With my love for Chiang Mai growing exponentially, I found my stay of 3 nights here initally extended to a week, and by the time I departed, it had grown into 11 nights.
With a comfortable room, a quiet and pleasant location, phlenty of friendly fellow travellers, and staff you can’t help but smile along with, it was an easy decision to prolong my visit, though I’m sure the owner would have appreciated a little more notice rather than me sending him a message requesting an extension the night before my arranged check-out on more than one occasion.
Anyhow, owing to my lengthened stay, I will be doing two separate entries to my travel diary. One will contain some highlights, that’ll be this one, and the other will focus on the elephant sanctuary and the jungle trek tour, which I think is deserving of its own.
As an aside, you’ll be pleased to know that I’m almost feeling like my sleep pattern has aligned itself to this part of the world. That being said, there’ve been a couple of hiccups during my stay in Chiang Mai mainly caused by excessive partying with locals and expats alike, which naturally doesn’t bode well for getting my gastric well-being to where it needs to be. Still, I currently march on unscathed in terms of traumatic toilet experiences or public embarrassment in that department.
Food
Talking of gastric well-being, let me start with the food I was able to experience in Chiang Mai. Having sampled some of the local delicacies in Bangkok, and an extravagant and overly excessive McDonald’s (blame the Khoasan Rd. drinking episode), I was keen to continue the trend of the former in Chiang Mai. With a food market opposite and a plethora of local restaurants in around the city (mainly selling similar dishes but setting the price based on decor), I was so spoiled for choice that, on occasion, I found myself insisting on following up one main course with another from a different vendor.
Unfortunately, I can’t include the food festival as being a highlight as this was mainly pop-up stands charging excessive prices for uninspring items, such as a sausage, or burger, but each to their own. The atmosphere was pleasant and everyone seemed to be having a good time, so my grumpiness wasn’t going to dampen the vibe.
Of the highlights, and I don’t want anyone from back home to tut and roll their eyes, was a place called Yummy India, where I was able to binge myself into submission with slow roasted lamb vindaloo with all the usual trimmings. I was a little perturbed by the offering of one small poppadom alongside a solitary dipping sauce before I started, but then guessed that my usual overindulgence on poppadoms laced with varying condiments is probably half the reason I tend to feel like I’m carrying an 8lb Indian baby around my waist by the time I leave a curry house back home.
Whilst the curry was amazing, there was also Thai noodle curry, slow roasted pork knuckle, salt baked tilapia, barbecued pork neck, amongst many other exceptional and equally delicious dishes. That said, there was a dish that had me raising my eyebrows when served; a dish I was savouring more than most.
Having ordered the ‘Hot and Spicy Pork Belly’ on my first visit to a restaurant in my local market, I was eager to try their ‘Hot and Spicy Shrimp’, which was unavailable previously. The crispy pork belly came drowning in diced birdseye chillies, roasted garlic slices, and a side salad consisting of lettuce and cabbage. The thought of replacing the pork belly, albeit exceptional, with shrimp, or prawns as we say, made my mouth secrete saliva to the point where my appearance would have been akin to a rabid dog foaming at the mouth. I kicked back, sipping away at my Leo (beer) and enjoying the common courtesy here that a member of waiting staff will never let your glass go empty without refilling it for you.
After no more than 6 minutes, it arrived, and I was immediately puzzled by the presentation. Was it too dark in here? Did they forget the chillies? I looked closer and noticed a couple of key differences. Firstly, the salad was mixed in with the prawns, then there seemed to be a thin sauce not common with my previous dish that the salad and prawns were dressed in, and lastly, the prawns were RAW!
I grabbed my phone and did a quick Google search to see if this was common in Thailand and was happy to find out that it was, though my foaming mouth by this point had fully dried up. At least I could confirm that they weren’t trying to kill me, I guess. I chewed on the cold offering, swigging back my beer at a faster rate to disguise the fact my mind was lecturing me not to eat this and then passed over the mostly finished dish, aside a few flaccid prawn tails. I then received a text from Matt, a friend, alerting me to my imminent death from raw prawn consumption, and didn’t help myself by reading about a woman going blind in one eye after eating such a dish where her prawns contained a parasite that had been passed on through rat contamination. Following this ordeal, I went home and awaited my fate. Would it be one or both of my eyeballs falling out, or perhaps my intestine? Luckily, aside from the prawns exploding into my toilet bowl in liquid form the next day, I am pleased to say both eyeballs remain and aside moderate diarrhoea, I was fine.
Muay Thai and Pool
Many of you will know that I grew very fond of playing pool during my time in Croatia and that trend continued in the few months that I spent at home. I now happily lecture my rivals, and those that don’t even want my education but have to listen to it as I disturb their game, about the rules, and found that I’ve generally improved to a better than average level. With this in mind, I was extremely pleased to find out that pool bars exist up and down Chiang Mai. Whatsmore, they’re free to use. I mean, if you want to go and play on your own, you’re probably going to have to converse with a number of Thai girls that sit outside of these venues trying to lure you in, but it’s a small price to pay for a bit of fun.
My introduction to pool here was when visiting one of the local Muay Thai stadiums, of which there are a few in the city. Having seen one of the many posters that adorn the lamposts up and down each street, I hopped in a cab and headed over to the venue.
