RTW Trip Day #52: Exploring Chiang Mai Old Town and Wat Chedi Luang

andrewsco3
Nov 20
2 min read

19 November 2025

Steps: 11,273

We started our morning with breakfast at the hotel, and honestly, it might be the best hotel breakfast that we’ve had on this trip. The selection was incredible - everything from classic English breakfast items to Thai dishes like stir-fried chicken and even massaman curry.

There were cold cuts, cheeses, yogurt and muesli, roast pork, pancakes, waffles, all kinds of juices, breads, and pastries… and even ice cream! I don’t think that we will be needing lunch today!

Wat Chedi Luang

We decided to do our own walking tour of the Old City, so we set off to our first stop, Wat Chedi Luang, passing by the Tha Phea Gate and the famous moat that surrounds the Old City.

Wat Chedi Luang is an interesting place to visit, as there is both a traditional temple complex that you can walk through and the massive, Lanna-style chedi, which looks almost like something from Mexico or the ancient pyramids.

It’s a huge structure, decorated with elephant statues along the ridge of the chedi. It’s so big that we even noticed it rising above the skyline from our hotel later while we were swimming.

The girls enjoyed hitting the giant bells that are positioned all around the Chedi. They were loud!

Wat Phra Singh

We didn’t want to do too many temples today as the girls are getting more weary of temples by the day! This one was impressive though with a large gold chedi in the center, tucked between two beautiful old wooden temples. The temple was originally built in the 14th century and the inside was beautiful too - even the girls admitted it was pretty impressive!

Family Foot Massage

We had been planning a family massage at some point in Thailand, but we’re waiting until we found the right place, where we could all be massaged together, as we didn’t feel comfortable with the girls being in a separate room.

We passed this small massage place and the lady came out and spoke to us and seemed absolutely fine with the kids getting a massage too. She was able to do a half an hour foot massage rather than the 1 hour that was on the price list, and it was only 200 baht each, which was perfect for us.

The girls started off with a few giggles but soon got into it and they both really enjoyed it. We might even try a back massage later in the trip!