In transit 2/3

The flight from Chiang Mai to Seoul was easy – 4.5 hour flight, we slept 3 hours. We booked a 3 hour transit tour. At the 9 am departure time,they gave us fur lined coats and we walked to the bus. It was 0º C. We are not prepared for this after the heat in Thailand. Other than freezing the tour was OK. As part of the tour we visited a market and got a sampling of Korean food. We decided that we liked Thai food much better. And Thai weather, too.

Last day in Chiang Mai

After breakfast we tackled the chore of packing. Bo had made many purchases and we ended with both suitcases full. We checked out at 11am but our flight was not till 11:55pm. The hotel was nice and gave us a standard room we could use till 6 pm. We heard band noises and were told there was a parade to celebrate the flower festival. We walked across the river and got to the parade. It appeared to be endless. Many bands in colorful uniforms, some floats, and lots of pretty Thai girls. We hired a tuk tuk to take us across town to the Cultural Center, but he could only take us to the edge of the old town because was unable to cross the parade route. We had to walk the rest of the way. We went to a museum of northern Thai history/culture. At least it was cool. Actually, it was quite interesting and well done, with informative descriptions in Thai and English. One of the girl guards also told us how to make sticky rice with mango. We walked back to the hotel, stopping at one last Wat, with Donald Duck right in front. In the hotel, we had an afternoon snack of rambutan, mangosteen, green papaya, jujube, and apple. After relaxing for an hour (2 episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond) we walked to an upscale restaurant on the river called the River Market. When we left, it was raining. We walked to the hotel and asked them to call us a cab. After about 10 minutes they told us the taxi had an accident. (There are few taxis in CM because as we were told, the red truck union won’t allow them.) We nixed the offer of a tuk tuk to the airport as it was still raining, and took a red truck instead. Now waiting for boarding ….

Chiang Mai 2/1

After breakfast we set out to the local zoo. After a red truck ride we arrived, and paid the admission. Our guidebook touted the ZOO as a great and very inexpensive attraction, and it may have been true a few years ago. Now, the entrance fee is 100 baht (not 50 as in the guidebook) and then you have to pay separately if you want to see the pandas (another 150), ride the monorail (150) or ride the tram (100). We were given a map and we started walking. There were either no signs or unintelligible ones. After walking up hills we tired and were ready to leave when a tram driver stopped and invited us aboard. The short ride back to the entrance was a relief. We started walking in a different direction and another tram took pity on us. We finally saw some animals. Hippos, elephants, giraffes, emus, bears, flamingos, birds, and tigers, leopards, and a jaguar. Al fed a piece of meat to a grateful leopard. We then took a red truck to an upscale neighborhood of Nimmanhemin. It’s supposed to be the hippiest part of town. It was quite different from any other place we have been to – more glitzy, cosmopolitan and mostly expat. It was a hot day so we spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool. When it got dark, we decided to visit yet another market that we saw from the red truck the previous night – the Warorot market. It was different from the other markets because it was mostly food – stalls with foods being cooked, fruits and vegetables and also a huge flower market. There were also some clothes, but no touristy trinkets and not that many tourists. We were hungry so we picked a barbecue stall and bought some pork skewers and a piece of grilled chicken. It was delicious. We walked around, bought some fruit (rambutans and mangosteens); Bo bought a pair of very funky plastic shoes; and then we went back for more grilled pork and chicken. By then the market got very crowded so we left. On the way back we stopped at our night market and bought some mango and sticky rice for desert.

Chiang Mai 1/31

After breakfast we set out to find the women’s prison. It has shut down but next to it there is a place where the inmates are taught a trade, which is massage therapy. We both signed for a full hour massage. It was great ($6 each). Bo confessed that when she took her bra off the attendant shockingly exclaimed “Wow, beautiful ….” (As most Asian women’s, her own breasts were quite small) After the walk back we decided to spend the afternoon at the pool. At 6 pm we embarked to find an eclectic market across from the university that we read about in the guidebook. It took a long tuk tuk ride, but we found it and it was quite different from the night market. All young people. Many eateries but most Korean and Japanese. We were hungry so we sat down in one of the places. Menu was only in Thai and the waiter didn’t speak English so we went to another one – a Japanese Thai fusion where the waitress spoke some rudimentary English. After we finished our meal and were paying the bill, the waitress patted Bo on the side and said: “Nice body, no fat.” Two complements in one day, it doesn’t get much better than that. We took a red truck back to the night market where Bo bought half a dozen of things.

