Chiang Mai

The overnight bus to Chiang Mai was relatively simple. There were a few familiar faces on the bus. Seated one row ahead of us was a dude that I had called out in Vietnam for being disrespectful complaining about the night buses there, and a couple of the dudes friends. The dude and I made that eye contact where you acknowledge each others presence, but mutually decide not to interact. Rather humorously, we got to listen to a much more respectful tale of that previous bus trip we took together from one of the dudes friends for the first hour of the trip. The dude just sank in his seat. I didn’t say anything.

Chiang Mai was immidietly a breath of fresh air form Bangkok. Literally. While it’s generally known for being very smoggy, we must have caught it on a good week. There was still some haze in the air, but it was much better here compared to the fume hood that was Bangkok.

We spent the first day doing the standard sightseeing around the city. We were staying near the old town, and took a walk through, checking out all of the Wats and famous statues in the region. They’re all in the same couple square kilometers, so it was a fairly simple task.

Like everywhere else we’ve been in the last month, it gets really hot in Chiang Mai during the day. So we retreated to our hotel room for the afternoon. Lunch was quite good. The food was a lot more consistent all of a sudden. The flavours of the curries were a lot more mellow, and it allowed you to actually enjoy them instead of being punched in the mouth. We also made the key change of ordering medium spicy, not extra. We also discovered Khao Soi, a delicious chicken noodle dish.

The food was awesome in Chiang Mai. Kao Soi was our favourite. The curries were better, the food was cheaper. It was also easier to navigate. Not as overwhelming as Bangkok and the tourist area is smaller. We would go back to Chiang Mai just for the food,

For the evening, we a had a lovely cooking class booked. This class was in someone’s backyard, and had a focus on Isaan flavors. Isaan people are a local ethnic minority in the north of Thailand. Their food focuses a lot around bamboo and tofu, creating a start contrast to the intense flavours of the rest of Thailand.

The first day isn’t done yet. We headed back to the inner city after the cooking class to walk down the Sunday market. Here, lots of crafts and handiworks were being presented for sale to the touring masses. And in the courtyards of the neighboring Wats were food markets, with all sorts of goodies. We got some dumplings, a Thai pancake, and a really bad sausage. Chiang Mai get’s a lot of tourists year round, and this Sunday night market was a big attractor.

We spent our next day on an enjoyable hike through Doi Inthanon National Park, meandering our way though waterfalls and villages. That’s an adventure for its own blog.

The evening was nice. We went to the Coconut Shell restaurant, a deep and narrow hole in the wall that’s always jammed with people. The food here was fantastic and affordable, and redeemed Thai food in our eyes after the inconsistencies of Bangkok. Here in the north, the flavors are a little more subdued and allowed to shine. Finesse over power so to say. We also discovered Padang and Massaman curries, two new favorites.

On the walk back from the restaurant, we finally put together that our hotel was a block away from the small and depressing Chiang Mai red light district. Thailand, and the rest of South East Asia, has a major problem with “sexpats,” generally wealthy elder European and American men that make permanent bases abroad for cheap prostitution. The majority of the time these sexpats are localized to one city per country, but there are hints of it throughout the country. It was icky to see it play out in real time.

Our final day in Chiang Mai was a slow one. The heat has a really tough effect on us, so we spent the morning hiding out. The evening was nice though. We checked out the plethora of night markets that Chiang Mai has to offer.

The first one was a nice food court style with a love band in the middle. The bands were fun. Somewhat discombobulated rock covers played with lots of emotion.

The rest were all souvenir markets that melded together. There appears to be an oversaturation in the souvenir market in Chiang Mai, and as a result, all the markets were half deserted as they all tried to out compete each other. Or maybe we were there on an abnormally low day. But it was normal to be in a hall with 50 vendors, and be 20% of the browsing population in that same hall.

Chiang Mai was cool, and so was Thailand for our short time here, but we’ve got another country to get to. We will be back eventually though. See you across the border!