Chiang Mai Finale

Today was our last full day in Chiang Mai and the girls, Preston, and I, had signed up to take a class at the Chiang Mai Thai Farm Cooking School.   We had a really fantastic day that started out with a stop at one of the local markets to get a tour and pick up some ingredients.

 

  

 

 

  

After the market we took a ride about half an hour outside the city to the farm where our instructor for the day, Durian- who told us that her fruit namesake may smell, but she does not- showed us around the grounds.  She taught us about all the different Thai herbs & vegetables and then took us into the kitchen where we all had our own little stations.

 

 

We started off by making a curry paste- we got to choose our color & since I'm now obsessed with massaman curry, I went with yellow.

The next course was soup & I chose Tom Kaa, which is a coconut milk based soup with lemongrass and chicken.  When it was finished we got to take it outside and enjoy it.   We started chatting with other people in the class, mainly about how impressed we were with our own cooking.

 

 

Back in the kitchen, it was time to use our curry paste to make the actual curry.  Directly after that, we made another dish and I chose cashew chicken.  There were three choices of things to make on every course and between the four of us we got to try everything on the menu.  After the first three courses everyone was stuffed and they started busting out the doggy bags, much to the confusion of the French and Australians in the group, as they don't really believe in that sort of thing.

 

Since we were so full, instead of moving on to the noodle portion of the class, they had us do dessert- because no matter how full you are, there's always room for dessert.  It's apparently an international rule.  I made bananas in coconut milk with palm sugar and pandan leaf and I expected to love it, being my two favorite fruits and all, but it was so mindblowingly good that I actually considered licking the bowl (and totally would have done so in the privacy of my own home).

 

15 minutes later we were back in the classroom for noodle time.  I was very excited to learn how to make Pad See Ew, even if I was too full to eat it.   We packed it up and took it back to the hotel to have later, even though I was pretty sure I would never be able to eat again.  It was even great cold and I am totally asking for a wok for Christmas.

On the way back, in the truck, we chatted with a couple that was staying at our hotel, Robin and Dan.  They quit their jobs and are on a traveling adventure for 6 months, I'm 100 different levels of jealous.  They were really awesome and had some great future travel suggestions for us so I'll be following their travel blog when I get back- waystwogo.wordpress.com.

Back at the hotel Lauren went for a massage while Amanda and I went to check out the Night Bazaar.  I was really excited because I like to get interesting artwork as souviners when I go places and I picked up two really cool things here.  One of the random carts on the street had a woman making these flat leather pieces that she was pounding out with a nail and then painting.  She had different buddhist representations, and I went with an elephant- a traditional symbol of patience and wisdom, I could always use more of both.

Then in the very back of the Kalare Market, there was a an artist's studio that had the most amazing paintings.  I was literally there for half an hour trying to decide which one to get, they were all so great.  In the end, I chose this one of monks walking up towards a temple:

Lauren was beat after her massage but Amanda and I decided to go out for a drink for our last night in Thailand!  We walked around for awhile, and somehow ended up turning down hooker alley where there were a bunch of scantily clad Thai women (women?) hanging out in doorways of mostly empty bars.  A couple did have some customers and interestingly, we saw one group playing Jenga.  Hooker alley did have a rotee stand, so we picked up a pancake and headed back to the main street.  We stopped at John's three level bar so we could look out over the city and had a drink while we watched Naomi Watts have the worst day of her life, dubbed over in Thai, in King Kong.

More Chiang Mai

Turns out challenging a grown man, 3 times your size, to a bucket drinking contest is not a good idea, and that is how this day became known as Lauren's day of death.  I have to say, she was a rockstar, and I was impressed because if I had felt like that, I'm not sure I could have made myself get out of bed and go on the kind of adventure we had planned lol.

