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Chiang Mai, Thailand

Mae Salong

I can’t tell if I prefer being awoken at early hours by motorbikes and diesel engines or the constant clucking and crowing of chicken choirs only a few vertical feet away.  We’re back from small northern towns now to the city of Chiang Mai – still in the north, but a busy place complete with a neighborhood (at least I hope not the whole city) so directed towards tourists that you could easily forget which country you were actually visiting and where white farang easily outnumber native Thai.  But before I go on too far I should backtrack and tell you about the north…

Our border crossing into Myanmar went very smoothly.  We simply walked across the bridge over the Mekong River, surrendered our passports in exchange for a 14 day pass, then just about surrendered our souls to the beggars, salesmen, eager tuktuk drivers/wanna be tour guides, imposter childmonks, and scores of fake designer handbags waiting to mob us just inside Burma.  I’m sure this is not the most intense version of any of those things, but the crowds and their solicitation of our wallets in Tachileik was far greater than any we’d experienced elsewhere in Thailand.

Since I have never fostered any sort of dream of a Louis Vitton handbag to hold my D&G wallet and compliment my

Kelly basking in ripoff Burmese handbags

heels, I was not particularly amused by any of what the never ending stalls had to offer.  We found a restaurant on the fringe of the madness where we had some fried something or other and delicious, buttery, kiln-baked bread.  After that recharge, the shopping spirit finally came to me and I succumed to a few items.  Please don’t judge me too harshly, they really are good deals (and very classy/cute)…

Back on the Thai side Saturday night proved a big deal as the street was lined with even more vendors than the previous night.  We returned to our new favorite dumpling maker who I’m sure received the compliment of our seeking her cart out a second night.  I was relieved to find out later from a fellow guest house guest with whom we shared a bit of homebrewed Thai wine (not recommended, btw) that the singing in town had been karoke.  The next morning we were awoken not only by chickens (I would go vegetarian if Thailand would severely reduce it’s rooster population) and motorbikes, but loud explosions and what sounded like gun shots.  No, no not the Burmese militia, just Chinese New Year.  Tradition gives anyone and everyone for a few days to make the loudest bangs and booms possible at whatever moment as far as I can tell.

Then after hours of sawngthaew (pickup with benches and a roof in the bed) rides and waiting for sawngthaew rides we made it to Mae Salong.  The drive up into the moutains was gorgeous; in fact, I’m surprised no one has thought to charge tourists 3 times our cab fare just to drive in circles through the area while blabbling about tea plantations.  At the base of the moutains, where the terrain is still flat, rice paddies dominate.  The bright green fields surrounded by forest and palm tree is a postcard in every direction.  As our drive progressed the road grew steeper and curvier while allowing us awesome views of hillside tea plantations and the distant countryside to the south.

Us on the giant animals next to the giant teapots.

Mae Salong is a small town based in tea and tourism perched on a few of the highest ridges.  It is surrounded by small hilltribe villages of various ethnic heritages.  At least 90% of Mae Salong’s residents are Chinese since the town was originally settled by Chinese fleeing Myanmar after fleeing the 1949 revolution in China.  The New Year’s decorations were prominent and Chinese  TV easier to find than Thai or English.  Our first night we had tea and oranges (a very New Year’s item) with our guest house owner while watching a Chinese play or musical of some sort.  I was impressed with how much Kelly was able to translate for me, though it wasn’t enough to figure out why the audience as well as the GH owner were in tears.

The next day we ran into the Norwegian we had met previously waiting for rides so he joined us on our wandering

Donuts from the morning market

around the Mae Salong area.  We were drawn to the next ridge over by gigantic tea pots we had seen during our drive up.  Once we reached this 12-foot tall teapot we discovered it was accompanied by even larger gold and silver cats (or were they dragons?).  So random, but what a great photo op.  On the way back we stopped for tea tasting where the shop owner serves you tea with an elaborate ritual involving the use of multiple glasses in order to appreciate its aroma.  When we first sat down the shop was empty, but within ten minutes a hoard of the owners neighbors and friends and their visiting relatives had joined us.  Though they were all speaking Chinese so I had no specific idea of what was going on it was a happy moment to all of a sudden be amongst a happy little party.  Kelly spoke in Chinese to a couple of them (they were pretty excited about it) and a girl our age in the group spoke to us in very good English.

