Chiang Mai chilling
Trip Start
May 08, 2008
1
22
25
Trip End
Ongoing
Chiang Mai,
Thailand
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Having arrived from Vientiane to Bangkok on Friday morning the flights leaving then were too expensive but a bargain flight with Bangkok the next morning (about 30 euro) persuaded us to wait one more day in Bangkok, which is never a problem
Chiang Mai Wat
. After some shopping and pampering (massage for sir, facial for madame) we relaxed for the evening. It's a shame that we can't travel like this more, 1 hour in the air versus about 10 on land, arriving on time before lunchtime. We spent the afternoon walking the old city and visiting some of the beautiful wats. Apparently there are almost as many wats in Chiang Mai (pop. 270,000) as there are in Bangkok (pop. 7.5m) so there are a lot to see, if you're so inclined. We weren't so inclined having seen lots already, but we did go to the main ones which are very impressive. It's a busy time right now with Thai tourists so there was a good atmosphere around the city. Later we walked through the famous night bazaar which we found a little bit cramped and annoying after the enjoyable market in Luang Prabang. Saying that it is enormous, with pretty much anything you could want. All in all that was a lot of walking and we were knackered in the evening. We opted for the easy option on Sunday and hired bikes to cycle to Wat U Mong, a forest temple about 6 km away. It was built in the early 14th century shortly afte3r the founding of Chiang Mai but was later abandoned for a few hundred years and only reinhabited by monks in the 1960s. It's very different with the Buddha image housed in tunnels, and a large artificial lake with lots of big catfish and enormous turtles. A lovely place to relax for a while
Statue of three 1300s kings
. It hosts talks on Buddhism in English but our timing was off, it would have been very interesting to hear what they were saying. We've seen a fair amount of Buddhism since trekking in the Annapurnas but rarely from a monk, mostly from lay people.Anyway after that and a long roundabout return to the city proper we spent decided that another massage was in order (don't knock it til you've tried it!), Thai massage being so nice, much different to other types but very good. Finishing that a major downpour ensued and we found ourselves at a bit of a loose end. Our plan was to visit the Sunday walking street which is highly rated and sounded like the market in Luang Prabang but in this rain it seemed a bit mad. In the end we bought our long intended umbrellas and braved the rain, thankful that it stopped after about 2 hours. In the mean time we found that the walking street was just like Luang Prabang which is great as it's a really laid back atmosphere, no hassle from the sellers, good food stalls etc. The various wats along the way become like food courts with all sorts of food stalls set up there. We had some great food there, although in hindsight some of it must have been less than great as we were both a little ill in the next couple of days.....
Long story short before we knew it it was almost midnight and we'd spent loads
How apt
. We picked up some cool paintings, t-shirts and a few other things. The artists we bought the paintings form gave us their cards and later in the week we visited them at their shops and bought a few more....our intention had been to pick up just one that we licked but we ended up with 5 or 6! Very nice though and not at all extortionate like at home. Just try buying from one of those artists on Merrion Square at the weekends and you'll know what I mean.SO back to those illnesses I mentioned-Monday morning I had a dose of the old trots which persisted for over 24 hours while on Tuesday morning Maria developed a vomiting bug. Given that Tuesday was the day we were taking a Thai cooking course this was unfortunate timing indeed. Our course was at Baan Thai and it was excellent, starting with a trip to the market to see all the ingredients and to select a few of the exotic fruits for sampling back at the cooking school. See one of the attached pictures here of a market stall with all the fruits, many of them completely unlike anything at home. We learned to make several dishes, different ones each, and the thing that strikes you most about it is how simple the food is. A few ingredients, all fresh, and about 20-30 minutes cooking time, then whammy! Beautiful food. Lots there that we'll have to try when we have a kitchen again.
Wat Phra Singh
From there we were off to see the dentist. I'd had some trouble with toothache and some of Maria's wisdom teeth were at her. Consultations were free so we thought why not and ended up in as modern a place as you could find. Everything was top notch and straight away we felt comfortable. The dentist had perfect English and really knew what he was at. (we later saw one of his diplomas on the wall-UCLA!) So after a thorough cleaning and x-rays we were advised that Maria should have here left wisdom teeth removed and that I needed 3 fillings. My fillings took 1 hour total and her extractions less than 45 minutes which is kind of ridiculous when you compare it to home. Add in the fact that the whole lot, cleaning and x-rays included it was less than 200 quid and it all seemed slightly farcical to pay what we do at home. If only we could all fly to Thailand every couple of years!
One other thing we had to do here was arrange chest x-rays for our Australian visa, again fast and cheap although the doctor required by the embassy was having a laugh charging 24 euro for filling out forms when his normal consultation fee was only a fiver. Still that was done and 5 days later our visa was confirmed. That doctor also offered to sort out Maria's corn/veruca problem which seemed impervious to all other treatment. Unfortunately this required cutting away the affected parts and she ended up with 11 stitches
The monks
. Would you believe that this restricted her movements for a few days? Comical is the wrong word but you should have seen her hobbling down the street with her face swollen from the extractions and limping badly wearing one of her own shoes and one of my big awkward shower shoes. Ridiculous but at least the mouth cleared up very quickly. It's taken almost 2 weeks for the foot to be back to normal but at least now all is well again. After the action packed first few days in the city we took advantage of the enforced rest and chilled out until it was time to leave, the only other thing being a Thai Boxing show at Kawila Stadium which whiole okay was way below the standard at Lumpini in Bangkok. Unfortunately when we looked into leaving for Bangkok it seemed to be ridiculously busy and all flights and overnight trains were booked out. We couldnbn't believe it even though we were only booking (as usual) one day in advance. Coming up here there was lots of availability at very reasonable prices. This time the only flights were over 70 each and nice as flying is it just wasn't on given that the bus was 7 quid each. Seems like our last minute ways had caught us for once, which is ridiculous as we knew for a few days that we'd be leaving on Saturday. Ah well, live and learn. Chiang Mai is a cool place and it'd be great to visit again, although maybe in dry season next time. We didn't do a couple of things we'd thought about due to the weather, especially having been out in that rain in both Sapa and Luang Nam Tha. It just takes all the fun out of it so between experience and Maria's foot we didn't go for it. As I say maybe next time. And so back to Bangkok for a 6 days in total, some of which we intended spending outside the city.