Our driver "Big"- name big, body little, he told us to help us remember, picked us up at 8:30 to take us to the Maesa Elephant Camp.  We watched the elephants do a bunch of tricks- one of which included painting and some of the work was pretty impressive!  Then we got to ride up into the mountains on an elephant, which was really cool for about half an hour and then it had the same effect on me as a New York City taxi and I found myself wondering if they would let me down from the elephant to throw up or if I would have to do it over the side.  Luckily I held it together and made it to the drop off with my breakfast intact.

The elephants dropped us off at a sort of series of makeshift villages.  I guess if you don't have time to visit the individual hill tribes, this is the way to experience it all- it's like the Epcot
Center of Thai villages.  We walked around for awhile & saw the different people & their textiles.

 

After that is was time for the Tiger Kingdom!  This was also a pretty surreal experience- we got to get in cages and hang out with live tigers!  We started off small with the 3 & 4 month olds- so cute!  Then we went for the big guys, which was a little scary when they were moving around, especially when they were moving around while you were petting them.  Some of them were passed out and we were encouraged to lay down and use them as pillows, etc- which in retrospect seems a little insane lol.   The last group we saw were the 6 month olds and they were probably the most fun because they were pretty rowdy, running around and playing.  I did have a close call when one I was sitting behind rolled over and mistook my hair for a ball of string and took a swat at it.  Other than that the experience was really awesome and incident free.

We had planned to go visit a temple that overlooked Chiang Mai but because it was the last night of the festival, there was going to be a big parade and Big wouldn't be able to get us anywhere close to our hotel- so we planned to do it on Sunday.  As it was we got caught in a big traffic jam, but we amused ourselves with the interesting drawings in Big's English Thai-torial books and he entertained us with stories about his birthday plans for later that night & going up into the mountains to make babies.
 

 

When we got back we decided maybe it was time to book our flight back to Bangkok for Sunday.  It never occurred to us that being the weekend after a big festival, Sunday might be a popular time to travel and the evening flights might be booked.  So out the window went the Sunday visit to the temple and the lovely afternoon that Big had planned for us- we will be getting up at 7:30am and spending the day in Bangkok- hopefully in some unflooded areas since we heard they planned to release some of the water into the city over the weekend to relieve the outlying areas a little.

After that little setback we headed out for some dinner.  We walked to a random place up the street where we had some pretty unappetizing pad thai- our first questionable meal of the trip. Preston joined us, well rested after sleeping until 4 while we were out adventuring.  We went over to one of the markets to grab dessert.  One of the many things I love about this country is that they use the only two fruits I truly like- bananas & coconuts- in pretty much everything!  Tonight I went for a banana pancake of a different kind.  This was more of a traditional pancake wrapped around a banana and topped with chocolate sauce and dried fruit.  Also delicious!

Loy Krathong and Yee Peng Festival

Today started out with a great little breakfast at our hotel's outdoor restaurant.  We had eggs, toast, fresh fruit, chicken sausage skewers, fruit smoothies, and coffee.  As a bonus it has an excellent view of the rehab clinic across the street.....

After breakfast we set off to see some temples- it would be irresponsible to come all this way and not get some culture.  Lauren took charge of the map and making sure we had all our belongings & sunscreen on, earning the title of Mama-San for the day, and led us off through Thapae Gate.  All the temples were ridiculously beautiful and ornate.


Wat Phan Tao

 

  

Because of the festival there were also lots of additional lantern decorations around the city and at the temples themselves.

 

  

 

 

Wat Chedi Luang 

 

We saw lots of people worshipping, including monks, which was pretty special.  This is probably one of my favorite photos of the trip, if not of all time.

 During our snorkeling excursion back on Phi Phi, I scraped the top of my foot against some coral.  Since it was conveniently located in the exact location of my flip flop strap, it subsequently became a red, angry, mess so we stopped at the pharmacy so I could bandage it up.  Amanda is apparently allergic to Thailand itself, so we also picked up some cream for her plethora of rashes.

