Me: So, we are going to go tomorrow? yay!!!

Papa: Yes, that is why. We need to prepare tonight.

Mama: But the thing is that...It is Ramadhan 2024!!

This time, I went to Chiang Mai for 9 days with mama papa. We bought the ticket last year in August 2023 because it had a promo on AirAsia. But, we did not know that we have to go on Ramadhan 2024! Yet, the show must go on.

Day 1: Arriving in Chiang Mai

Finally, we arrived in Chiang Mai, yay! So, we had to change our currency. The money was beautiful. The twenty note has a spear-shape filled with transparent plastic! We were very hungry, but we had to check-in first. So, we went to our homestay and found a nearby restaurant to eat chicken on top with glutenous rice. That is their regular rice too. Mama tried Khao Soi. It is chicken noodle with curry soup topped with crispy noodles. It is one of the foods that Chiang Mai is famous for. Oh yes, we also ate Pad Thai. It is fried flat rice noodles with fresh chives and beansprout. It was very yummy!

MMM!!! 

Yummy!

At night time, we went to the Lannatique market. It was one of the markets in the night Bazaar. There were a lot of booths selling all sorts of things such as food and drinks, clothes and pashminas, carved soaps and accessories, and even insects. We went to a smoothie booth. Mama ordered mango passionfruit smoothie and I ordered mango yoghurt smoothie because Chiang Mai have very beautiful and tasty mangos. Yesterday when we transitted in Kuala Lumpur, I saw an Indian guy ate a Thai mango with its skin. I can understand that because the skin is so smooth looking. Peeling it off or not, the mango still looks the same. Yet, I wonder the taste though!

Day 2: Changing Homestays

When we woke up, suddenly, we were kicked out by the homstay owner because somebody booked before us and the homestay dont have any more rooms so we had to change homstays unexpectedly. We went to a homestay called “Baan PIM” and there was when we met somebody that was very interesting... So this woman is in fact 72 hears old, she still looks stylish and and looks younger then her actual age! Her name is Mrs Pim.She is actually Miss Chiang Mai in the 1970s! Now, about the homestay. There we had a nice big bed. And also we always had a little black buddy to entertain me. So in the homestay I catch a cold because of the polution in Chiang Mai and the cold air when we were in the airport...

But, I soon got better well. And there’s where the little black buddy came. My body got the courage to get better well because of a little, no wait a big male black cat with one white whisker ( Which he maybe he had because he is quite old...) who was very loyal to us. He would always want for food. But, mostly he wanted to explore and do adventures in our room. Don’t forget his memorable part of rushing as fast as he could into our room and playing with the curtain. Since he like so much playing in the room, he would not go out. Even if we lock or shoo him from the room he would still hide and not go out. Well, that’s a tiring thing to do, getting him out of the room... But!!! Luckily I found the way. So all we had to do was use the spray gun to spray the floor and, voila! He’s gone.

Day 3: Catching Fever ....

So, from yesterday, I felt not really good. My throat was sore. My eyes were tired. My body was hot last night. Papa even went out by himself to find me medicine because mama had to accompany me. So, instead of forcing our bodies to go to search for food, papa ordered food from Grab. In the morning we tried “Mango Sticky Rice”. Even though I was sick, I could tell that it was a very yummy food. It helped to bring back my appetite. At lunchtime, we ordered Grab again. Mama was very careful to check ther was no pork in our food. We ate fish Ball Soup with Flat Rice Noodles and Roasted Duck Noodle. And for dinner, we tried Chicken Briyani Rice. How neat the way they wrap the take outs. It is difficult to be sick when traveling because we have limited time to enjoy the city. So next time, I would have to take care of my body as well as I can.

Day 4: Fortress Strolling

In Chiang Mai, there are many temples, but the most famous one are located in the old city. On the way to the old city, we also went to other temples. I forgot to count how many temples I went in. But what I remember is this one temple that has chickens. But not only regular chickens, chickens that have feathers on their feet. Can you imagine the fluffy chicken feet covered with feathers and to watch them walk was hillarious! Also, the chickens are not scared of us like in aceh, they’re brave! I even touched them you know!  

Another temple, I saw a table full of offerings such as beautifuly wrapped banana leaves decorated with yellow flowers, two mysterius flavoured red colourd drink in a plastic botle with a straw. And there were also cigarettes and matches! All of these offerings are actually for their ancestor’s spirits. In another temple, I saw many sculptures of monks! It looks like real, but their sizes are about a hand palm of papa. And some other temples, they forbid women to enter because the way they dress too showy. And it is considered as not polite.

Day 5: Doi Suthep

So we decided to go to Doi Suthep, it is a temple (again) but instead of just visiting it, we had to climb three hundred steps! We thought it would be tiring, but infact it was pretty easy. So, to go there, I took the Red Taxi and it looks like “labi-labi” aceh used to have that before. Ten minutes before we arrived at Doi Suthep, I got carsick. So we took a coconut avocado smoothie just to fill up my belly a bit so I would get better and off we climbed!

There, we saw many budha statues, they have variety of materials fo the budha statues. They are green stained glass, copper budhas, brass budhas, wooden budhas, porcelain budhas and many more. They also have many donations like coins, note moneys, blessed beaded braclet. I actually don’t know what is good in Doi Suthep, but if I had to choose the worst, I would pick the RED TAXI of course.

Day 6: PooPooPaperPark

Today we went to the PooPooPaperPark. It was half an hour to get there from the old city. There we saw a lot of banana trees and poos. So PooPooPaperPark gives their bananas to the 4 or 5 elephants that lives about 5 km from the PooPooPaperPark, in exchange the mahouts give the elephant poos to PooPooPaperPark. They showed me about the process and how they transformed the poo of the elephant into paper. Firstly, they rinse the poop for three times so they are free of dirt.

Then, they boiled the dung for removing the germs and bacterias, after that they let it cool. Thirdly, the cleaned shit is grinded and mixed with Mullbery fiber and recycled scrap paper for 2 hours. At this stage, they add food coloring and round it up to several balls per batch. And then they dry it so they can be stored easily. Next, that paper ball, is shaped into the flat mold and then they dry it under the sun. When it is dry, we can peel it off, and then the paper is ready! From shit to sheet.