Day 235 - Happy Chances

The Chiang Mai University which is near our hostel has an attached gallery. Said gallery is usually closed on Mondays, but I had seen a neat exhibit through the window when I passed by after closing on Sunday, and wanted to show Cz. When we arrived, the doors were open. Perplexed, we wandered in, and no one tried to stop us. The exhibit was called "In My Mother's Footsteps", about a woman who goes back to Germany and later Eastern Europe to trace the route her mother took during the Holocaust as a Jewish prisoner. It was a very good exhibit, and there is apparently a documentary film coming out about it if you are curious.

Better though were the exhibits upstairs. Little did we know, but we had stumbled into the last-minute setup of the undergrad thesis shows. Much of their work was far better than even grad level work at home, and we were duly impressed. That said, we couldn't help but feel a little warm and fuzzy nostalgia as we watched the kids frantically painting, stapling, and installing away.

After the museum, we debated having a sushi lunch or visiting the Wat nearest to our guesthouse. Luckily Wat won out - sushi is everywhere, Thai Wats, only Thailand. We were well-rewarded. This was the finest wat so far in Chiang Mai. The golden Chedi housing the Buddha relics sits serenely over a cluster of shining white stupas containing the ashes of departed royal family members. The temple itself had been destroyed over the centuries, but the golden Buddha collection still stands proud ina lovely painted shelter with some traditional architectural details. Best of all, there were only two other foreign visitors. Everyone else there were monks or locals. It was a fine way to end our Chiang Mai sightseeing.

We still had time for a quick late lunch, and indulged ourselves in another round of Mike's burgers before grabbing our packs and heading out to the train station.

When we arrived at our platform, the grimy cars and diesel-belching engines did not inspire confidence. When we purchased our tickets, all the cheap sleepers were sold, so we had to splash out on 2-tier AC (for all of $22 each for a 14hour night train). That was the best thing that could have happened to us. When in seat position, the chairs were soft and huge enough to curl up it. The train flashed through the mountains with nary a curve nor a bump - far better than a bus. We played cards on the nearly full-sized table provided us until bedtime. And then the real treat.

The seats tranformed into two almost twin-size beds one above the other. Not only that, but they came with 2" thick mattresses (on top of the already nice surface), sheets, pillows, a blanket, even curtains to block out light and noise from the other berths.

We should arrive in Bangkok bright eyed and bushy tailed with this kind of service.

Day 234 - White Elephants Cannot Be Trusted

According to legend, when a new Buddha relic was discovered by the king of Chiang Mai, no one could decide where to build a temple to house it. The king decided to put the relic on the back of a white elephant (sacred animal, but not too bright) and release him in the center of town. Wherever the elephant stopped, the temple would be built.

The elephant headed for the hills. Literally. He marched himself about 6km out of town before stopping on a crest overlooking the budding city. So a Wat and Chedi (Thai stupa - where Buddha relics go) were built on the spot. With the advent of automobiles, a winding road was subsequently added. And I do mean winding with bonus ups and downs.

By the time we arrived at the top of the hill all we could do was stare dizzily about and rub our roiling bellies. Dread in anticipation of the ride down did not improve moods.

We did manage to coax ourselves into the cablecar and the rest of the way up the hill to the Wat (That was one ambitious elephant!). The Wat itself was nice, but not any nicer than others we have visited. Same for the view over town - nice, but we've seen better. Furthermore, the whole complex was crawling with people, and the whole thing felt rather touristic. Of course this is probably coloured by the fact that we still hadn't completely recovered from the ride up.

We did meet this fellow guarding one of the entrances. Someone clearly had a 'complicated' relationship with their parents.

The ride down the hill was nearly as bad as the ride up. We didn't toss our cookies, but our tummies made their displeasure known for the rest of the day.

The owner of our hostel was a tourguide before going into hostelling, and so arranges outings for anyone who cares to join nearly every day. Today's agenda was to visit the oldest Wat in town, the first section of the city to be built, adn the Sunday Night Market, the biggest and best in town.

We began at the old Wat which was just as nice as the one on top of the hill, and far easier to reach. The light was perfect causing the old bricks and the saffron robes of the monks sweeping and tending the grounds to glow. The hostel owner was most knowlegeable, giving us not ony a brief history of the Wat, but of Thailand as a whole.

From there, we went into the old city wall where we learned more history, including the story of the ambitious white elephant. Once off the wall, it was only a short hop to the sunday market.

