Pet Sitting in Thailand

We took an early flight to Chiang Mai, Thailand and by pure luck found the airport bus that took us (for 30 baht/adult, kids under 6 free) to the Nimman neighborhood, closeish to our Airbnb villa. I showed the driver my google maps, with much pointing, nodding and smiling. When we arrived at the closest stop, he motioned, smiling, that we were to disembark. It was a good start and a sign of the friendliness to come.

Mr. Go wanted to move to Thailand immediately when we realized how many places require you to remove your shoes before you enter. What a good idea! It should be universal! Shoes are disgusting!

We walked down to the Old City, heading toward a park and thought a TukTuk drive around the mote would be cool.

Hot Take: tuktuks on busy roads aren't cool. Getting blasted in the face by songthaew exhaust made me realize why so many people wear those surgical masks. Turns out, the air quality in Chiang Mai is not great.

We were tired, so we ate at a well-rated Mexican restaurant (it was really good). I went out for coffee the next morning, as packets of sugary cappuccino mix and dried tea without bags (how do?) were all that was offered by our villa.

House/Pet Sitting

Our house sit (again through TrustedHouseSitters.com, more on that in this post) began the next morning. The lovely American couple offered to make us breakfast, so we Grabbed out there. They really were the loveliest people, and they and their two sons made us feel welcome. Their two dogs were the sweetest and their house was amazing. It felt like a luxury palace after the cramped, sketchy digs of the last week.

TIP: Our people told me about this Chiang Mai House/ Pet Sitting Facebook group, a private group where you can find other house sits as well.

Mark took us for a tour around the neighborhood, pointing out good restaurants, where the markets were on which days (hard to keep straight at first-- every day here, only sunday here, only tuesday here).

The next 9 days were infinitely relaxing, and a great place for Babs to get sick, which she did. A high temp and a cough, though that didn't slow us down much.

Our hosts told us we would get odd looks for walking around the neighborhood, and we did. Everyone takes motorbikes or drives. The odd pedal bike here and there. But despite feeling a little fish-out-of-water, everyone we met was super friendly.

We got Thai massages from a Muay Thai boxer, a woman named Pon (Pawn) who was friendly and extremely strong. She graciously gave me the option of soft, medium or hard. I chose medium and shudder to think what the hard option would have felt like. "I hurt you, you tell me," she kindly offered and I nearly took her up on that. I was sore for days. Mr. Go said he felt like he'd just had a big cup of coffee afterward, jittery from increased blood flow.

Chiang Mai Zoo

The Chiang Mai Zoo was pretty neat. You could get closer to the animals than in American zoos, and their enclosures did NOT seem as secure. Going by the tiger, pacing in his enclosure, all that separated him and us is what amounts to a ditch that is definitely NOT wide enough to stop him if he really wanted to get to us. His eyes followed us as we passed. We walked a little faster.

We paid for a panda ticket, too. The panda enclosure is just one building with two separate spots for pandas. We got to see a panda munching on some bamboo. We'd never seen one before so it was something new, but I couldn't help but think, "Is that it? That's what we paid for?"

After the zoo, we walked the 500m to Huay Kaew waterfall. It was pretty. Probably a nice place to sit in the shade and enjoy the sounds of nature, but we didn't stay too long.

We walked down a dirt alley to find the restaurant I'd flagged on Maps which was more expensive than I thought. Without knowing any better, we ordered two papaya salads. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was the spiciest thing I've ever had in my life. It was painful. Neither of us could eat much of it. Luckily Babs was smart and ordered gai pad thai and we split that.

Pro Tip: Order dishes mai pet (not spicy) pet ni noy (little bit spicy) or request only neung phrik (one chili).

Wat Phra Lat & The Monk's Trail

The Monk's Trail was a highlight. A 3km or so hike through a jungle trail to a secluded temple with beautiful rolling hill views. Go as early as you can. By 10am it was beginning to get crowded. Apparently there are some waterfall offshoots, but we must have missed the trails.

Make sure to tell your driver you want to go to the Monk's Trail and start at the bottom of the hill. If you say Wat Phra Lat they'll take you to the parking lot in front of the temple, as we saw one poor backpacker arguing ineffectively to his driver as we left.

Doi Suthep

Since we were on that side of the city, we decided to grab our very first songtaew (Thai taxi-- a red truck with benches in the open back) up to Doi Suthep, a main temple attraction.

The drive up nearly made me hurl, wending around mountain switchbacks far too fast with no seatbelt as the tropical air heated up to midday. Trying to look out the front windshield instead of the back or sides helped a bit. At the top, Mr. Go bought me some strawberries and we started the climb up the steps.

Foreigners have to pay 30 baht/adult for admittance to the temple, then we had to shuffle around all the other tourists snapping pictures. It was beautiful, all ornate gold sculptures and I appreciated its significance, but I just kept thinking about how we were contributing to the degradation of its secluded charm by touring it. How could anyone meditate their way to nirvana with tourists who can't read the "don't push bells" sign ringing the ancient chimes?

We got crammed into a songtaew with more and more and more people for the ride down (including a nice couple from Toronto & Sault Ste. Marie, MI). Mr. Go made fun of me to the other riders re: my motion sickness, then we hopped off at the zoo at the bottom of the hill to hit up the restaurant we saw the day before and regretted not eating at. We got laughed at for trying to speak Thai, but in a nice way.

Thai Farm Cooking School

I took a solo Grab (thrilling) to the nearby Ruamchok market (an excellent open-air supermarket with veggies, fruits & fried foods) and met the Thai Farm Cooking School people, who'd already collected the other 9 participants (All american and 2 british) from their hotels. We drove about 15km north to a farm where we learned about the ingredients and made 6 dishes. The day cost me 1500 THB, or about 50 USD.

There are plenty of Cooking School experiences in Chiang Mai, and I can't attest to them, but I loved my experience. I would recommend doing the full rather than half day.

I'm certain I'll never be able to recreate the dishes successfully, without access to the incredible fresh sweet coconut milk, Thai basil and green chilis. But I'll surely try. I brought a small bag of leftovers home for the fam. Babs is still not doing great with the amount of heat in even the most mai pet of dishes, but here's hoping her tolerance will improve. A girl can't live on rice alone.

Huay Tong Tao Reservoir

It costs foreigners 50 baht each to enter (6 & under free). We strolled around the reservoir, stopping to chill on a towel and let Mr. Go fish for an hour. There's a weird park with hay sculptures of gorillas that was fun, if overrun with tourists. We had lunch on a bamboo raft just off the shore and appreciated the misty rolling hills and cool breeze, and also the fact that we have such easy access to that kind of lake experience at home in Michigan.

In the afternoon, it starts to get hot and crowded and loses a bit of its charm.

After 9 days, our pet sit came to an end. We left the enormous, spotless house with the playroom of Legos and went on to adventure in Chiang Mai city.