Thailand - Bangkok & Chiang Mai
7 Days in Thailand
From April 8 to April 14, 2023, we visited Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Saturday, April 8, 2023
Day 1: Today we woke up in Bangkok! We headed out to try and eat some food at Jay Fai. We were too late. Jay Fai opens at 9am and we didn’t know people start standing in line as early as 6am! It was also her last day she was open for the next two weeks due to Songkran. We were bummed, some more than others, but good thing Alan suggested some really good pad thai next door. We ended up eating at Thipsamai. It was the best Pad Thai we had on our trip. We also had this orange juice that was amazing! It had chunks of oranges in it making it so delicious to drink. We even tried this little dessert outside of Thipsamai at a little food stand. It was pretty good. We later found out that it’s a Thai traditional dessert that’s served everywhere. We did more walking around, to the post office to get some stamps, down a street with food vendors, and then eventually to our meeting spot for our floating market food tour at Latmayam Floating Market. We met 3 other couples and our tour guide, Pook. She was super awesome. Pook had us try so many different Thai foods. It was good. We also rode on a boat and learned about the market we visited a little better. We also visited an orchid farm and a buddhist temple. After the tour was finished, the rest of the group caught taxis back to their hotels and we caught a ride with Pook. She took us to a local market where no tourists visit called Wat Pradu Market. Pook bought some food for dinner and we did as well. Chad even bought some jumping shrimp which made him sick later. You should remember that eating raw things probably isn’t the healthiest in a third world country, especially if the things like shrimp come from the river water. Pook brought us close to our hotel and we caught a ride with a taxi.
Sunday, April 9, 2023
Day 2: Today we woke up a little early and ate noodle soup at this spot right below our place. We had a full day tour of the temples and were so exhausted after maybe only going to 3 of them. We visited the Golden Palace, Wat Po, and Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat. Chad’s stomach wasn’t doing so well after eating the jumping shrimp salad so we ended the tour a little earlier than expected. We ate some lunch with Elena, our tour guide first and then headed back to our place to rest for a little while before going on a Tuk Tuk Temples, Markets, and Food Tour. It was so much fun and we got to eat a bunch of Thai foods. Our tour guide’s name was P and we had our own Tuk Tuk driver named Charlie. ______
Monday, April 10, 2023
Day 3: Today we had a reservation at the restaurant Blue by Alain Ducasse. It’s the restaurant that Max Boonthanakit used to work at. We were supposed to dress business casual so we went to Platinum Mall to find something cheap and nice to wear. That mall is extremely overwhelming with maybe 6 levels and the shops are EVERYWHERE. If you plan to go back to a shop that you liked, you should take pictures of where it’s located and of the name of the shop or you won’t be able to find it again. Chad wasn’t really feeling well later in the afternoon so we went back to the hotel to rest. I really wanted to try out some places Max had suggested so we decided to go to Mensho Tokyo for dinner. We rode the BTS and walked a little more and found the place. Chad still wasn’t feeling so well and didn’t eat much of his ramen. We headed back to the hotel and rested._______
Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Day 4: Chad still wasn’t feeling that good this morning so I went to get some porridge from Jok Prince, a little shop that is on the Michelin bib guide. It was just porridge with meatballs and ginger and green onions. I guess it’s popular in Thailand. It was okay…but cheap so it was good. Chad didn’t come with me but I bought him one to take home. After eating a little and resting more, Chad felt a little better and we went to Mahanakhon Walk to see a view of the city and walk on some glass. Then we went to Victory Monument to check out Victory Mall. It was sooo overwhelming. We didn’t buy much things and Chad found an arcade that he was more interested in than shopping. After that, we went to Boat Noodle Alley where there are a bunch of shops that have boat noodle dishes that were cheap. We only tried a couple dishes but they were really good. I wouldn’t mind going back. I think we went when it was a little early so there weren’t that many places that were open at the time. We headed back to our place to rest before we went to hang out with Alan and Pan. They picked us up from our hotel and we went to MBK Center to see how the shopping was there. I found a long romper that I really liked from Platinum mall so we went to check out MBK Center if they had something similar…but we couldn’t find anything I liked. We went to Steve Café and Cuisine for dinner with them for some Thai food. It was good. We had an early flight for Chiang Mai the next morning so they dropped us off at our place._______
