Breakfast at the hostel was alright, it consisted of cornflakes, toast with jam and marmalade, hard boiled eggs and bananas. It was all self service so at least the pressure to get to breakfast early was gone!
Following brekky we set off to explore Chiang Mai’s take on the water festival, here known as Songkran. We walked towards the Old City to see what was happening, and decided our best bet was to follow the outside of the square, similar to what we had done in Mandalay. Gazebos lined the first two sides of the square, selling food, water guns, buckets and ICE in huge blocks! This was a new touch. In Mandalay hoses had been really popular with water being pumped out of the moat. In Chiang Mai there were very few hoses, instead people were filling buckets from the moat. To keep the water in the buckets cold, they were selling giant ice cubes along the side of the road. This definitely made us make more of an effort to dodge the water here than in Mandalay, so cold!
On our walk we found ourselves parked up in another pub. Beers weren’t as cheap as Mandalay, with a glass at $5 and a large can at $4. But it was still a good spot to people watch and enjoy the water festival in the shade, so we stayed for a few rounds. There were bar stools along the front of the pub where people were sitting squirting water at passers by. As the passers by retaliated we copped a few of the misses, which was also good to keep is cool! Kyle was watching out for people who didn’t look like they wanted to get wet and nailed then with water balloons.
From the pub we continued around the square, each side is 1 mile long. One and half sides of the square didn’t have anything special set up for the festival, just a few bars scattered around with people getting rowdy. On one side we passed a ute blasting music, the back was loaded with speakers and covered in plastic.
Soaking wet and ready for something to eat, we made our way back to the hostel, picking up two mangoes and some mangosteens on the way. It was the first time either of us had tried mangosteen, sweet and tasty but at the end of the day mango still wins our vote!
After a rest we walked over to the Maya Mall which had a free outdoor concert on each night of the festival. The concert was packed with the crowd on both sides of the road. Adjacent to the stage, on each side, there were people standing on scaffolding with hoses to soak the crowd.
All around the area there were temporary bars set up, each with there own hoses and water guns to wet it’s patrons. It was a great atmosphere but very hectic! Kyle was trying not to get wet because he had gotten some nasty chaffing on his legs, it just made people want to wet him more!
For dinner we headed back to the Chinese restaurant and both got the stir fried pork noodles because it was just so damn good the first time!
The following day after breakfast we finally had somewhere to go to do our laundry, yay! It was self service but cheap and easy to use, costing around $5 and taking an hour all up. While we were waiting we went and tried durian for the first time. It’s very expensive but pretty tasty and has a very soft, creamy texture. We also went to the cafe next to the cafe for an Oreo frappe which was delicious!
In the afternoon we went for a massage. Kyle had an excellent herb balm back, neck and shoulder massage while I had an interesting hot oil massage – interesting because the lady was on her phone at the start so only massaging with one hand! Stink ow. The place was really nice though, giving us a cold drink before and hot drink and biscuits after the massage. They cost $15 and $20 respectively.
We then walked back to the mall to have a look around the stores and most importantly, the food court. We started at the ground floor where I couldn’t walk past the sushi shop so stopped for a few pieces each. We made our way up the stories and eventually arrived at the big food court. I was starving and it didn’t take much to convince Kyle that we should park up for a plate of Pad Thai each. It was pretty tasty for $2.50 a plate!
On the way out of the mall we grabbed a crossoint, coconut puff and jam donut from the bakery, because why not!
It was then time to park up at one of the temp set up bars across the road. The water festival had finished so although there were still a few people walking around with water guns, and the hoses were still out over the new concert crowd, it was easy to stay dry.
The beer wasn’t too badly priced at 100 baht ($5) for a 600 mL glass of Leo. We had a couple each and also tried a new “craft” copper beer, which was alright, but we both preferred the standard lager.
While having a drink Kyle Facebook messaged the Chinese restaurant to check their opening hours…. And we went there again for the third night in a row! Unfortunately for Kyle they had run out of his favourite noodles so he had to change it up. He had a Tom Yum Goon for 95 baht ($5) which was super tasty! Although too spicy for me…
Kyley on Tour 