Day 12

Catch up and relax

With Songkram over, the city of Chiang Mai settles down and we decide to follow suit. It was nice to not have to wake up to an alarm or a wakeup call. We all moseyed out of our rooms and headed towards town on foot in search of breakfast. We found a market that was just getting the day started. They’re on the same schedule as us. Shopkeepers were hosing off and scrubbing their cement slab counters and tile floors, methodically laying out their wares in neat rows and columns. Walking by mounds of curry and dried squid, Lychee and Mango baskets, we came to our first purchase of the day… A thai dessert-like concoction. Oanh, always the adventurous one with sweet drinks, ordered a strange dessert drink with green slimy noodles. Recipe: Green Slimy noodles in a little bag, pour in coconut milk and ice, mix it around and hand it over with a spoon. Outcome: Yummy! Even I liked it! Jen and John purchased a roasted pumpkin concoction very similarly prepared. It was also quite tasty though we preferred the green noodle thing, if only because it was a green noodle thing.

Slurping our treat, we make our way around the corner to a vendor stir frying something that smelled VERY SPICY. For 25 baht (about 70 cents) you could order anything on their menu… too bad it was ENTIRELY in Thai! Oanh and I miraculously order fried rice that came with a soup. The fried rice was light and very tasty. The soup was a simple beef broth with onions. We thanked our very polite host and exited the market. Not without buying a few fresh lychees for later. It is always a challenge trying to buy something when neither party has a single word of the other party’s language. Oanh in the end held up a 10 baht coin and pointed to the fruit. The shopkeeper understood and we were on our way.

John and Jen had a very full day planned to see every Wot in Chiang Mai and more, so we split up and headed back. We stopped in to a larger market next door to our hotel. This was definitely different: A Super Store. Part Department store and part supermarket this was a one-stop-shop. Browsing the aisles and seeing lots of interesting food items, we settled on some incredible looking pastries, water, a couple of cans of beer, a small bottle of White-kiwi juice, a bag of Durian Chips, and some cut mango. Take a look at the photos, some of the aisles had very funny names. Then check out the Hydrophonic lettuce. Don’t ask me what it is because I couldn’t tell you, but it was cool to see.

With bags in hand we walk next door back to our hotel to spend the day catching up on email, our blog, and more sleep. We watched a little international television as well: Some Thai music videos, an interview in English with 2 very well educated Thai women talking about women’s roles in Thai society, and a little bit of Thai soap operas. Can we say dramatic? Telemundo eat your heart out!

Amazing how quickly the day passed and by the time we knew it, it was 6:30pm and we needed to get some dinner. I find out about a restaurant on the riverfront that supposedly has consistently good food and incredible atmosphere. The hotel staff agreed and said it was one of the most popular restaurants in Chiang Mai. Cool, good sign. We get a tuk-tuk and zip over to the place. A wooden structure with lots of windows and many levels, we are hurried in. The hostess leads us through the bar to a very steep staircase taking us to the garden patio overlooking the river. It was FANTASTIC! We sat down and proceeded to have a very nice romantic dinner for two. A solo guitar player serenaded us all night with jazzy renditions of Beatles tunes, the sound of the water splashing ever so slightly and candlelight dimly lighting our food and our faces. It was a great choice.

Since this was our last night here, we wanted to try some specifically Northern Thai dishes. We were in luck. They had an appetizer platter of just the stuff. A large round dish with fresh vegetables, 2 different kinds of sausages, a meatball of sorts and a very spicy noodle dish. Everything was interesting and mostly good, though we were glad we just got samples rather than an entire dish of any of these items. Then the best part--- fried soft shell crab with garlic! Wow! It was incredible and the two of us were in heaven! We topped the meal off with a couple of banana desserts, relaxed for a bit while our tummies digested, and then hopped back on a tuk-tuk to return home.

John and Jen got back a little after us and we all sat in our room talking about each other’s experiences. Sounded like they saw a lot and had a great time…. We’re glad we stayed behind. Though the massage at the Women’s Prison sounded pretty interesting!

Our flight back to Bangkok is at 7am in the morning. Back to the wakeup calls.

Goodnight Chiang Mai.