The Chronicles of the Tay Family: June 2025 Day 1 & 2 of Trip to Chiang Mai

Finally, the day we had been eagerly anticipating was here!

蓝蓝的天白白云蓝推按白云好风光

Erm... A pity that Xiaoyi could not join us....Uncle Cavan just started on his new job and he could not take any leave and his boss said he could not bring his work laptop out of Singapore

Oh well...We hoped that Xiaoyi would be able to join us on the next trip!

The first We-fie of the trip - Papa had perfected the angle from which to take we-fies...haha

Yeah, Waigong did his hernia operation before the trip as he did not want to deal with any unexpected pain during the trip...we were glad that he had recovered well...he was not as strong as he was when we went to Vietnam (he could climb Marble Mountains in slippers) so we hoped that he would regain his strength and be all hale and healthy when we went to Xian next June!

The Superdry Gang. Tong had a white shirt that looked like like Daddy's and in the exact same size. Mama said she would have to start using the laundry marker to write their names on the collars. The clothes were confusing here. Ha

Testing out the Meitu app

Ha, the two lovebirds

We touched down in Chiang Mai safely! We were teasing Tong that we would take the plane he was flying when he became a pilot. He could say when he made the flight announcement, "This is Captain Isaac speaking. My family is on the plane so I will make sure I will fly really well..." And if he had landed badly, we would all jeer and boo, but clapped and cheered if he had landed safely haha

Erm, ya Tong had stopped smiling for photos since a long long time ago

Yeah checked into our gigantic one-of-a-kind otherworldly villa

Erm, the pool was not big...but it would do for the kids ha

We took the biggest room on the ground floor

Woah, the bathroom was ginormous

Took some photos to show Xiaoyi

The place where the kids spent most of their time in the evenings...

Eryi took this photo for Mei as she thought Mei looked so cute sitting on it

The kids occupied what was supposed to be Xiaoyi's room...Aden, Tong and Youyou slept there the first time and they had trouble falling asleep...and Tong came back to our room in the middle of the night...gosh...

The entrance was so nondescript that our driver totally missed it! It was like a secret gateway that opened up to this amazing hidden house when we stepped through the door

Sunday Night Market

Waipo had wanted to walk to the Sunday Night Market to take in the sights though the ride would have cost only a couple of dollars and taken a really short time..like 5 min? ha

The famous Sunday Night Market! Even spotted musicians playing classical music just outside the night market

The wall was 700 years old!

Food galore!

Found tables and we started feasting on the delightful street food. Oh the toasted garlic and milk bread was yummy! The fried rice and phad thai were heavenly too...Actually, we had always loved street food ha...cheap and delicious!

The mango sticky rice only cost 50baht. Such sweet and succulent mango and tasty rice...ah....Eryi, Mama and San Yi Zhang loved mango sticky rice...slurps

Jie was hunting for souvenirs to buy for her friends

There were temples wherever we went. Thailand was a deeply religious Buddhist country

Jun asked to eat Mixue ice cream

Papa, Jie and Tong ended the night on a high note by taking the speedy tuk tuk home. LOL Tong said he relished the feeling of the wind in his hair.

Day 2

The kids woke up at an early hour and had a splashing good time in the pool

Mei and Yanjie showered together. All ready to start a brand new day of exploration!

Papa and Mama went to check out the neighbourhood. Papa bought milk coffee and said it was really good. Ha we had this inside joke of not letting Waigong drink any milk coffee as he felt nauseated after drinking one when we were in Vietnam and vomited quite a bit.

We found the wallet 4 Gor Po bought in Australia for Tong in December. We knew it must be hiding in one of the suitcases somewhere. Ha found it in one of the pockets in the red suitcase.

We found a nice indoor playground in Pantip Mall, which was a short distance from our airbnb.

Found the famous massage parlour that Papa and I patronised in Bangkok! Their 4-hand massage was heavenly.

Waigong, Waipo and all their grandchildren

Our home for the trip

CHOM

Eryi recommended that we go to this highly raved restaurant called Chom...and it was like stepping into a secret magical forest...

Very dreamy and whimsical

Jie asked me to take photos for her and was displeased that I did not take multiple shots so that she could choose the best one out of the 10000 spam shots...ha...told her to go and find her IG boyfriend Papa to take photos for her instead

Mei loved the sweet blue pea iced drink

We missed Xiaoyi so much. Wish she were here.

So the boys also had a shot after Mama and her sisters took a photo

Sanyi found the perfect spot for family shots

We thought Waipo looked lovely in this photo

Mama started using this as her whatsapp profile pic!

The restaurant was brightly lit and the photos looked really vibrant with

Jie looked so cute in this photo

We were shocked when Tong's order of pork ribs arrived. According to Aden, Waigong and Tong, the ribs were scrumptious, mmmmm finger-licking good!

The portions were quite big and we really ate our fill.

Er Yi took this photo for us and she was really proud of herself as she said this was such an artistic and aesthetically pleasing photo...

Chiang Mai Zoo

Well, Waipo and the children complained about it being toooooo scorching, and guess what? We rented their golf buggies! First time using a buggy to go around a zoo!

It was a good thing that we did it. It was really affordable too, 350baht for the first hour and 300 baht for the second. The zoo was sprawling and it was great that we could scoot around in the comfort of the buggy.

We stopped at the places where we wanted to explore...the zoo was quite disappointing though..we went to the panda enclosure only to find out that the pandas had died and the baby panda had been sent back to China...essentially it was just a gallery with their photos and panda cardboard figures in the empty enclosure...gosh

We said we would never let Waipo drive a buggy ever...another inside holiday joke as Waipo crashed the buggy when we were on holiday on Batam / Bintan and Waigong's hand got broken in the crash...and we had to compensate for the destruction of the buggy haha

Saw a real skeleton of the Asian elephant

Erm...taxidermed animals...not done really nicely though...they looked kind of weird...the experience was like when we went to that inferior wax museum which copied Madam Tusad's style but the wax figures just done so poorly that they looked really comical...

Papa was driving in a zig-zag manner when the kids asked for a thrilling roller coaster experience. Aden and Yanjie were in the cart before us and they laughed when they saw how Papa was driving and said he was drunk.

Took a break at the Aquarium. It was so costly at 450 baht, so we decided to give it a miss.