Exchange Corner

TG-4, f3.5, 1/1000, ISO 160, RAW, 38mm

A quiet day in Chiang Mai, mostly hanging out with a friend so photography came short today.

Motorbikes in Chiang Mai

Another day without too much photography but I decided to go for a walk around some of the markets in the afternoon.

Markets are always nice and a place where people mingle so good for photography.

For this post I ended up selecting more photos with motorbikes since I found they do fit better in a series.

Chiang Mai is quite nice but there are definitely too many foreigners here and at times it's difficult to find the Thai people.

Temple on the Hill

TG-4, f3.5, 1/1600, ISO 100, RAW, 38mm

Wat Chedi Luang

After a night in the comfortable but freezing train, I arrived in Chiang Mai in the morning and tok it easy for most of the day, only went for a walk in the afternoon.

Having seen most places already 3 years ago, I just went to the Chedi Luang temple and took some photos on the way there.

Day 211 - Train Back to Bangkok

I had to return my bike in the morning after getting my train ticket for the afternoon sorted.

After this was done, I just managed to visit Wat Chedi Luang again, have lunch and a goodbye drink with my friend before having to head to the station to catch the night train to Bangkok.

The train journey was very nice, thanks to a friendly group of Polish tourists and the club atmosphere in the restaurant car, despite them charging more for drinks and food because of that.

Tomorrow morning, I'll arrive in Bangkok to sort my Myanmar visa, (hopefully) get a charger for my Surface and pick up my GR from the Ricoh distributor.

Day 210 - Chiang Mai and more Temples

I spent the morning trying to find a charger for my Surface and since they had an IT City store in town, I checked there but they could only order it from Bangkok.

Since nobody else seemed to have the charger, I gave up and visited some temples around the city before heading to the hill nearby to visit Bhubing Palace and flower gardens.

Bhubing Palace is a pretty nice place and the flower garden are worth a visit, being on a hill, as means it's cooler and more pleasant than in the city if it's hot.

On my way back to Chiang Mai, I stopped off at the Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep temple to visit yet another temple but the views from the temple are nice and there is quite a bit of gold at the main pagoda so it makes for some nice photos.

The evening was again spent catching up over a few beers before I will head back to Bangkok tomorrow afternoon.

Day 209 - Chaing Rai to Chiang Mai

This was an easy day in terms of driving, The road from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai was easy and should not take longer than 3h. I still got up early, mainly to see the White Temple in the morning since I was passing by anyway.

You can compare the photos but I think the best time to visit is in the afternoon before sunset, light is better in my opinion and there are less people but your preference might vary.

The rest of the road was pretty uneventful, aside from me filling up my memory cards after not being able to offload my photos to my Surface for the past days.

Once I got to Chiang Mai, I met up with an old friend and we spent the afternoon and evening catching up and having beers.

Day 204 - The Road to Doi Angkhang

Despite me planning and trying to leave Chiang Mai early in the morning, by the time I was on my bike and heading out of town it was close to noon. While not ideal, the road was good and Doi Angkhang was not too far to comfortably make it there before sunset.

The first part of the road there was rather boring without much to see, it all got a lot more interesting once I turned off to visit the Chiang Dao cave.

The Chiang Dao mountain itself is quite nice as is the landscape around it, the main attraction however is the cave and temple inside it at the base of the mountain.
The cave and temple are free to visit, you get charged an 'electricity fee' however for the lights inside the cave.

Still, the cave itself is very nice and the temple built inside is very nice. If you head further inside the cave you can explore a few parts on your own if you have a flashlight (or mobile phone with a flashlight app in my case), despite the warnings not to or to do so at your own risk.

After visiting the cave it as time to head onward to Doi Angkhang, there were two different ways to choose from, a sorter and faster route via Fang and a slower, more winding and longer way via route 1178. You can guess which one I went for. :)

The road was great with lots of sharp corners, winding along the mountains next to the Myanmar border, passing by military checkpoints and through small towns. The Honda Wave I rented struggled with some of the climbs and I was not all that confident of the squeaky brakes but the views made it all worth it and the slow pace actually helped me enjoy and appreciate the scenery more.
If I would do a 'best roads in the world' series I would certainly put this one on the list. Online people seem to discourage self driving on these roads but unless you absolutely have to race through, it should pose no problem as there's very little traffic but it's a great journey.

I enjoyed the scenery too much and due to the slower pace on going uphill with the bike, I only just about managed to arrive in Doi Angkhang before sunset.
While I hoped to explore the town a bit, after I checked in and had dinner, everything was closed so I turned in for an early night.