Flying High in Chiang Mai
We stayed at a beautiful boutique hotel called Rachamankha which is in the heart of Chiang Mai. It has just 25 rooms/suites and is next to Wat Phra Singh, the city’s most famous temple. It was the perfect base for our 2 nights here.
On our first day we woke up nice and early, I think it was around 5am, for a sunrise hot air balloon ride – I was so excited as I’d always wanted to go in a hot air balloon.
The staff at Balloon Adventure Thailand were absolutely wonderful, after a quick safety talk we headed out to watch the balloon inflate before hopping into the basket ourselves! As it took off I was quite nervous as it is a surreal feeling being in the air in a basket, but you soon get used to it and our pilot was brilliant. He taught us how he directs the balloon and shared how far he had travelled on some occasions. What we found quite amusing was on our day there wasn’t really much breeze, so we didn’t travel too far away from the starting place – it’s completely dependent on the day where you end up and they do their best to land you on a dry patch and not in someone’s garden!
It was such a beautiful morning, we watched the sun rising and I could have stayed up there for hours.
When it was time to go down I felt very much like Bear Grylls, we could see the team on bikes and trucks coming to track the balloon and help it land, as well as our mini bus! It was so entertaining, and we luckily landed in a field, but the team used their skills to move us over a little bit so we were on a more solid surface for getting out.
We had a few photos sitting on the basket before heading back to their main building, where we celebrated with our pilot with a traditional champagne celebration, what a start to the day!
We spent the rest of our time in Chiang Mai wandering the streets of old town and we even headed out to a Maya Lifestyle Shopping Centre for cocktails at the rooftop bar, Myst, and found a great market within walking distance of there with lots of good food, live music and shopping.
Chiang Mai is such a fun place to visit and there were loads of things to do, so I’ll definitely be going back! If you’d like to know more about booking a trip to Thailand I’d love to help.
