NEW! CHILL OUT Spot in Chiangmai Thailand

Think LOCAL,

EAT LOCAL

Date back from my last trip in Chiangmai during July, this NEW chill out spot in Niman Road. It is situated in front of Eastin Tan Hotel. You might question if this is a PARK? Actually it is not really just a PARK but more than that. It includes lots of cafes and handcrafts creative stores.

The restaurants are owned by Captain Tan, who is the boss of Oishi dining group in Thailand who owned lots of restaurants. Thus you might find his statue in the entrance. The whole environment is so relax, it is not a super big place but takes only 30 minutes walk through the whole area. With lots of small lovely wall paintings along the little shops, is easy to find some nice spot for lovely shot! So let me show you how special this Park is!

It looks totally different in the day & night of this park, you will see what I mean later. Anyways, there are approximately 10 stores and a cafe located at the entrance and for sure you won’t miss out! The weather wasn’t good and is showering at that moment. We went there at 09:00 morning so seems like lots of stores have not yet open. So let me show you a few stores.

Robin & Ruth – This store sell lots of souvenirs. Includes Bags, T-shirst, post cards etc. I am not sure about the price range but I haven’t buy anything from this store as I don’t like to buy some Thailand printed products.

The Unique Cafe in Tainan, Narrow Door Cafe Review

Narrow is a Door to heaven, 

Few will find it,

but those who do will find great joy and happiness for eternity.

Due to my last business trip, I visited Tainan last week. As usual, I would not miss any opportunity to look for some interesting spot while I was away from home. Narrow Door Cafe is one of the Cafe where I marked on my must go list.

The name of the Cafe is already interesting enough for me to visit them. If you have ever been to Taiwan, you might find Tainan is quite different from Taipei. There aren’t any tall buildings but small stores and alley. If I need to use only a word to describe Tainan, Old city would suits the best. A little background of the Narrow Door cafe, it was originally owned by a doctor during the Japanese occupation era, then it has been taken over by the owner of Narrow door cafe in 1999. Thus the cafe looks so rustic and have retain what it had since constructed.

Simply beauty Cafe in Chiangmai; Graph Table review

Sharing Happy little things is Beautiful!

As a coffee lover like me,  I love wander around and look for lovely coffee shop when I arrived in a new city where I have never been.

Apart from my previous post of cafe Ristro8to,  here is another place where you can spend your afternoon with such a simple yet stylish coffee shop.  They severed home made pasta and is made to order. So if you are rushing to another new spot then I would not recommend you to come as they won’t serve really fast but believe slow food would results the best quality to their customers. So be patient and wait for what they serve. It sure won’t disappoint you.

MUST VISIT Temple in Chiang Mai – Wat Lok Molee

After a few posts of where to eat and things to do. Today I would like to recommend the 5 MUST visit temples in Chiangmai. As an old city in Chiangmai, there are lots of temples. It’s not possible to visit all of them in a few days and guess you might not know which should be worth  to visit or they might look all similar to you. I have posted a Secret Jungle Temple in Wat Pha Lat which is a little far away from the city. However the below were situated in the old city and it takes you only a few walks if you already in the city. Thus if you plan your trip in Chiangmai for only 3-4 days, it probably takes you 2 days to visit all of my recommended temples. So let me introduce the first MUST Visit Temple – Wat Lok Molee.

MUST VISIT TEMPLE #1 – Wat Lok Molee

Wat – Thai language means Temple. Wat Lok Molee is situated next to the busy street near northern Chang Phuak city gate. It was originally built in 1367 CE, the Mengrai Dynasty. Monks were used to spread their teachings in the temple and they were housed in here as well. Wat Lok Molee probably is the oldest temple in the city. The Wat is free for entry so doesn’t looks like a few temples which you have to pay.  There were 2 elephants at the entrance gate, they seems like a guard to protect the Wat. The fine details of the elephant cravings was breathtaking.

When I was there it’s about 07:00 p.m and there’s no one but only myself. (well my hubby was being in foot massage as he have not interest at all!) Anyways, I enjoyed so much myself walking around this temple. The temple kept open until night and whole environment is so serene. There were 2 silver trees at entrance and believe that was like a wish tree as I found the notes on a silver leaf. I guess they wish one day the god might hear it and fulfill their needs?

Something you need to know before you step into the temple. You shall take off your shoes , and make sure you wear properly(short pants or sleeveness were not allow) and keep quiet while you were visiting in order to respect the buddha. There was huge, almost 4 ft tall gold buddha statue in the centre of the temple. The crafting was so beautiful and the whole environment was so peaceful and stunning. You can see how they respect the Buddha with such an amazing temple.

SECRET MAGIC CAFE – where Magic does Exits! Review of INTO The WOODS

A Cafe where Magic does Exist and

Every Dreams can Come True !

I have planned to visit several selected special cafe and that’s one of the Cafe in my bucket list – Into the WOODS. If you are a fans of fairy tales, fantasy lovers or you’re looking for some Unique Cafe. This is one of the MUST GO cafe.

The interior of the cafe was full of fantasy wall paintings. Not only the wall but also extended to the ceiling. The menu and even the door to washroom was well designed in order to match the theme. How lovely this place was! It’s almost like you jumped into a Story book!  The most important is the location is very convenient, it is located right in the old city of Chiangmai.

The Interior

There are cakes you can order from their cake counter. You can even found the lovely Rabbit showing the free WIFI and fairy tale books beside which you can buy.

