Chiangmai, Thailand

It has been about 20 years since my last and only visit to Chiangmai. I had wanted to visit many times in the past but somehow kept postponing. This time in early December 2012, we made made a trip by driving from Bangkok to Chiangmai and then on the way back, we went to the ancient city of Sukhothai.

The drive to Chiangmai was pleasant and nice although it was more than 550 miles. We passed lots of greenery and mountains as we approach Chiangmai and the roads were in generally good condition.

Nice roads with flower trees alongside.

Beautiful mountain ranges before approaching Chiangmai.

As I was doing the driving, I did not have much opportunity to take lots of photos but I was very happy to see that a number of old houses have been converted to either restaurants, coffee houses or retail shops.

Very nice old wooden houses.

Another view of old Chiangmai

There was a place (I forgot the name) that was sold and promoted local art, had books to read and a cafe. It was a very nice place to get some quiet and away from the afternoon heat.

I liked the way it was decorated and the coffee and cakes were also very good. They were also reviewed by Tripadvisor judging from the sticker that was on the door.

 

Nice bookself. I took this because I thought of replicating this.

One thing that also got my attention was the sale that was ongoing with optical shops. I really could not understand why the discount was such a fraction. I asked around but no one could give me the answer. This is not just in Chiangmai but in Bangkok as well.

Why this discount rate?

At the start of our trip, my wife was done with some food poisoning (but the rest of the children and me were OK). As we stayed quite far from the city, we were told that the nearest hospital was a Government hospital. As my wife is Thai, we went there as her condition was not too bad. 

On a previous trip to Koh Lanta, we had a good experience with the Govt hospital there, being the only hospital on the whole island. Our daugther who was about 5 years then, had a quite severe allergy outbreak. The young doctor there was very professional and hardworking. Thinking of the same, we did not mind going to this Govt hospital.

However, we were disappointed as the doctor was very slow in their work and did not seem very eager to see patients.. After waiting for more than an hour, the doctor just prescribed medicine without doing any checks. We walked out and bought some OTC medicine.

I was more angry at the doctors for making many other tribal villagers who were in much worse conditions waiting for so long for treatment. it was obvious that they had to travel very far to reach the hospital.

It is always very painful to see the poor and marginalised being penalised die to their situation.

Counters were empty.

A look at the treatment room of the hospital.

Apart from the above experience, our trip was very good and we enjoyed ourselves very much with the sight seeing, nice weather and of course, good food.

Sorry for not being able to provide more photos.

Until the next time, cheers.