Kelly and I at our stations.

Our final activity in Mae Salong was the morning market.  We pried ourselves from bed at 5:30am driven by Lonely Planet’s claim to fresh, hot Chinese donuts accompanied by hot soy milk waiting just a block away.  Kelly and I plopped ourselves at one of the donut table until we had devoured 3 plates of donuts between us.  Then what could we do afterwards but sleep a few more hours?

We had specifically situated ourselves in mae Salong during the Chinese New Year, but since it is small there were no large public parties, only visiting family and closed businesses (and firecrackers!).  There was a carnival-like gathering, but we didn’t really have to go inside to experience its excitement since the music was audible from a distance: they played Ozone’s ‘Ma Ya Hi’!!! Yes, seriously (globalization at its best), I could hardly believe what I was listening to, but happily sang along anyways as we perused food stalls.

Now back in Chiang Mai there is no more Chinese – and hardly any Thai! – as everything is directed towards

Ingredients for green and yellow curries

English-speaking tourists.  And French, actually.  Many menus list French before English and everyone I’ve seen in our guest house lobby speaks French or is married to a Frenchman.

Our full day in Chiang Mai was quite well spent at the Thai Farm Cooking School.  They picked us up at our guest house and took us to the market to explain the primary Thai ingredients.  We learned about rice, sauces (soy, oyster, ‘Thai Jelly’ – essential for amazing soup!), and cocnut milk/cream (they use a press and grinder right there).  From there we went out of the city to the farm where our teacher showed us all the fruits and vegetables (grown on site) and explained their uses.  From 15 meals we chose 5 to make that day.  I learned how to make green curry (my mortering could use some practice), phad thai, thai vegetable soup (a new favorite!), basil chicken, and pumpkin in sweet coconut milk.  Kelly learned 5 different ones (yellow crry, tom yum, papaya salad, pad see yew, mango sticky rice) and we have the recipes for the last 5.  Cooking was fun, the food was very tasty, but the day was really made by the atmosphere and the people in our group.  There were about 12 of us, all from different places (4 continents), and everyone was completely friendly, interesting and easy to talk to.  Ana#1 was from Argentina and knew no English before her recent few months of traveling through India on the way to Thailand so she had picked it up along the way!  She spoke well, but was still understandably excited to have Ana#2, the Mexi-kiwi (very fun girl from Mexico and New Zealand), as well as Kelly and I to speak to in Spanish.  All in all it was a great day (though I ate WAY too much!).

Muay Thai

That night we met up with a few people from the class to go to Muay Thai, Thai boxing.  Muay Thai is I’m sure very Thai, but also very touristy, generally.  It’s something I had thought could be cool, but not essential and not worth lots of money.  I’m glad we got a good deal on the tickets because I’m pretty sure this show was kids from the local gym up there for rookie matches and to make some tourist money.  We guessed that the Thais in the ‘crowd’ were their parents.  It was still fun, though, thanks to good company, smuggled cheap beer from 7-11, and the fact that I won most of our 10-baht bets for the winner.

My appetite finally returned to me in time for an amazing lunch of Indian food this afternoon.  This was the best Indian food I’ve ever had and one of the best meals on this trip.  We got lucky to get more than just a pretty store front designed to trap tourists and find nice people who made great food.  One of our entrees was their personal family recipe so my only hopes to have it again depend on returning to Chiang Mai…

I’ve rambled on plenty and we have a night train to Ayuthaya to catch soon so best wishes to everyone and Congratulations to Anna for her acceptance into Stanford’s Chemical Engineering PhD program!!! Well done!