Every Sunday night, the two main cross streets in the old town close completely to vehicles and transform into a 2km by 2km open-air market. Anything and everything is on sale from crafts to mass produced goods to pirated CD's and DVD's. And food. Much of it is conventional (good) street fair - fruit, phad thai, spring rolls, soups - but some of it strays into the bizzare. When I say you can find any meat on a stick, I mean any meat on a stick. Including a giant cockroach. I should have made a video of me crunching him to bits to play in my kitchen in NY. It would be way safer to the cats than roach bombing...though perhaps it could put a dent in my social life...

After the market, we all piled into a shared taxi and headed back to our own quiet neighborhood. Where we had a lovely (and so conventional) soup and rice dinner before walking back to our hostel for another round of TV before bed.

Day 233 - Party Time

Our visit to Chiang Mai just happened to coincide with the annual flower festival. For the festival, several streets are closed to traffic and filled with vendors selling all sorts of plants, flowers, and tasty snacks. Most exciting are the strawberries. In addition to being spring flower season, it is also the peak of strawberry season, and the strawberries from South Vietnam and North Thailand are considered some of the best in the world. We ate a lot of berries and took a lot of photos.

For dinner, the hostel owner took a large group of us to the Thai barbeque. There were so many of us that a few had to (chose to) ride on the roof and watch the city lights stream by. Every weekend, a building like an open-sided airplane hanger is equipped with table-top grills, platters of fresh food, and a live band. Literally thousands of Thais (and the few lucky foreigners who know about it) gather together to cook, eat, and talk. It's good fun.

Afterwards, we all went out for Karaoke. In Thailand, Japanese-style Karaoke is wildly popular. Rather than taking place in an open bar, groups of friends can rent out rooms of various sizes, each equipped with a karaoke machine. Everyone sings together, eliminating stage fright or performance anxiety. The drinks menu might also have something to do with this.

Overall, it was a properly festive day, beginning to end.

Day 232 - Burnin' Down the House...

...Or Cz goes to cooking school.

Chiang Mai is known for its excellent Thai cuisine. As such, almost everyone who visits here takes at least one day worth of cooking classes. Even Cz was not immune.

We began the day with a market tour. Our guide (and cooking teacher for the day) could be a stand-up comedian. I recognised most of the veggies and herbs that he pointed out, but he amused us by making jokes about the 'Thai' names for things, and by calling some of the well-known veggies by their Dutch names, to the surprise of the Dutch in the group, and the amusement of the English-speakers.

Best of all, we learned how to not only make Phad Thai, but to do it with impressive displays of flame-throwing. Not exactly home-kitchen friendly, but loads of fun.

So without further ado....

Some recipes.

Tom Yam Soup

Ingredients: (2 small servings)
1 cup water or stock (veg, chicken, or seafood)
3 thin slices ginger, peeled
3 1" pieces lemongrass
1 shallot roughly crushed (smash it with the side of a knife) and cut into 3 pieces
1-5 small green chilies roughly crushed (smash with the side of a knife)
1-2 Kaffir lime leaf vein removed torn into pieces (1/2 tsp lime zest would work fine)
2-4 mushrooms cut into chunks (we used straw mushrooms, any other kind is fine too)
1/4 tomato, sliced
Protein - can be prawns, tofu, fish, thinly sliced chicken, pork, beef...about 1/4 cup whatever you like
1Tbs fish sauce (soy sauce will do)
Cilantro (coriander leaves) to taste
1Tbs lime juice (fresh squeezed is best)
1 tsp sweet chili paste (optional)
1 clove garlic, skin removed, smahed and cut in half

Bring water or stock to a boil on high heat

Add all ingredients except cilantro and lime juice

Cook until everything is cooked through (1-2 minutes)

Remove from heat

Add cilantro and lime juice

Serve with rice, yoghurt, or beer (all of these things cut the heat)


Phad Thai (The Thai dish that almost all Westerners like)

Ingredients (for one serving)
1c fresh rice noodles (or soaked and drained dried rice noodles)
1 clove garlic smashed, skin on (smash with the flat side of a knife. The pan will be very hot, and the skin will keep the garlic from burning)
1/4c firm tofu, chopped (chicken, prawns, or pork are also fine)
1-2Tbs oil (any kind EXCEPT olive or sesame)
1/3c Bean sprouts
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup water (optional ONLY if you want flames)
2 chives cut into 1" pieces

