Chiang Mai Oh My
Trip Start
Oct 15, 2008
1
7
41
Trip End
Ongoing
Chiang Mai,
Thailand
Saturday, October 25, 2008
In the mornings I usually go for a walk and then do something touristy. Highlights have been the mountaintop Wat of Doi Suthep, the umbrella factory in Bo Sang, and the central old city, which is surrounded by a moat.
The two staples of my diet have been Papaya Salad and Khao Soi. It took me several times of ordering it before I realized that the "Papaya" in "Papaya Salad" does not refer to the fruit but rather a cucumber-like vegetable. Shredded papaya, shallots, peanuts, dried shrimp, tomatoes, fish oil, vinegar, chilles, and some sort of sweet paste are mixed together with a mortar and pestal. The resulting "Spicy Salad" is out of this world. Chiang Mai is famous for it's Khao Soi, a muslim-influenced coconut curry that is mixed with chicken, beef, or pork, egg noodles, fried egg noodles, pickled cabage, shallots, lime, and of course the requisite fish oil and chille peppers. It was love at first bite.
After all this eating I decided to join a gym for the week. Many of you were wondering how I would survive in SE Asia without my daily does of aerobicizing. Well for now I've managed to postpone the inevitable slothitude. The gym is called Power House and they even have a step class!!! I went last night and was pleased to find out that the language of step aerobics is universal. Well the movements are universal, the language is strictly Thai. I did pick up that a word sounding a lot like "donkey" means "run on top of the step". I was surprised that about 80% of the step class participants were male, as opposed to 0% in my class at home. I thought at first that a propensity for step aerobics may be a characteristic of the hegemonic Thai male. The outbreaks of towel whipping that punctuated the class proved otherwise.
