Chiang Mai

This was our first destination, and also our fourth. We spent four nights at a guesthouse at the beginning of our trip, and then one night after our journey into the mountains, en route to the beach. (See Jeff in a songthaw, our primary form of transportation in the city, that is other than our own four feet; then see Jeff again at the temple on a hill near the city. We were supposed to get a panoramic view from up there, but it was not to be.)

Chiang Mai is a charming old city, well equipped to host the drooling mass of backpackers without giving over its soul. Wats (temples) and motorbike garages cohabitate on the same block without weirdness. The buildings in the city are low and the old quarter is a square surrounded by a moat and at places, walls which appear on the verge of collapse but have probably stood in such condition for hundreds of years. There is a gate – or in some cases, simply an opening – in the center of each wall of the square. Narrow lanes weave and dead end and meet up with major streets all throughout the old quarter. Guesthouses and bars and massage joints (not of the sleazy variety, and offering $4 Thai massages for one hour!) have to post signs at the mouths of these alleys to let people know that the alley is worth a wander. I have developed a particular fondness for the 20 baht (that would be about 66 cents) bottles of freshly squeezed orange juice that are sold on every corner.

Outside the old quarter, there are markets everywhere. On our first night, having just disembarked from a 40 hour journey from LA, we sleepwalked through the night market, which is a maze of shops set up on several floors inside a large open air building and outside even more shops lining both sides of the sidewalk in the area. This area is geared towards tourists, but we weren’t in a shopping mood. Later, we visited, briefly, the Warowot market complex, an enormous Thai shopping emporium. It was like a Taiwanese street market times a hundred. If ever I’m looking to buy cheap underwear or pungent dried sea animals, I’ll know where to go.

There is a river that cuts through Chiang Mai. Right now, it is brown and sluggish, but at night the lights on the many bridges go on and it is a lovely place. We went there one night for dinner at a restaurant in an old teak building with a gallery in front facing the road. Later we wandered down the street, filled with art galleries and like minded shops and other riverside restaurants and bars. The next day, further up the same street, we dined twice for lunch on the local specialty, khao soy. This is a noodle dish of the kinky eggy variety steeped in a rich but not coconutty curry with crisps of some kind scattered over the top. To be eaten with some pickled cabbage. Completely delicious. (Here's a picture of me enjoying the day's first khao soy. Next up is a picture from the cooking class that Jeff and I took. We learned to make pad thai, some kind of sour Thai soup I can never remember the name of, the best green curry I've ever had in my life, chicken with cashews, spring rolls, and mango sticky rice. If you're (un)lucky enough to live in LA Jeff will cook for you when we get back. I am particularly bad at rolling spring rolls, which are supposed to be long and slender. Surprise surprise, mine are short and stocky. The third picture is me completely jetlagged; we're at a coffee shop next to the river trying to use caffeine to stay up past 9 pm.)

That night, which happened to be a Sunday, we headed back into the old quarter where a huge pedestrian market had taken over like a virus spreading over every square inch of the place in a very short time. It is very intimidating at first, but then you realize that everyone is selling the same thing – hilltribe bags and headwraps, baggy Thai pants and tissue paper thin shirts, paper lanterns, wooden board games. Also you realize that as an American, you are walking on the right side of the road against traffic, which makes moving forward that much more difficult. But really what is a market if not a place to sell food We only a fraction of what looked good to us and quickly became unpleasantly stuffed. Three kinds of noodles, rice balls, omelettes, rotis, a blueberry mochi for Jeff, and of course, mango with sticky rice. We are going home fat. (Here is Jeff eating what he thought was going to be his third khao soy of the day but it turned out to be pigs' blood soup with noodles. He said the chunks of pigs' blood tasted like porky tofu. I did not attempt to confirm or deny. Next is a picture of the night market very very early on, from atop one of the crumbling walls of the gate.)