Am I Corn or Kale?

It’s been over a week since we arrived in lovely Chiang Mai. The haze persists, as does the high quality of the food. For those who did not believe it the first time around, here’s the coconut ice-cream (also with an unexplainable scoop of sticky rice in the middle) on white bread:

As the days go by, Chiang Mai feels more and more homely. That doesn’t mean I no longer have to hold back from screaming in excitement every time I see not one, or two, but four people, many of them often kids or even infants riding together on a single motorcycle. Similarly impressive are the women who, for one reason or another, choose to ride sidesaddle on the back of someone else’s bike, sometimes without even holding on to the driver, putting all their trust on inertia and their own balance. Bikes are a way of life here, and I must admit I feel somewhat handicapped for never having even hopped on one before.

We have spent a great deal of time on the so-called “walking streets”, or street markets. While I have thus far refrained from trying the feared durian fruit or any deep-fried bugs (mostly I don’t want to purchase a whole bag and not be able to finish it), we’ve had fun bargain shopping for (lightweight) items around here.

We have also spent more time with our friends Som and P’Pae, including an afternoon trip up the Doi Suthep, a nearby mountain, to visit the temple complex up on top. Annoying but understandably, the main temple was under repair due to an earthquake that shook its structure sometime last year. Nevertheless, we had a fascinating experience as P’Pae walked us through various Buddhist fortune-telling traditions.

We have also been spending a lot of time doing our homework for the European leg of the our trip. I have grown a bit too accustomed to the low cost of living here, and keep trying to convert prices in Euro to the Thai Baht — bad mistake. Basically, for the price of one night in Europe (say, 50 Euros) one could spend a whole week on an island off the coast of Thailand; for the price of an European breakfast (8 Euros), with some care you could have breakfast, lunch and dinner for 3 days here…

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