Wednesday, April 12, 2023
Day 5: Our flight was at 6:10am out of BKK, which was maybe 20-30 minutes from our hotel. We left our hotel at like 3 something in the morning to get there in time. We arrived in Chiang Mai at around 7:30am and went to eat at Thaan Aoan since we couldn’t check into our room until later. We walked around a little and walked thru a market too. We found out we could leave our bags at the hotel lobby area for a charge. We did that and met up with Kalei at a coffee shop. She took us to a couple temples. One of them only allowed men into their temple so Chad was lucky enough to look inside. Then we went to a mall where they had a bunch of crafters and we ate cheese toast that Alan suggested. It was sooo good that I bought two of them for myself. Chad and I had a traditional Thai massage at 7pm at the White Orchid Massage so we checked into our hotel room and then headed for massage. After the massage, we met up with Kalei again at a jazz bar. It was cool. _____
Thursday, April 13, 2023
Day 6: We were originally supposed to leave at around 7pm today but I extended our trip to leave on Friday. I had originally booked our AirBnB until the following day anyways because if not, we would have to check out at 11am. Chad was having way too much fun and I wanted him to enjoy it longer. Today was the first official day of SongKran, their Buddhist New Year. It’s a three-day event that people walk around the town or cities with water guns or buckets splashing people with water. Chad was having wayyyy to much fun splashing people and I didn’t want to ruin his fun by leaving. We walked towards the center of the town where all the action was and Chad bought a water gun. We ended up getting splashed frequently on the way to the moat area. We had a late lunch with Kalei and her boyfriend George and continued on our way to get splashed on. Someone took Chad’s gun while we were eating so he bought another one and a little one for me. I didn’t really want to play water so instead I went to get another massage, but a more relaxing one than the previous day. I got a massage while Chad played with water the entire time. When it started getting dark, we started walking back to our hotel but stopped off at some night markets on the way. ________
Friday, April 14, 2023
Day 7: Today we flew from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok. Our flight was in the middle of the day. Before our flight, we had our last Khao soi dishes at the airport. By the time we landed back in Bangkok and got back to our room, we were so hungry we decided to just eat at the McDonald’s near our hotel. We wanted to try out their specialty food items. Some of the things were McChicken bites, these patongo bread things with condensed milk dip, and a taro/corn pie alamode. It was all pretty good. We rested for a little while and then headed out to Platinum Mall again. I wanted to see if I could get a long romper like I had a few days earlier. We didn’t find the place I had bought it from because that place is like a maze. I didn’t know what the store was called or where it was even located. We searched thru maybe 3 stories and couldn’t find what I wanted. So we left, got picked up by Alan and Pan and went to get some food at Jodd Fair, this huge market area with a bunch of food vendors and some shopping too. Chad got some cheese covered clams and snail things. I bought some mango sticky rice to eat later. Pan wanted to bring us to eat dinner at a restaurant called Thong Lo. It had normal foods like steak, mac and cheese, pizza, and chicken wings. After dinner, we went to the rooftop bar at T-One. It was pretty cool! They had these hanging lights that looked kind of like jellyfish. We had a couple drinks and hung out there for a little while and then called it a night.___________
Saturday, April 15, 2023
Today was our last dayish in Bangkok. We just slept in and packed to go to our next stop of our honeymoon. We got to the airport and had some Burger King while we waited for our flight to Hanoi. After landing in Hanoi, we had to go thru customs. We stood in the wrong line at first so it took us over an hour to get thru customs. The line we initially stood in only had three customs workers but maybe 7 or 8 lines, basically a big mess. I later found another line moved faster so we stood in that one and finally got thru to Hanoi. We were picked up at the airport to go to our AirBnB. We settled down at our new home base and the location was a great location to be able to roam around the city but not be in the center of all the traffic. We walked around a little and passed Beer Street where everyone is basically a big mess of people sitting, drinking, and eating. We continued walking to eat at Bun Cha Ta. It was similar to tsukemen, where you dip your noodles into the broth. It was a great first meal in Hanoi. After dinner, we walked around the old quarter a little. There’s a lot of nightlife going on and night markets in the area close to our home base. Everything was basically in walking distance. _________