Sauce:
1tsp fish sauce (soy sauce is fine)
1Tbs white sugar, palm sugar, or maple syrup
1 Tbs tamirind juice (you make by adding boiling water to tamarind paste or powder - fresh lemon juice is an OK substitute)
1Tbs soy sauce

Condiments:
Crushed chilies
Crushed unsalted peanuts
Lime wedge


Place oil in wok and heat over medium until smoking

Add protein (tofu or meat) and garlic

Stir until tofu is brown or meat is nearly cooked

Add noodles and water (water is optional the water is what makes the flames)

Keep stirring one minute

Turn heat to low

Add sauce ingredients

Return heat to medium, and cook for 1 more minute

Push noodles to side of wok

Add sprouts and chives and put noodles on top (the noodles will keep the steam in on the veg, the veg will keep your noodles from burning)

Push veg and noodles to side of wok

Add a bit of oil on the other side

Turn heat up to high and pour in egg to make a thin omelet

When egg is nearly cooked, spoon noodle and veg mix on top and turn off the heat

Fold egg around noodles and veg

OR

After adding a bit of oil to other side of wok, just scramble the egg on that side

Once the egg is cooked, toss together with noodles and veg

This method actually tastes better, it's just not as pretty

Note: Phad Thai, as with most Thai dishes, is best cooked in batches of 1-2 servings, as the key to the flavour is to cook everything very fast at high heat.

Day 231 - East Meets West

The three days getting to Chiang Mai pretty much wiped us out. For our first day in Thailand's 'cultural capital', we did...NOTHING. Well, not much anyway.

We began by waking up late. I updated the blog and surfed Craigslist for apartments. Cz watched movies for what was left of the morning. At 1, we went across town to the train station to book our tickets back to Bangkok. Tickets in hand, we returned to our neighborhood for an oh-so-greasy, oh-so-Western, and oh-so-good burger lunch.

The burger joint is called Mike's and looks like a classic American diner. It's motto reads 'converting vegetarians since 1979'. I can see why. I do plan to go back to my partial veggie ways when I return home, but for now, that was a damn fine burger.

It was nearly 4 by the time we returned to the hostel, where we resumed doing...nothing. The common room is graced with several comfy chairs and floor cushions, a large TV, and American series on DVD. It is an enormous time suck, and our time was effectively sucked.

We had planned on going on a night tour of Chiang Mai with a group of people from the hostel, but unfortunately right about dusk, it began pouring rain. Most unfortunate, especially considering that part of the night tour was to celebrate Spicy Thai (the hostel) being voted #2 hostel in all of Asia. Undaunted, the hostel owner moved the party home, with bucket drinks, snacks and music.

We might not have seen much of Chiang Mai, but we certainly saw a lot of what makes Spicy Thai worth its new crown.

Day 230 - Back to Thailand

Houay Xai sits on the Laos side of the Mekong. Chiang Khong occupies on the Thai side. At one point, there were plans to build a bridge to connect the two, but the economic crash of 1997 put the skids on those plans, and they have yet to be resumed. As of today, small longtail boats ferry people and goods back and forth across the border for a small fee.

Once on the Thai side, one walks through the imposing welcome gate to the far less imposing customs house where a bored official stamps passports after a cursory glance. There is none of the 'paying for the stamp' and visa-questioning malarky that we have encountered at half the other wayside posts. Thailand is probably the most developed of the mainland SE asian countries (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam), and the ease of entry seems proof of this.

Within a few minutes, we have purchased our bus ticket for Chiang Mai, paid a visit to the 7-11 (they are everywhere in Thailand), and even caught up on e-mails. It is sort of nice being back where nearly everything is easy and familiar. Along with being the most developed, Thailand is easily the most Western of the SE Asian nations. A strange phenominon considering that it was the only one never a Western colony.

A long bus ride later, we finally arrive in Chiang Mai. No one seems to know where our guesthosue is, so we go online to get the address and some rudimentary direction. We hail a tuk-tuk driver who swears up an down that he knows out guesthouse. He does not. We circle the city for ages while he asks all his fellow drivers how to get there. FINALLY we find it tucked away on a quiet residential street.

We are met by our friend J, who we met in Bangkok, and are soon happily chatting away with the other guests and watching American TV series on pirated DVD's. Most of the guests here planned to stay for a few days, and have ended up staying here two weeks or more. It is a friendly, homey place, and easy to see the appeal. I'm sort of sad to have the hard departure date because of the flight, but glad to be leaving on a high note.