The Secret Jungle Temple – Wat Pha Lat in Chiangmai Northern Thailand

After went to Chiangmai zoo, I then decided to go to the hidden temple – Wat Pha Lat (Wat Palad) . A Jungle temple which is closed to the zoo and you can either choose to hike by following the trail of the monks or you can take a car to arrive. As I’m not a good hiker so which would be better to take the ‘Songthaewsto’ – The Red Truck to this special hidden places.

Before I decided to visit this place, I have read the story behind and found it is so mysterious and attractive. There’s almost NO reason for me not to come! Personally I don’t really like to visit the very ‘Tourist’ place and a place where less tourist would find the peaceful and of course I can feel free to take beautiful pictures without any person in my shot. So let me tell you the story before I show you more beautiful pictures of this SPECIAL temple.

The Story of the Secret Temple

Wat Pha Lat also call the “Monastery at the Sloping Rock”, was originally a resting place for people while they are walking up to worship at Doi Suthep. This temple was constructed in around 1355. The King Kuena’s White elephant has stopped and rest in Wat Pha Lat whilst walking up the mountain for it’s journey to find a place for the holy temple. Finally the white elephant then died at the high up mountain – Doi Sutheo temple ( which the famous temple) and the King ordered people to construct a temple in the very first place where the white elephant died. Nevertheless, he also ordered to construct the 3 places where the white elephant took rest and Wat Pha Lat is one of the place. Those places were then considered as holy places. Also Wah Pha Lat is only a few kilometers to the famous one – Doi Sutheo temple.

UNIQUE Restaurant in Chiangmai – Teak Wood Restaurant -DASH!

There are always different kinds of travels, but I would prefer a more leisure, relax way on my trip after a busy days in office. There’s always some excuse to treat yourself better!

Continue of my trip in Chiang Mai. We went to a super romantic restaurant Dash! Teak House Restaurant.I have made a reservation in advance before we came. So after a full day sightseeing, exploring the old city we decided to spend our night in this traditional architecture restaurant.

You all deserve a little wanderlust

The Interior

One thing you may aware, (if you have been in Chiangmai), there are always teak wood architecture everywhere. They call this Lanna style architecture of Northern Thailand. The Dash! Restaurant looks very traditional teak wood style. That’s also the reason why I chose to spend my night here. As we arrived a bit early, guess was around 6:30. It’s still bright and it’s too early to get dark. The location was easy to find and it wasn’t a tourist location.

There are lots of red lantern decorated all  around the ceiling of each floors. It given the very strong asia feel architecture with the wooden roof. Since we didn’t made our request in the reservation so the waiter just brought us to the interior. There is a lovely garden so if you wish to sit outdoor, just make sure to tell them your request  as I know they were very full and there are only few tables!

Brewed with Heart – Vieng Joom On Teahouse in Chiang Mai, Thailand

If you have ever did some research in web, you will find there are quite lots of Tea House in Chiang Mai. Continue my post in our Day 4 Trip yeterday, after visiting the zoo and Wat Pha Lat (will post this later). We took Songthaew (like Taxi but a Van) to Central Festival Mall. Actually the main store of Vieng Joom On isn’t in Central Mall. As my hubby wish to walk around the mall, then we just pop into Vieng Joom On as we haven’t plan to.

At first sight I thought they were selling tea only and not so much food but obviously I was wrong, they sell not only Tea bags, leaves and gift but also you can even enjoy your Tea time with this lovely, gorgeous pink national color of India environment. It almost seems like you went into the Palace of India. So let me bring you to have a look of the interior.

The Interior

Once you get in, my eyes were fully attracted in their wall that full of huge tea Jars. I totally fall in love with the royal pink mixed with the victoria  green  and all the rose gold decoration. Actually I have went through their site as mentioned ‘Vieng’ means city and ‘Joom on’ means pink, thus that’s makes everything looks PINK in some reason. They started with the impression of the Pink city in India and Pink also represent love.

Hidden Forest Cafe in Chiangmai – Fern Forest Cafe REVIEW

Continuing my Day 4 in Chiangmai. It seems like there are unlimited post to share as Chiangmai is really a lovely place with lots of beautiful places, restaurants and attractions to share. So today I would like to feature The Forest Cafe. We went there for our early breakfast before we head to the Chiangmai zoo. I browse lots of different special cafe for breakfast, if you have read my previous post of – Breakfast World , that’s the 2nd cafe/restaurant which I would highly recommend! Let’s see what make it such a special place to me!

The driver dropped us on the side road close to Ferm Forest Cafe, there is a huge green signage which I believe no one would miss. It’s almost like we are entering the secret garden of Alice in wonderland.

There’s a white vintage gate at the entrance, you can literally see the little white house at the end once you pass through this garden, I am so excited and happy when we arrived. The scenery is so fantasy and I think there shall be a white rabbit leading us to this breath taking cafe! (I might be over exaggerated but this is actually what I feel! haha)

An experience of Thai cooking class – Chiang Mai

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2767" src=">

Continue my trip in Chiangmai. This will be a long passage as I have too much to share! So we joined the cooking class from Thai Farm Cooking School. The teacher told us that there were  actually more than 100 cooking schools in Chiangmai!! which is a bit unbelievable.  So it’s really hard to pick the best one if you have not yet experienced. I just picked it randomly in google and also read the reviews from Trip advisor. Have seen that they are one of the best cooking school which have more than 14 years experience. Their price is a bit higher than others, it is about 1300 THB / person. However everything was worth and I think I have spent less than what they have been given. So let me tell you more in depth of what I have experienced!

We reserved in advance by emailing them from their web site ( will share later). As they only offer full day class from 08:30 -17:00. So if you don’t plan to spend a whole day, you have to look for another school which provide an alternative. As far as I know there are lots of school do offer half day! However as a full day class, it includes more than half day.