Our second stop in Thailand took us to Chiang Mai. After settling into our new residence, we went to find the balloon festival. We had seen hot air balloons on the bus ride into the city and had seen signs as to where it was located. When we got there only a few stragglers remained. Obviously no one wanted to be out in the middle of a field during the heat of the day.
Back at the hostel, we looked through the myriad of pamphlets and posters to find a trek. This was the defacto place to do a trek according to Lonely Planet. We found several that looked interesting, but the hostel people said we should do the one that they reccommended that was actually cheaper. Let’s do this!
It turned out to be a great decision. We started the day with a bus ride to a “butterfly farm”, which actually meant a 20 foot cube enclosure with plants and flowers for the 20 or so butterflies that lived there. That was a little underwhelming but the cool part was behind the butterfly enclosure: orchids! Rows and rows and rows of orchids. It turns out the butterfly farm actually grew orchids and raised butterflies to make broaches and other accessories. The light hitting the orchids was perfect.
We continued on and drove higher and higher into the hills outside of Chiang Mai. We passed elephants on the road carrying happy tourists. We followed a river up to into the hills and passed several more elephant tour companies. We soon stopped for our second activity: bamboo rafting.