Chiang Mai 1/30

After breakfast we embarked on an adventure to visit the furniture manufacturing/marketing region. It is in and near the village of Hang Dong, 9 miles outside of the city. Chiang Mai has a system of public transportation consisting of converted pickup trucks. The rear bed is covered and there are benches along each side. There are red ones for intra city and they seem to be everywhere. The yellow ones are for inter city. We got on a yellow one and 30 minutes later we were in Hang Dong ($1.20 for two). We walked around, but didn’t see any furniture places. Finally, an English speaking man told us we had to take a tuk tuk to a crafts market 4 km away in the village of Ban Tawai. The tuk tuk was a converted motorcycle and the driver looked 90 years old, We had our doubts, but we got in. After we turned the corner, still in Hang Dong, we started seeing all kinds of furniture and design places. They continued until Ban Tawai. 2 miles down the road and ($3) we arrived there. We saw lots of stuff but nothing that appealed to us. Big and gaudy. We walked the 2 miles back to Hang Dong stopping at most of the places we saw from the tuk tuk. We saw some interesting antique stores, but no appealing furniture. In HD we jumped into a yellow truck back to Chiang Mai. On our walk back to the hotel we stopped at Gekko Garden restaurant for lunch. It is owned by a Californian who left the Bay area 12 years ago and settled in Thailand. The food was great – a California/Thai fusion with some unusual spices.

Chiang Mai 1/29

We hired a car and driver to take us to several places. The first was the royal family palace (Bhubing Palace)atop a mountain overlooking the city. It was 10 miles from the city at 3500 feet. It was extremely misty and the palace was not open for visit. But the grounds were spectacular. A short drive away we visited another temple – Wat Doi Suthep. It is described as a must visit in guide books and our driver told us that every Thai person who comes to Chang Mai visits this temple to pay respect to Buddha’s relics. There is a 300 step climb to get to it but fortunately there is a cable car alternative. It is a big beautiful temple. We were going to visit a Hmong village a few miles away at a higher altitude, but the driver was afraid to go there because of thick fog and the road being curvy and narrow. Instead, he offered to take us to a silk village. We agreed, but asked him to take a short detour to another temple – Wat Jed Yod, which we were told is dedicated to the snake. Since both of us were born in the year of the snake, we had to go there. It turned out to be one of the oldest and most beautiful wats in Chiang Mai. All around its base, people put small statues of snakes in different colors. Then on to the silk village. A definite tourist trap. When we got back, we took a short rest and then set out to find lunch. We walked down a main street where they were setting up for the night market. The night market is immense. It seems to go on forever. We went back for a rest before going out in the evening. Around 7 pm we left only to find out it was raining. The hotel staff gave us a large umbrella and we embarked on our evening adventure.

Chiang Mai 1/28

After travelling 28 hours, Al arrived at the hotel last night around 11pm. After a nice breakfast we set out to explore the city. We walked to the old historical part. It was a walled city and parts of the wall and four gates are still there. There is also a moat all around it. We went into at least 6 or 8 temples before we agreed “that’s enough temples”. We started our trek home and came upon a woman on the side of the road with a charcoal grill and chicken and sausage cooking. She talked us into eating (which wasn’t too hard) and cooked pad thai from scratch (about 10 ingredients) to accompany the barbequed spicy sausage. It was delicious. After a two hour rest we took a tuk tuk to a very large shopping mall – probably the only one here in search of a sporting goods store for Al. We checked out other stores and determined that prices were about the same as in the US. After we returned, we went to the night market. It is quite large and begins close to our hotel. You can find almost everything there so we spend a couple of hours walking around and shopping. In contrast to the mall, prices at the market are way lower. There are also a lot of restaurants and food stalls there so of course we had to eat. We had a typical Chiang Mai dish called khao soi, a mix of crispy and boiled noodles in chicken curry with pickled cabbage and lime juice. We also had a spicy grilled pork salad. Both were delicious. All this + a large beer was less than 10 dollars, and our roadside lunch was less than $2.50. Food here is a real bargain and fantastically tasty.