Let me bring you up to date on what we've done over the last few days. We arrived in Chiang Mai on February 2nd and checked into the Suriwongse Hotel located right in the middle of the legendary Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. Our original hotel plans never panned out since this week is the Flower Festival. After searching online for awhile, we came across this hotel and decided to pay the extra money to stay somewhere nice... particularly since we were roughing it on the mountain and in Chiang Dao.

The Suriwongse Hotel is a typical Western-styled highrise hotel with all the amenities. Since we shopped online and booked through a travel agency, we managed to get the rooms for around $30 a night (as opposed to the usual $100+ that the hotel charges at the reservation desk). Gotta love the internet.

Shaunna was still a bit ill then, so I got a chance to wander around town by myself. The first thing you notice in Chiang Mai (and Bangkok) is the pollution. Taxis, tuk-tuk's (three wheel motocycle taxis), scooters and buses hastily speed by and spew out thick black smoke. This smoke literally blocks out the skyline on some mornings, and the nearby mountains (which would normally be visible) are obscured by the smog.

Another unpleasant aspect of the city is the litter. We noticed even in the rural areas that most Thai people dump their trash on the side of the streets. Occasionally we would see people burning large piles of trash in their backyards. This happens in the city, too. Everywhere you go there is litter... and piles of smouldering trash. Either the locals don't know how damaging this is to their health, or they don't care.

Despite the dirty, stinky air and trash, Chiang Mai is incredibly charming. It reminds me alot of my experiences in other Asian cities. Sprawling city streets, congested roads, and row after row of market stalls. Fortunately for us, Chiang Mai is filled with TONS of Westerners. In some places, the white people outnumber the Thai. As a result, we haven't needed to speak any Thai (although it helps get the locals on your good side). English is spoken everywhere.

My first destination on my solo hike was to find an internet cafe (where I caught up on this blog). Then I headed back towards the hotel and proceeded to walk down a street called Loi Kroh, which goes East to West through the East side of town. Loi Kroh contains a ton of tiny hole in the wall bars and clubs that cater specifically to men. In between the clubs are countless massage parlors. All along the way, Thai women were cat-calling and trying to get me to come in for a drink or massage.... "hey babay, you want massashe? come dwink wit me!"

I made it past the throng of Thai women and headed towards the Old City. Chiang Mai's inner city is a moated, walled-in town that has the look and feel of an old Asian city. Local environmental laws do not allow any buildings within the Old City (or around it) to be taller than three stories. As such, most of the buildings in this area are low and rustic. Naturally, corruption has ruined this effort, so there are one or two highrise hotels that tower over the area... but for the most part, it is very pretty.

I crossed the moat and walked along Moon Muang road, where alot of backpackers and travellers hang out. This road is lined with family-owned restaurants (of every flavor) and guesthouses. I decided to retrace my steps and head back past the overly friendly Thai ladies. I kinda got a kick out of this. It reminded me of my Navy experiences (I'll spare you the details).

Thailand has massage parlours everywhere. You can't walk 20 feet without seeing a massage parlour. In some places, you can pass five or six in a row. All of them have the same services and prices - the only difference is your choice of massage therapist. The competition is so high in some places that they try to stand out by offering "instructional" classes on how to give Thai massage. It seems this trick is catching on, because now these classes are everywhere. I don't know if a Thai certification is good in the US, but it's certainly interesting. As I mentioned before, Thai massage (although somewhat painful) is pretty effective.

Another notable characteristic of Chiang Mai is the Western-styled stores that cater to tourists. Hemp stores, t-shirt companies, fake designer clothes, Starbucks, McD's, Burger King... it's all here. At first I was pretty cynical about it all. But now it makes sense. After eating shrimp and rice for a week, I've been dying to eat a Quarter-pounder with Cheese. I haven't given in just yet, but apparently others do.

Once I got back to the hotel, Shaunna was showered and getting enough energy to go eat. I had read about a terrific restaurant and Buddhist meditation center close to our hotel called Whole Earth (Misty, you would have loved this place!). It is located in a two-story, old-fashioned teak building that (thankfully) had air-conditioning. The area outside also had seats and booths, but we were hotter than hell. We opted for the inside.
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The selection of food was impressive. It had vegetarian and meat options in both Thai and Indian food, and the emphasis was on all natural ingredients. We quickly devoured our food and turned in early.

The next morning we decided to venture around town, and I showed Shaunna all the friendly Thai ladies on Loi Kroh. We had a good laugh when they would cat-call me but coldly ignore her. We couldn't travel too far from the hotel in case Shaunna had another sudden explosion, but we managed to find the travel agency to schedule our trek to the Elephant Nature Park (see entry for that one).

Afterwards (and after a few trips back to the hotel), we headed towards the river and had lunch at another famous restaurant called Antique House. The building was built in the mid-1800's, and the place was filled with antique wood-carvings and statues. The food wasn't half bad, but by this time we were beginning to get tired of Thai food.

A little bit about Northern Thai food... I've read about the people in this area eating frogs, roaches, grubs, crickets, and other odd creepy crawlies. I've always been curious about how these taste, so I ordered a spicy curry soup that had frog meat in it. The frog was pretty tasty, but the tiny bones were a bitch to pick out. I washed it down with some cold Beer Changs and tried to ignore the earthy flavor of the meat.

The frog soup is in the bowl closest to the camera... and there's a picture of me picking frog meat from a bone...
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After lunch we headed away from the touristy Night Bazaar area and headed to the Wararot Market. This is a large dilapidated market that caters specifically to Thai people. It contains three floors of food vendors, fabric sellers, and low-quality household items. I had a blast walking through the rows of vendors and taking in the scenery. It was nice to get away from all the Westerners and soak in the vibe of the locals.

The sights and smells of the market were overwhelming. It's a very noisy, busy place with people hastily walking by in search of food for the next day's meals. Sometimes we were greeted by the smell of fragrant incense burning in the stalls... other times we walked into the foul stench of rotting meat. Flies buzzed all around and crept along the piles of pig snouts, dried fish, squid, crabs, whole chickens, etc. Little pools of blood and juice gathered around the piles of meat. After an hour of this, we decided to head east towards a busy road were we could catch a cab and escape the stink.
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Just as we were leaving the market I spotted a stall that had piles of crickets, grasshoppers, and grubs for sale. I couldn't help myself. I approached the lady and inquired if I could try one. She and her assistant started cackling when Shaunna and I were making funny faces. She waved at me to try one. I found a sizeable grub, put it in my mouth and let Shaunna take a picture. Then I closed my eyes and started to chew. It kinda burst in my mouth, and it tasted strangely similar to a bland kidney bean. Not so bad, really.
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The lady at the stall tried to get me to eat a cricket, but I'd had enough for one day. Frogs and grubs. Yum!

We took a cab back to our hotel. We rested for a bit and then headed out for a dinner of Middle Eastern food. The surprising part of Chiang Mai is that the food here is comparable to some high-dollar restaurants back in the US. The quality and quantity of the food is amazing. We've had Italian, Indian, Greek... all of it delicious and cheap!

After dinner we ventured to the Night Bazaar where it just getting busy. This area is a long road (Chang Khlan) that is filled with portable stalls. The little sidewalk gets particularly crowded, and you have to fight your way through the throngs of tourists haggling over prices with the local vendors. We bought some killer t-shirts (including a Red Bull t-shirt, of which I'm particularly proud) and some pants for Shaunna. After a few hours of this, we'd had enough and went back to the hotel to prepare for our elephant trek in the morning.