Sabai, sabai
Which roughly translates into "relaxed and happy". We imagined a much more action packed first month, with jungle treks deep into the mountains, high speed white knuckle tuk tuk rides through impossibly busy streets, wrestling tigers, etc. But it turns out we all needed a bit of decompression, and some time to just chill out together as a family. Things are so different here. Gone are the days of April leaving the house before Josie and I would even be awake, and coming home just in time for dinner, and our bedtime routine. Gone are the routines of getting Josie off to school, and trying to schedule my work day around whatever else was happening. Gone is the stress, anxiety, and the never ending list of "to-dos". It's now just time for each other, and learning how to just chill out without trying to occupy every waking moment with "something". We're doing a fine job of adjusting.
We've been going on epic walks through the city, and even managed to get a Grab (Thailand's version of Uber) out to an amazing botanical garden. We'll do a separate blog post for that. The Old City of Chiang Mai was a walled city surrounded by a moat, it's now a bustling neighborhood with narrow winding streets filled with inconspicuous shops and restaurants tucked into lush plant covered urban gardens. We've been spending most of our time there, exploring. We found a beautiful city park at one corner of Old City that has walking paths, exercise equipment, and a giant pond filled to the brim with all manner of fish (Josie's favorite part). They sell bags of fish food, and Josie tries to discover new species every time we go.
The food. Oh, the food! We've found many local vegan / vegetarian restaurants, street food vendors, and night markets stalls that make fresh, impossibly good meals for less than it would cost to buy the groceries, and make it at home. The average total cost for all three of us to eat a meal out has been around $5! We fear this abundance of cheap, epically delicious Thai food will forever hinder our ability to enjoy less tasty, more expensive versions in other parts of the world... we'll just have to come back I suppose.
It's hard to believe we'll be getting on a plane in two weeks, and heading to our next destination (Kuala Lumpur). We have a few adventures planned (elephants, hiking, etc.) in the next two weeks, we'll keep you posted. We'll likely spend the majority of the rest of our stay in Thailand with lots more of this sabai, sabai business.