Glorious mountains and an amazing jungle in the north, some of the most beautiful beaches in the south and an extremely busy capital city, Thailand truly has something for everyone visiting.
Sometimes life gets in the way, you get busy with other stuff and never finish a blog post. You feel uninspired because it’s been so long. This is what happened to me last year after I got back from Thailand and Cambodia. Fortunately, I’ve been following Elisa on Instagram (@happyskinkitchen) and inspired me again to finish off this blog post as she has been posting the most interesting and beautiful Instagram stories of places I visited a year ago and made me nostalgic. So, I went through the photos I took a year ago, sorted them out and rewrote this blog post for you guys wanting to visit this heaven.
It’s been a year since my trip to Thailand and I still have the fondest of memories because it was an amazing adventure, probably the greatest and longest adventure I’ve done so far in terms of travel. It was full of different activities, new experieces and lucky moments (being at Maya bay on Christmas day, especially now that they’ve closed it down for the public indefinitely).
The food
If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I cannot go anywhere and not try the local cuisine. I’m a food fanatic, especially when it comes to trying new dishes. Obviously being a food blogger, I pay a lot of attention and do loads of research on the cuisine before going on any trip. Thailand didn’t disappoint in terms of food as it has lots to offer.
After a long flight to Bangkok, an overnight sleep train ride and a good night sleep in Chiang Mai, I was feeling excited and refreshed to start my adventure by visiting the numerous food markets one can find in one place.
Since I suffered a fair bit in India from eating local food, I didn’t think I would try any from foodstalls on the street, however, I was happy to see that all foodstalls were all very clean and all the food was cooked in front of us once we made our order.
Something else I really wanted to experience in Thailand, since they’re so well documented by many bloggers, are cooking classes. My husband and I decided to go for a Thai cooking class at Thai Akha cooking school in Chiang Mai, which I highly recommend as they were all so nice and helpful. It was a fun and interesting experience learning about a different nation’s cooking culture.
One thing I was amazed by is the amount of spices the locals put in their food. In fact, the lady guiding us with our cooking explained that food meant for tourists always has way less spices than that for the locals.
In this cooking class, we managed to make a few different dishes and then had the chance to taste our own dishes. It’s now one of my favourite cuisines. We also got a recipe book and some spices to take home as a souvenir and recreate some of the dishes from our class.
Whilst in Chiang Mai, I fortunately had the chance to find out the best place to eat their most traditional dish; Khao Soi. The restaurant Kanjana restaurant might not look like much as it's just a humble open air local restaurant but the food makes up for the lack of ambiance. Khao Soi is a noodles based dish which can be dry or wet. I decided on the dry as I'm not a big fan of noodles in a soup and OMG it was amazing!! The tasty base of boiled egg noodles is topped with shallots, lime, chillies, chicken and finally fried noodles.
Where to go and what to do
We visited Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai for a day, Bangkok and Krabi and then went to Siem Reap in Cambodia for a few days. When in Thailand, make sure to visit all the temples!! They might all seem very similar once you’ve seen a few, but they are absolutely magnificent. The amount of detail and care that has gone into these temples is incredible and the tranquility one can feel in these temples is marvellous. People from all over the world visit these places of worship, and even if you don’t necessarily follow thereligion, I can guarantee you’d be amazed how peaceful you’ll feel.
Visit an elephant sanctuary, but under no circumstance ride an elephant. There are many places that let you ride elephants, but I feel it’s such a cruelty to do and it’s so enjoyable looking at these majestic creatures that I don’t see the need to ride them.
As I suggested before, cooking classes are very popular, so why not take a cooking class and learn a bit more on the Thai cuisine. I do highly suggest going to Thai Akha cooking school (NOT A SPONSOR, we paid full price and haven’t been asked to mention them) just because they were very nice, helped us learn and understand and the food tasted amazing!!
One more thing I wanted to share with you is a few words/phrases that remind me of each of the different cities we visted through Thailand.
Chaing Mai
- heaven
- quiet
- amazing food
- cooking class
- elephant sanctuary
- beautiful temples
Chiang Rai
- majestic White temple
- tons of tourists
Bangkok
- busy, hectic
- full of tourists from all over the world
- Khao San road
- Amazing experience of eating on a hotel rooftop in the modern part of Bangkok.
Krabi
- amazing hotel room we stayed at fot the last 4 days. The photos say it all.
- island hopping
- beautiful, pictoresque beaches
- sun, sand
- Sleeping boat experience to Maya bay on Chistmas Eve
- sleeping under the starry skies
- Early morning swim at Maya Bay on Christmas day
I must also say that on this trip I met some of the loveliest people I’ve ever met. Everyone was so helpful and nice to us. It has been an experience of a lifetime and writing this pos from scratch afterover a year has made me emotional and brought up some amazing memories, which sometimes in life we tend to not give enough credit to because we’re always so busy and doing all sorts of things. I cherish these memories and hope I can appreciate more the simpler things in life because those are the ones that really count
