Our Anniversary Adventures

November 15th was our anniversary. We're not the types that usually take much merit keeping a close track of such things or do much of anything special to celebrate. I'm not sure why exactly. Maybe because we try to make everyday a worthwhile adventure together. Or maybe we're just bad at keeping track of time. In fact, I'm pretty sure we would have forgot last year had it not been for my mom who reminded us a few days before. But this year we were a bit more keenly aware of dates due to how it affects our current set of travels. As a result a few days ago, when looking ahead to our plans for the week, we realized our anniversary was coming up. So since we happened to remember, we tried to make the day a little extra special.

The day started out with Katie posting this really awesome web-comic she found to my Facebook wall along with some other really kinds words. Many of you probably already saw it. I really like web-comics, and this one was cute and heartfelt without being to mushy. It was a great way to start out the day. For those that missed it, here is the link: http://www.theloop.ca/this-is-what-real-love-looks-like/

One pretty awesome perk for the day was that we had motorbike for the day since the day before we had been rock climbing and decided to get the bike for two days instead of one. So we first ran a couple of errands which went really quick thanks to the aide of the motorbike and then continued onward to brunch. We went brunch at Natwat Cafe, a place recommended to us by our host. We were told of some dishes involved cream cheese and chorizo. Sold! And it did not disappoint.

Our table had a toy/game to play with while we waited. We were easily amused.

Our plates of deliciousness

Next we decided to ride our bike across to the other side of town to visit one last wat. I know we said in a previous post that we already had our fill of wats, but this particular wat, Wat Umong, had tunnels to explore and was close to something else we wanted to check out. It was totally worth the trip because it ended up being our favorite wat.

This wat was much more ancient feeling with all its stone work.

There were roosters everywhere.
A lot of wats were dog sanctuaries, but this one seemed to be a rooster sanctuary. 

Katie sporting her wat-appropriate attire at the entrance to one of the tunnels

The tunnels had lots of little outcroppings for meditation like this one.

There were lots of these things as well in the tunnel walls.

Looking back towards the outside from within a tunnel.

These tunnels were not very tall in some spots.

The chedi on top of the tunnels

On a nice forest path back to the motorbike.

After visiting the wat, we got back on the bike and drove to an artist village that Katie learned about through our host's blog. The place was called Baan Kang Wat. It had some nice little artist shops, workshop areas, and cafes. It was a cute place to visit, but I think we would have enjoyed ourselves there more if it wasn't so hot.

Since it was so hot we treated ourselves to some strawberry melon and kiwi apple ice cream.

Katie enjoying our refreshingly cool ice cream.

Next, we drove home to get out of the heat for a bit. Once we finally felt cooled down, we walked over a few blocks from our house and got another round of Thai massages. This wasn't really for our anniversary. We just happened to have gone climbing the day before, and we've been trying to get a massage the day after our climbs. Other than having to awkwardly wait longer then we expected to get started, they were quite nice.

Hanging out in our massage attire, waiting for the group before us to leave.

After our massages, we got back on the bike and went out to dinner to The Dukes. I know it doesn't sound like your typical anniversary dinner spot. Our host actually kept trying to persuade us to go somewhere else. But we were taken there the week before by our friends Pam and Larin and learned that they had some super delicious food. So if we were going to splurge, we wanted something tasty, not fancy.  

Hanging out at The Dukes, waiting for our food.
We got a pretty sweet view on the 4th floor of the mall where this specific Dukes was located. 

Katie got the same calzone she got last time.
I got a BBQ chicken pizza.

We even ordered a oreo-chocolate-peanut butter cheesecake. This made Katie very happy. It wasn't as good as her cheesecakes, but it was better then most other restaurants and really hit the spot. We also ordered a second slice of just chocolate cheesecake to take home to our host so that she could have some since she also loves chocolate. We might have also stolen a bite or two from that cheesecake too :)

We then drove home to drop off our leftovers and we had just enough time for Katie to try out driving the motorbike herself up and down our street a few times. She was a little nervous but still managed the bike well for her first time.

We then returned the bike and didn't have any problems with the return, which is always a blessing. And then on our walk home we ran one more errand and then walked down part of the Sunday Walking Market. When we got home we chatted with Alana and some of her friends for a bit, showered (it was a very hot day so it felt amazing), played a round of Hanabi, had a glass of wine, and called it a well deserved early night. 

Overall it was a lovely day with some very lovely company. We fit in a lot. And thanks to an adventurous spirit, the aide of the motorbike to get around, and feeling more comfortable with Chiang Mai, it didn't feel overwhelming at any point. As an added perk, even though we splurged, splurging in Thailand is still relatively cheap compared to a day like this elsewhere. We can see why people retire here. We spent less than 1900 baht ($50-ish USD) on a full day of adventure. This is a lot compared to an average day where we're spending less than 400 baht, but $50 back home might have just covered a fancy dinner.

And that was our anniversary adventure. I mainly wrote it out for myself so that I could look back on this day and remember all the details. But I hope you enjoyed the retelling of it as well.

Cheers