A small hippie town in Northern Thailand, Pai is known for attracting backpackers who want to relax and embrace the Thai, slow-paced way of life. To get to Pai from Chiang Mai, it takes three hours and exactly 792 sharp turns up the side of a few mountains. Everyone gets their via a minivan from…
Author: MacKenzie
Mae Wang National Park
An hour and a half drive southwest of the city of Chiang Mai (or a 40 minute motorbike ride from my apartment in Sanpatong) is Mae Wang National Park. A relatively small area pretty far off the beaten track, Mae Wang National Park is known for the beautiful rock formations that were formed millions of…
Bua Tong Waterfalls
Bua Tong Waterfalls, also lovingly referred to as “The Sticky Waterfalls”, has been one of the highlights of Chiang Mai for me. Initially I was skeptical about making the trip an hour and a half north of the city just to spend an hour or two at a waterfall that didn’t even include a hike….
A Weekend in Krabi, Thailand
Last weekend I finally had an opportunity to explore Southern Thailand. We had a long weekend for Thai Constitution Day, so my friends and I headed to Krabi to enjoy a weekend on the beach. We stayed in Krabi Town, the capital of Krabi Province and a cute little town on the Andaman Coast. We…
Ob Khan National Park
Ob Khan National Park is located in the town of Hang Dong, about an hour drive southwest of the city of Chiang Mai, and about 27 kilometers north of my apartment in Sanpatong. I took a day trip to the park on my motorbike and, once I turned off the highway, it was a beautiful…
The Best Elephant Sanctuary in Chiang Mai
I spent some time with elephants on the Garden Route in South Africa, so you might think that a second opportunity to hang out with elephants in Thailand would be less exciting. Well, MEETING ELEPHANTS NEVER GETS LESS EXCITING. Not to mention, African and Asian elephants are very different. I’m not just speaking from my…
Cooking Thai Food
Ask a bunch of tourists on the streets of Chiang Mai why they decided to visit Thailand and I assure you that most of them will mention the food. I will be writing more about Thai food in a later post (all of the deliciousness deserves a dedicated post) but for now I want to…
Celebrating Loi Krathong
This year while my family and friends were stuffing their faces with turkey and pie for Thanksgiving, I was celebrating Loi Krathong in Thailand! It is purely coincidence that Loi Krathong fell exactly on Thanksgiving this year, but I was happy to have a reason to celebrate while far from home. Loi Krathong is a…
A Weekend in Nan, Thailand
This weekend my fellow foreign teachers and I ventured away from our home in San Pa Tong to Nan, Thailand’s Northeastern-most province, which borders Laos. Just a cozy 5-hour night-bus away from the city of Chiang Mai, Nan is a rural province that borders Laos and is known for its spectacular national parks, the most…
Grand Palace, Bangkok
I have been to some beautiful mountain tops that can’t be beat, but the Grand Palace in Bangkok is by far the most beautiful man-made structure I have ever seen. It’s not just one Palace, but a complex of temples and buildings where the king lived for centuries (until the mid 1900s). The Grand Palace…