This trip we decided to stay in one place for the two weeks in Thailand so that we wouldn’t be packing and unpacking, wasting days in travelling. At this time of the year, Chiang Mai, in the mountains of Thailand, is meant to be cooler and we know it has a few golf courses for us to try.
The riskiest part of this idea is booking the same hotel for two weeks, we hadn’t tried this hotel before, but the reviews were good. So far we haven’t been disappointed, the room is large and on the ground floor, we walk off our verandah into the pool. The breakfasts have been interesting and as each day go by, we are finding more variety in what we eat.
The first day was excellent weather, but then it rained all night and into the morning, making our planned golf game marginal. Fortunately it stopped for the game and then started again after we got back from dinner that night so no problems.
Still raining on our rest day, but we strolled out in lovely cool weather (24°C) and a bit of drizzle to see things that we normally don’t notice.
Old town Chiang Mai is a walled city, with a mote around the outside. The only parts of the walls still standing are on the corners and at the entry gates (they have restored these), but this is enough to give a good idea of what it would have looked like. We like to stay inside the Old Town since it is quieter and really easy to walk around. We came across this lovely park just around the corner from our hotel today, it was very relaxing and had exercise equipment spread around for people to use.
We walked to “Kats Kitchen” our first night for dinner, we love this restaurant. On the way we passed a few others that we thought we should try. The next night we walked to Kadmanee Market, which was a very nice food/restaurant market. Bruce found the crispy pork restaurant very appealing so we tried this one. Rosie found a noodle dish to try.
We then went to a small restaurant around the corner from our hotel, it was great so will go back there.
During one of our walks around town (the weather is so mild that we are enjoying walking during the day and night), we found another small restaurant that had a good recommendation from a lady passing by at the time, call “9 Siblings”. We enjoyed it, but currently Bruce prefers the others.
The restaurant is now run by the Grandchildren of the original owners, with the Great Grand children as the waiters.
In the second week we shifted rooms, since all poolside rooms were booked. This has turned out to be a bonus since we are now on the third floor (top) and they have a lift. The room has large sliding doors with insect screens and we are leaving them open all the time. This room is much cooler than the ground floor room (not that the ground floor was hot), which is making this the most pleasant trip to Chiang Mai we have ever had, weather wise.
We have also found two new restaurants on the same street as our hotel, within a couple of hundred metres. Look Bau is very similar to Kats Kitchen with a good variety of Thai food, it is very popular, we enjoyed this restaurant and will happily go back.
Leo’s Restaurant (Leo Kebab) is just down the road and is closer, on the same side as our hotel.and does a mean chicken pita bread.
This restaurant has a bit of a Greek feel to it and does some wraps and pita bread fills along with some Thai foods, very good.
Tammy and her electric car, it is a Neta, Tammy is trying to set up her own tourism business specialising in female tour operators and drivers.
On Thursday night, the hotel held a private party in the dining area and around the pool. We looked on from above as the guests listened to music and later were all given gift packs by entertainers in traditional Siam outfits. We think the party was for the hotels suppliers and supporters.
All up, our two weeks in Chiang Mai at the Pingviman Hotel was an excellent experience. We were lucky with the weather, it stayed between 14 and 29°C for the whole two weeks. The only down side was it was a bit cool to go swimming in the beautiful pool. Still managed a swim a few times, but only because Bruce thought it would be good for him.
