To Chiang Mai, We Go!
By Lauren Gerzina & Justin Hayes
Chicken Nuggets, Gluten-Free Vegan Pizza, and Night Markets
We woke up and went to the executive lounge for our last free breakfast. Lauren has been eating white rice with Indian pickles (Thanks Pragati!) and toast with Longan honey literally every morning we have been in Bangkok. You would think it would get old. Nope. Justin has always changed it up based on what he’s feeling.
We finished packing, called a grab and headed to the Bangkok airport. We were told by others that the lines in the Bangkok airport can get really long, so we decided to get to the airport 3 hours ahead to avoid any issues. Thankfully, we breezed through check in and security check and then started towards our gate looking for potential lounges we could use with Priority Pass.
We eventually found one right across from our gate and sat down. We ate some curry and rice and had tea and waters. Lauren saw a free masseuse walking around, so she asked to be put on the list. The masseuse said it would be one hour, which was fine since we had 2.5 hours in the lounge. But the masseuse disappeared after about 45 minutes and never resurfaced. Classic. When it was time to board, we left the lounge, went upstairs and had baggage security check (the previous one only did passport and ticket checks). This line was super short, and we breezed through it as well. We were left to wonder if the issue with lines we heard about was all for international travel.
When we first planned this trip, we knew we wanted to be in Chiang Mai for the Yi Peng and Loy Krathong festivals (festivals that include floating and flying lanterns). These festivals take place on the full moon night of the 12th month of the Thai lunar calendar (usually in November). This year, it was scheduled to take place on November 27-28th. So we have really been looking forward to this leg of our trip (it was the first place we booked lodging when we decided to come here).
We finally boarded our flight to Chiang Mai. Lauren read her book and Justin listened to podcasts the for the hour-long flight. When we landed, we grabbed our bags and caught a Grab over to our hotel for the night (the POR Thaepae Gate). We booked an apartment for the rest of our stay in Chiang Mai way in advance and then had to add on a day based on our other travel plans.
The POR hotel was very small but situated inside the old town walls, and it was very close to the Thaepae gate (which was a main location for the lantern festivals). Once we arrived at the hotel, Lauren was starving, so we walked five minutes over to a nearby McDonalds to get her some chicken nuggets and fries. She has been craving them for a couple weeks now, even though she hasn’t had McDonalds in months…or maybe years. We can’t explain it.
After her tasty snack, we headed back toward the hotel and stopped at a juice/smoothie store. Justin got a mango smoothie with coconut and sago (a starch extracted from palm stems and made into balls like tapioca), and Lauren got a Longan smoothie. Longan is a delicious tiny fruit that has a brown hard shell and soft, white interior. It is in the same tree family as a lychee. Lauren has been a little obsessed with it since it is everywhere here. We then walked back to the hotel and chilled for a few hours while figuring out what we wanted to do over the next few days.
A few hours later, we walked to a vegan restaurant that makes pizzas and had a gluten free dough option! Win! We both ordered pizzas (Lauren’s had a pesto sauce, black olives, vegan bacon, and Justin’s was a red sauce with eggplant, sun dried tomato, and mushrooms). We both really enjoyed being able to partake in some pizza. We then walked to a night market just north of the old town, but as it turns out, this night market is just for food. So we caught a Grab to the real night market that was east of old town (and closer to our Airbnb for the rest of the trip).
As we were being dropped off, Lauren noticed a wood store called “viengping wood shop” where we found a beautiful piece for our wall with some elephants on it. We then walked along the night market for a few hours, looking at all of the things being sold. Lauren bought her first pair of elephant pants – in teal of course. We finally got tired of walking around so we hailed a Grab back to the hotel and called it a night.
