Finally Some Water! - Angkaew Reservoir & Huai Kaeo Waterfall

It's been a while since I posted a Wednesday Walk. I walk a lot here in Chiang Mai but it's mostly within the city, my main means of transportation. But 2 days ago I decided to make a small excursion and visit Angkaew Reservoir, located about 5 kilometers outside of the Old Town. It's part of the University area (which is rather big). I booked a Grab taxi and off I went.

I had been recommended this place if I wanted nature, peace, and quiet. Now, everything is relative, but compared to the busy city center of Chiang Mai it sure was quieter. Even though you kind of hear traffic everywhere here. It felt so good to connect with water after almost 2 months. To be in an environment that has water is very important to me. Every time I spend a longer time away from water (and by that I mean the ocean or a rather big lake) I feel out of balance. I wouldn't say this reservoir was enough but even so, it helped.

The reservoir isn't that big, I would say you walk around it in 20 minutes (I didn't time myself and I also took some breaks just to relax).

You might say it's too hot to walk in the sunshine but I'm ok with that. Even midday which was when I arrived.

I also passed by some University buildings. It was actually rather busy (even though you can't tell from my pictures) because apparently some students were graduating this very day and they were all dressed up and had hired photographers to take pictures of them. Of course with the reservoir as a background 🙂

Here I sat down for a while and sent some important voice messages to someone I'm working with at the moment. It's all very exciting and maybe I'll share at least a bit about this experience at some point 🙂

This was my second lap around the reservoir because the restaurant where I had planned to have lunch was too busy. So instead I went back to another one but unfortunately they didn't have anything vegetarian

By now I was really hungry so I left the reservoir and found a Thai vegetarian restaurant along the rather busy street. After this simple but surprisingly filling meal (noodle soup) I was ready to continue on my 'walk'. (It's nice that vegetarian Thai restaurants are rather common here but I don't so often go there because they use all kinds of 'strange' mock soy meat that I do my best to avoid. The same goes for tofu even though that kind of feels 'natural' in comparison).

I hadn't planned this but I decided to walk to a waterfall that was rather close (about 1 kilometer).

I followed a rather steep path and got to a very nice viewing point.

The waterfall itself wasn't that spectacular but it was a really nice area where people (mostly locals) were sitting. I spent some time there and it was so soothing to hear the running water.

After the waterfall, I walked along the busy street leading back to the city center until I reached a big shopping mall (Maya). It's about halfway. There I bought some bread (something I miss sometimes here in Thailand but these shopping malls are very modern, you can get a lot of food there). I felt I had done enough walking for the day (almost 20,000 steps) so I got into a tuk-tuk and called it a day 🙂

Thanks for reading 🌸

Wishing you a lovely day 💚