand at work here). We had planned to light more but ended up only buying one because we didn’t want to pay the exorbitant markups, though others were happily paying that price for them.
We spent a while just absorbing the environment and watching all the different folks light their lanterns. It was picturesque to just see the lanterns taking off gently into the sky, forming a little river. It really reminded us of the Disney movie Tangled, but it wasn’t as dense as it was in the movie. There were also a lot of close calls as people didn’t let their fire work long enough to give the lantern enough lift and it would almost hit others in the head, but the crowd was good at helping catch stray lanterns. Other people also released lanterns too close to trees and they would get caught and only sometimes manage to break free of tree branches.
After that, we went to Wat Phan Tao temple to check out the buddhist service. We managed to get a seat to share and just tried to listen to the chants and meditate in the giant crowd of people. We spent midnight there, which was a nice time to also just be mindful and present, instead of being in a big mass of jostling people in the market. The monk who was leading the service actually spoke some English too and gave a little segment of the service in English for visitors. Unfortunately, they didn’t light any lanterns at the end, but since we had done ours earlier we didn’t feel like we missed out.
The next day, we did a super long day trip to go north to see Chiang Rai - primary the White temple and the Golden Triangle, where Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand intersect at the Mekong River. We were on a packed van with 13 people and the tour ended up lasting about 14 hours (yikes!), from 7:15 AM to 9:30 PM.
The White Temple was built by a successful artist and was very contemporary, but because we went on New Years day, it was packed. Because it was so crowded, we felt pretty rushed and couldn’t really spend time admiring a lot of the detail work. Men on bullhorns kept saying ‘keep moving’, ‘keep walking’ in English, Thai, and Chinese. There is a lot of pop culture artwork referenced inside the main temple, such as Neo from the Matrix, the USS Enterprise, and Toothless from “How to Train Your Dragon”, with more being added as the artist sees fit. There is also a fancy gold building that is actually a toilet - a statement on how you shouldn’t judge a building just by how it looks.
The Golden Triangle is a special economic zone to facilitate trade between the 3 countries that are all spitting distance from one another there. However, all we really saw was a little boat tour to see a set of buildings in Myanmar, some casinos in Laos, and a pretty sad ‘village’ in Laos that didn’t require a visa. Since we had already come from Luang Prabang, we really gained nothing by visiting the village other than a pair of sunglasses for Lishan since her other cheap pair kept breaking. We got upsold to go on this part of the trip because everyone else on the boat was going and we didn’t want to just be wandering around the Thailand side; but in retrospect, we probably should have done that.
There were a bunch of other activities and stops we had on the trip such as a hot spring (it’s piped through fountains, so not as impressive and doesn’t smell as sulfur-y as other hot springs we’ve seen), a not great tourist lunch spot, saw some hill tribes (felt very exploitive), and the more local Blue Temple towards the end of the trip. These stops didn’t really add a lot to the tour except time and we were also stuck in pretty bad traffic for much of the trip, which is why it took us so long to get back. It was an incredibly long day and not one that we would recommend.
When we got back, we just wanted something quick to eat so we got a burger! Western food is way more prevalent in Chiang Mai (big expat population), but this food was pretty mediocre at best.
We also managed to catch a Muay Thai fight at the Thapae stadium. A lot of people say it’s really touristy, and it was, but it was still entertaining to watch some people who really seemed to be trying their hardest to knock the other person out! There was an intermission fight of sorts where everyone is blindfolded and fighting, which was definitely touristy but still entertaining.
Here are some other random assorted pics of Chiang Mai and food, enjoy!
