Heaven is Swimming with
Elephants and Khao Soi

My last few days in Chiang Mai were a bit of a blur. One of my bucket list items that Chiang Mai in particular is known for is its elephant sanctuary. I couldn’t leave Southeast Asia without seeing an elephant. It felt obligatory. 

I spent two hours in the back of a songthaew (it’s like a pick-up truck with the back converted into bench seating, but even more uncomfortable than it sounds) and made a long, hot, nauseating journey to meet my gentle giants.

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I spent almost an entire day there, so you’d think I would have learned something in that time, but I was so enamored with the elephants that if I was listening, I didn’t retain anything I learned. So here are some quick facts about elephants I learned from Google: 

• They can live up to eighty years – some even longer
• They eat around 150kg per day
• Elephant poop is mostly odorless and can easily be made into paper (there are LOTS of stands throughout Chiang Mai that will sell you postcards you can send home to your family made out of – you guessed it – elephant poop)
• An estimated twenty percent of Thailand’s elephants are in Chiang Mai
• An elephant’s trunk has over forty thousand muscles – for comparison, the human body has about six hundred fifty

You get the point. Elephants are awesome!

I spent the morning feeding the elephants and the afternoon mud bathing with them. I couldn’t ask for a better day.

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I had to say goodbye to the elephants eventually, and I heard great things about Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, the temple on top of the mountain called Doi Suthep. It boasted beautiful temples and even grander views of the city. 

Unfortunately for me, I happened to be here during the dry season, which meant smoke filled the sky—bad for my allergies, but even worse for the views. The climb to the top of the temple wasn’t nearly as taxing as I anticipated, and the temple was beautiful, but the smog distorted what would have been a beautiful view of the city.

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I almost forgot about the best part. The reason I’m here. Kim, why did you bother coming to Asia at all? There are so many places to see, some much closer to home. 

Why, the food of course. 

No amount of walking, climbing, or hiking could possibly keep up with the amount of food I ate on this trip, and the food in Thailand was on a whole new level. I signed up for a cooking class in hopes that I could take home a few lessons on the food I adored here.

My class was through Aromdii Cooking School, and I couldn’t have been happier with my experience. We started at the market, purchasing all of the fresh food that we’ll need to make the dishes we chose.

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After the market, we headed to the cooking school, a large, open area attached to our host’s garage. Everything I ate was amazing, and the lineup was: 

• Fruit Salad appetizer consisting of dragonfruit, apples, guava, sweet corn, fish sauce, tomato, and dried shrimp for an extra crunch (it sounds weird but it was actually really good)
• Tom Ka Kai, or chicken in coconut milk soup with Galangal (part of the ginger family), lemongrass, and mushrooms. 
• For the main course, I made Khao Soi (also known as Chiang Mai noodles), my new favorite food that I discovered on this trip. It’s a red curry dish with egg noodles, and I craved it every day in Thailand. I hope to someday gain the skills to recreate this recipe on my own. 
• Of course, we didn’t forget about dessert. The final course was Sticky Rice Mango. The rice is boiled with coconut cream and sugar and topped with deep-fried mungbean for an extra crunch. 

It was, by far the best meal I had on my travels to date. I tacked this cooking class on at the last minute, but it ended up being a highlight.

I can’t express how glad I am I extended my time in Chiang Mai. Initially, I had planned on following up Chiang Mai with a visit to one of the islands, or a beach town like Phucket. That is until everyone told me to go somewhere else. Every traveler, every backpacker I came across who had already done Thailand, I asked what their favorite place was. Over and over again, they told me, Pai. 

So with that, I said farewell to Chiang Mai and prepared for yet another long bus ride to the small mountain town of Pai, Thailand.