We decided it was time for some curry so we stopped at Henry (I hear that is a very traditional Thai name, almost like John in America) next door to the pharmacy for some lunch.  Preston took a tuk tuk over from his hotel to join us & we ordered what I believe in America is called "an irresponsible amount of Thai food."  Everything we had was really amazing, we got a curry of each color, an extra masaman curry (which was beyond amazing, even if it did have pineapple in it & caused me to get a couple hives- totally worth it) and two orders of some of the best spring rolls I've had in either country.  And of course we had an assortment of lassies (fruit smoothies) to wash them down.

Lauren had used the bathroom in the pharmacy during lunch so I headed over there before we got going again.  I asked the woman if I could use her bathroom and she looked at me a little weird but gestured through the door.  I walk back into what is clearly- her house!  She had a bed, a TV, a little area to make food and the bathroom had a shower in it.  I was mortified I had just invited myself into this woman's home- she is probably expecting us to come back later and invite ourselves over for dinner.

After that little fiasco, we took a trip to the Museum of Culture and Art, conveniently located next to the women's prison.  It was two floors with interactive exhibits and dioramas, plus they had a photography exhibit with pictures from all over Thailand, which I was excited about.

After getting all knowledgable about Chiang Mai's history, we walked back to the hotel, stopping for some fresh coconut ice cream off the street cart and to take some photos of some more lanterns being set up in the square & at the monks residences.

 

 

 

We went to our respective hotels with plans to regroup and check out the parade in a little bit.  As soon as we stepped out onto the street, we could see the full moon over the rooftop (of the psych center lol) and a handful of lanterns floating way up in the sky.  It was so beautiful and I had no idea how much better it was going to get.

We walked up to the end of our street to find we were right on the parade route.  We grabbed a banana pancake (it had been about 4 hours since I had eaten one, so I was overdue) and watched the parade go by with all the costumes, floats, and music, as more and more lanterns were going up into the sky behind them.

 

 

 

After awhile we walked toward the river, stopping at temples where the monks were helping people launch their lanterns.  It was really like nothing I have ever seen and it was so stunning that it's hard to put it into words and I don't think the pictures really do it justice either.  It felt really peaceful, but joyful and celebratory all at the same time.  I can't even believe that I got to have this experience, I'm just really thankful.

 

 

 

 

We were lucky enough to catch a couple monks launching their own lanterns in a parking lot across from one of the temples.

 

 

The scene at the river was crazy!  Hundreds of people were launching lanterns off the top of the bridge, while others launched unregulated fireworks over the sides, basically towards the crowds of people on the riverbanks trying to make their way down the fairly steep embankment to float their krathongs, which were also lit with fire, into the river.  There would not be enough waivers in the universe to allow this to happen in America.  There were also people wading into the river to steal the coins and offering that people put on their krathong, which I'm not sure I would do since they were also selling fish and snakes that you could release alongside your krathong.  Amanda managed to get down to the water to release her krathong unscathed, I got my arm grazed by a bottle rocket trying to take photos and and we decided it was time to head for a safer ground.

 

 

  

It was pretty awesome to see the thousands of lanterns clustered together in the sky over the bridge but I really wanted to launch mine with the monks and have a quieter experience with it so we headed back up the street.  We got a four pack of lanterns and found a temple close by.  Lighting the lanterns and releasing them was kind of a surreal experience.  They help you get it all set up & lit and let the hot air build up underneath it, then they let go and you get to send it into the sky with a wish attached to it.  There's something really magical about the idea of thousands of wishes floating together, lighting up the night.

By this time we were starving so we stopped to get some dinner & drinks at a vegetarian restaurant on the main street.  Afterwards we got a recommendation for a place to go out and headed to Rock Bar in old city for some buckets.

We made friends with Emily and Toby, who were just coming from doing a week of silent meditation training and did not make friends with the little Thai boys who were running around the bar, trying to sell stuff, using foul American language and throwing fireworks under people's chairs!  After a couple buckets it was time to go home & we had our first ride in a tuk tuk, which we of course had take us to the 7-11 next to our hotel so we could get Thai potato chips.