Grand Canyon water park adventures
While Chiang Mai is renowned for its cultural significance and the natural beauty of the surrounding mountains and landscapes, there are also some unreal activities to do that are just a short drive or scooter ride from the city itself (twenty minutes or so, to be exact). Chiang Mai Grand Canyon is without a doubt one of the best of them! This is a crazy fun waterpark that has been built in an abandoned limestone quarry. With bright blue and sometimes lime green waters, the quarry has filled with water during the monsoon seasons. Before the park was built, jumping from the insanely high and steep walls of the quarry was apparently quite popular, as was swimming. Today, you can do all this and so much more, thanks to the opening and immense popularity of Grand Canyon waterpark!
The waterpark only opened in 2016, so it is still quite new to the area. This is a place of crazy fun. We literally spent an entire day there and we only went home when the sun was starting to set. There are two entrances to the park, each of which you pay a separate entry fee. For full disclosure, the entrance to the right on the side of the road is the section where you can kayak calm waters and take inflatable donuts out to relax on the water. The individuals who worked at the little cafe there had three of the tiniest kittens I have ever seen in my life. They were so precious and so playful, it was impossible not to smile and want to hold them, tiny as they were. Once we ate at the right side, got our kitten cuddle fix, had a swim, and realised we had gone through the wrong entrance to get to the inflatable obstacle courses, we walked over to the other entrance.
The entrance to the left is where the party is at. There are lockers to hire out and you get a bracelet with the key attached. Additionally, there are bathrooms, a cafe, and a merchandise and hire place where you can hire goggles and other gear. We hired a floating GoPro mount which proved to be a lifesaver a few times when we slipped on the obstacle course and nearly lost the GoPro to the depths of the quarry, and I bought some goggles so I could do laps in the pool at our apartment back in Chiang Mai (given that Chiang Mai is a city up in the mountains, nowhere near close to the beaches, goggles were hard to come by, as you can imagine, so this was a score). The inflatable obstacle course is massive not just in length and width, but in height. It was so amusing seeing everyone slip and slide around it all, tiny little dots in the distance and then hysterically happy up close.
'Are you a Tigger or an Eyore?'
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
This is one of my favourite quotes from one of my favourite books (read it, trust me). Essentially, you can go through life being an energetic, happy person most of the time (a Tigger) or sometimes we all feel like the world can challenge us (an Eyore). The Grand Canyon water park absolutely brings out the Tigger in everyone. You feel like a big kid just constantly in fits of laughter that make your stomach hurt in the best possible way. We spent the day going through the obstacle courses and ziplining our way across the quarry. This was honestly one of the most enjoyable days of our time in Thailand. We love the mountains, however we both missed the beaches of Da Nang, so it was nice to have the option to splash around in the water, and even more so to do so in such a crazy fun environment (we did have a pool in Chiang Mai, because we knew how hot it would be, so made this and air conditioning a priority when we were house hunting, but there is just something different about the beach). The quarry is massive, so even though it was quite busy you never felt like you had to slow down or even really think too much about anyone else. Every time that we thought that we got the hang of one section of the obstacle course, one wrong step would send us flying into the water. My stomach hurt from laughing so much.
The zipline that goes over the quarry is so high but it was such a wild perspective to see of the park, literally flying over everyone else and soaring to the other end. There was also a cliff section near the zipline platform where you could jump off the quarry cliffs into the water from a few different heights. You have to climb back up a rope ladder to get back up which, judging from Josh's expression when he got back up for his second jump down, is a bit of a mission, but well worth it. It was such an excellent day and we left feeling like we were on a natural high. From inflatable obstacle courses and a zipline that carries you over the quarry itself, to slides, trampoline towers over the water, kayaking, and wakeboarding, Grand Canyon waterpark has it all.