To say it’s seedy around this area is probably effective English. There’s lots of mostly empty bars, neon lights, and as mentioned, a throng of girls trying to tempt any wandering foreigner in.
After dismissing some of these attempts with the raising of my hand, I continued into the venue and bought my ticket to the kickboxing, which was due to begin in 30 minutes. From there, I chose the bar with the least provocatively dressed catcallers outside, ordered a beer, and start playing with myself. Pool. Started playing pool by myself. It didn’t take too long for someone to invite themselves for a game, a game I dutifully won, before a man and his younger Thai girlfriend, another without much of a grasp of English to settle down for a couple of games.
After finishing my beer, I went to experience some of the Muay Thai. Having recently gone through the stomach-churning experience of watching my youngest nephew, Trace, 10, compete in his first kickboxing match whilst home earlier this year, I did have some sympathy when watching one girl batter another with knees to the head, throat, breast, etc. It certainly isn’t for the faint of heart, but with no family or friends involved, I joined the others’ ringside in baying for blood, cheering vociferously when blood sprayed through the air, briefly dancing before gravity accelerated it to the canvas (a bit vivid, and maybe more my imagination than what actually happened.)
It really was quite fun, and also very interesting to learn how many people globally come here to train and fight. Not for me I thought as I made my way back to the previous bar to continue my pool dominance, though unbeknownst to me, my forces had been weakened by the concentration kryptonite that is beer.
Over the course of my time in Chiang Mai, I enjoyed many games across many bars on many different sized tables, with many of these concentrated in and around Muay Thai rings and events. I even managed to make acquaintance on numerous occasions with other solo travellers that also enjoyed killing time playing with themselves. Sorry, playing pool by themselves.
Thai Massage
Look, my family and friends will be reading this and I need to keep it short for this reason. I’ll let your imagination run wild with regards to what can occur during a massage in Chiang Mai, and I’m almost certain, unless we’ve shared WhatsApp messages about it, that you’ll be quite far from the reality of what happened in my case. Still, I plan to have many more, hopefully cheaper massages along my journey, so perhaps I’ll feel more obliged to share further details from one of these. For now, let this go, and if you really want to know more, text me.
Chiang Mai Flower Festival
On the day of my check-out my host informed me of The Chiang Mai Flower Festival, an annual event, including a parade, and flowers, of course.
Being someone that isn’t typically enamoured by a trip to the garden centre, it wouldn’t be something I would typically rush to. I’m not exactly on high alert when the Chelsea Flower Show tickets go on sale, but seeing as I was on a trip and had time to kill, it seemed a good reason to head out. I could also share some photos with my mum and nan, and even my sister now to a degree.
Stefan, my Italian next door neighbour in the guesthouse and an all round top guy, joined me for the short walk there. I’m sure it wasn’t in his wheelhouse either, but these experiences shouldn’t be missed if you have the opportunity, we guessed.
Now, I must admit, I wasn’t falling to the floor in amazement, but I was pleasantly surprised at the stunningly decorated park, showing off small features and gardens containing plants of all shapes and sizes, all colours and types. I mean, I can’t tell a chrysanthemum from a daisy, but I can admire good art, and this was it in its own way.
I guess the only drawback for such events, and typically wherever there’s something to take a photo of, is the Insta tourist. I mean, you can walk and take photos, you don’t need to block gangways and pose several times, looking quite stupid in the process. Again, I’m probably in the minority here, but that was the only downside. Photos of the festival will be on my Instagram, though not with me posing in any way at all. I may even start taking photos of people making their partners take photos so these people can realise 1. how stupid they sometimes look, and 2. how much of a nuisance they can be. Not always, but sometimes. Rant over.
After trundling through the park, it was time for the parade. We entered the main road adjacent to where it would seemingly start and admired the faily large bonsai trees that were for sale. We agreed it wasn’t a practical purchase so made our way over the stream and to the waiting crowds.
The street was busy with locals and foreigners all eager to get their pictures alongside the currently stationary floats, each of which was spectacularly decorated precisely with flowers illuminating the already bright sky. Upon each of these rigidly sat a number of equally pristine, but less flowery participants waving slowly at the crowd and posing for selfies when called upon. Honestly, there was plenty to see, from children on horses being guided along to a couple of brass bands with dancers and cheerleaders leading them forward, to non-generation specific folk simply having a good time.
As with visits to garden centres, I’ve never been much of a fan of a parade when visiting Disney World, but the good thing about this one was that they were due to start marching at 11am, and we reached the road at 10:45. I know from experience that such events can take some time to amble their way by a fixed position, so despite the crowds, we seized the opportunity to walk down the stationary parade. We made swift progress, taking the occasional photo along the way, although certain our pace meant the side of my face was also photographed on at least 100 occasions.
The Rest
So, what else did I get up to during my extended visit to Chiang Mai? Well, you can read about the Elephant Sanctuary and Jungle Trek in my next post, but aside from that, it was meeting good people, eating amazing food, shopping for things I don’t need that only make the closing of my bag that much harder, and visiting some quite exquisite temples with my baggy shorts pulled just below my knee, trying to ensure that my backside wasn’t exposed. Oh, and a few drunken nights, including some shoulder shuffling in a nightclub whilst making new friends (I wasn’t ready to bust out any former Timberlake moves in such a merry state whilst surrounded by approximately 1,000 locals and being entertained by what appeared to be a 12 piece band, though I may have been seeing double at that point.)