Eating and shopping in Chiang Mai
It was good to be in Thailand again, people are so friendly and things are jut so easy! People speak English, the hostels are helpful and will book everything for you and things are just very very cheap! The only thing is that it presents no sort of challenge, but I think I have had enough of that on this trip so was ready to just enjoy easy 2 weeks in Thailand.
So trying to put the frustrating Laos experience behind me, I enjoyed my double room at Josies (or maybe Jodies?) guest-house for the night, probably one of the more flash places I’ve stayed at, and at only $12 I thought I could probably justify it (and it was the only room left and I couldn’t be bothered finding another place). After one night I swapped into the much cheaper dorm room for only $3.50 a night. The guy at the desk look worried when I asked for a dorm and said to me “But are you sure? You have to share with 4 other people, they could be boys” Um, yes I am quite aware of what a dorm is given I have been in them for the last 5 months….
Turns out my dorm had girls in it anyway, and met Jen a English chick, who, like me is aways in need of company so we spent the next couple of days together where we ate our way around the city and went to lots of markets. First we went up to see one of the main temples in the area. Now I like temples but have pretty much seen enough to last me a life time but thought I would just do one while in Chiang Mi. This one was up a hill about 45 minutes drive from town, we took a shared taxi which is like a ute with sideways seats in the back, great for getting around town but not so great for an almost hour journey up a winding hill. By the time we arrived Jen was looking a bit green so we recovered in the shade for a bit then climbed the stairs to the temple.
It was pretty cool, on a hill overlooking Chiang Mai, lots of gold, lots of Buddhas and lots of people, both Thai and Farang. Interesting to see the difference between Tibetan Buddhism and Thai Buddhism, lots of more gold in Thai land and a very different feel. It was a nice place to walk around for a bit. Very busy, lot going on with food vendors, shops and taxis all crowding around the entrance. On the way back down we made sure we sat in the front facing forward which helped quite a bit.
After some typical food like Banana pancakes, Pad Thai and Mango sticky rice we headed down to the night market to check out all the stuff to buy-which is a lot. As Thailand is my last destination before home I thought it was OK to start buying up large and filling my pack. And really what better place to do that than Thailand! I got a few things before we were exhausted from shopping and headed back home for bed.
The next morning I went for a walk while Jen was sorting some stuff out to a big indoor market where they sold loads of spices and food and through all the street stalls packed with Thai’s doing their shopping. Back at the hostel me and Jen kind of sat around not doing a whole lot until about 5 when we headed out to the Sunday market, which has lots of different stuff from the night market. We ended up spending a good few hours wandering the stalls, eating a lot of food we came across, buying a lot. There was loads of great food at the market, we had Kao Soi for dinner, a yummy coconut soup with noodles and chicken, the moved on to coconut dumplings, garlic bread, tea in crazy bamboo cups, mango sticky rice, some sort of ancient ice cream…Eventually after 4 or 5 hours of easting and shopping we pushed our way out of the crowds and recovered with a beer before heading back.
(Jen with a big bamboo cup fillled with tea)
Jen was off the next morning for a week long elephant training thing and I was off on a day cooking class. In Chiang Mai people all do the same thing go to the night markets, do cooking classes and go trekking. Well I did all of them as well, cos they are really just good things to do! Ad all so easy to book, I booked everything through my guest house who organised the whole thing with pick ups and everything, hurray for Thailand!
Tags: Thailand #2, TRAVELS 2008
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