More Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai:

While there are definitely some over-touristy parts of the city, Chiang Mai turned out to be better than expected. I think it was mostly due to the fact that we had a scooter. We stopped at a different market almost every day on our way back from climbing and sampled everything that appeared strange and new. The people in Northern Thailand seemed a lot nicer. Plus, we knew our numbers now since it was the same as Lao so I’m sure that helped out a lot at markets.

Food: Papaya salad was a maintstay in our diet. We were concerned about getting enough protein (b/c we were expending so much effort climbing) so we frequented the eggs-on a stick woman. I don’t know how it works but somehow the yolk just blends in and so the yolk isn’t like a hardboiled egg but the white is. We also found some chicken on a stick guys. A lot of the food vendors weren’t willing to negotiate which was sort of discouraging, but we ended up scoring some good stuff. I developed an unhealthy addiction to mango sticky rice. It was about 25 baht outside of town and 30-35 at our ‘local’ market. I think it involved butter, condensed milk, salt, sugar, and mango, but there was nothing like it after a hard day of climbing. That and our ridiculously cheap beer substitute- yum!

Chocolate: So, I had this challenge the whole time I was in Asia. I’m a chocolate eater. I enjoy cheap sketchy chocolate. But, I didn’t want to buy US candy bars while in Asia. Especially for more money than I would spend in the US. We went to this one chocolate/coffee boutique place in chiang mai and it was sort of a waste. I don’t know how many times I have fallen for this (and will fall for it again), but baked goods that aren’t quite sweet enough will never satisfy my chocolate cravings. Tim-tams (even though they are the ‘Asian’ modified kind) were my lifesavers. If you don’t know what tim-tams are, find your nearest Aussie.

Errands: We found a few other markets around northern Chiang Mai that were pretty interesting. It’s hilarious how the ‘geared for tourists’ market are starkly different from the local parts. We found the ‘dried fruit and tea’ section of the market and bargained for dried strawberries, lychee, and bael fruit (for making tea.) We later went upstairs where all the women were calling to us in English and trying to charge us double the price. Unfortunately, the US wouldn’t let the bale fruit in, but it made it all the way across the pacific.

I also took our ‘off day’ in Chiang Mai as an opportunity to get some much needed pages added to my passport. It’s sort of neat that I’ve been to 4 different continents and lots of different countries. Of course I want to see the whole world, but filling up a passport was an accomplishment, in a weird way. It also helps that the Asian countries all give visas that take up 1 page. Why can’t they just have stamps like everyone else ? 