So, having chosen Chiang Mai as a place to relax after two months of walking and sightseeing for six plus hours a day, we did (on the first day) the most steps we’ve done since we started our adventuring!
We arrived at our hotel in the early hours and then after only 4 hours sleep we walked all day in the sunshine and did 26,558 steps (11 miles). So much for our December resting and relaxing routine. We did have four meals that day though, which helped us to keep going!
In the hotel we had toast and butter (albeit the toast was sweet!!) for the first time since we left in October. We ate other things from the hotel’s buffet breakfast before we started out. We walked around looking for a hotel to stay in for the month ahead. We ate Pad Thai chicken noodles for the equivalent of £1.54, (for the first time in 5/6 years) BBQ pork and noodles £1.25, and Penang and Green Thai curries and rice for £1! All three meals in cafes that day didn’t add up to the price of one meal in the other countries we’ve visited in the last six weeks. We were back on budget! Whoop!
As I sit here writing we are sat in the outside common area of our second hotel in Chiang Mai. There are a scattering of comfortable chairs, high stools at a wooden bar, two huge sofas and a swinging egg shape chair hanging from a frame. The type of swing chairs that were fashionable in the 70’s! (Aunty Steph, the sort that Mich and Di used to have hanging from their ceiling in their lounge back in the day!)
I can see the small swimming pool through the ornate railings, there are exotic trees, shrubs and plants all around and a vase of fresh flowers on the table. A gentle bubbling sound is coming from the water feature behind my chair…. and now, as I am consciously listening as I am describing it for you I am aware of a droning noise from some sort of generator or motor that is presumably creating the gentle relaxing water feature. Lol! Happy days.
One of the many good things about this hotel is that they do not play music! The first hotel in Chiang Mai played the sort of music during breakfast that you would expect to be played on a grand piano in the London Dorchester hotel lobby, not in Thailand. It was quite weird/confusing for the senses. How can I explain? Well it would be like having tomato soup….. served cold! (what is it with gazpacho soup! and Bloody Marys!? Lol!)
Anyway I’m supposed to be writing the Busan (South Korea) blog so I will leave this rambling nonsense for now and get on with my work……
OK, so the Busan blog is done. We are now sat outside on our little balcony. It’s perfect to dry the washing and listen to the birds….. the birds, and Glen whistling to the birds. They are totally confused poor things. They are sat on the roof next to us looking around and craning their necks trying to work out what breed of bird they can hear….“there’s a new breed on the block” lol!
It’s difficult to appreciate from these photos but these little birds are no bigger than my thumb.
We’ve seen lots of different birds here but didn’t get any photos. This was one photo I took from a long way away, hence the bad quality. These ‘black’ birds had brown wings that looked like a child had coloured in or stuck on incorrectly.
I wonder what birds think of aeroplanes? (One just flew over in the clear blue sky, we are only ten minutes from the airport) They must seem like huge noisy, scary dragons to them. No I haven’t been drinking! The 7/11 will only just have un-locked the drinks fridge a few minutes ago! It’s like we’ve gone back 25 years here! Do you remember when you could only buy alcohol from the likes of Asda during pub opening hours!? Well that’s what it’s like here in Chaing Mai.
We haven’t seen or heard many birds so far on our travels, (we’ve see plenty of spiders! Especially in Japan) not even in large parks, but here in Thailand we’ve seen and heard lots which is good.
Even the Cockerels at dawn are good to hear again.
As in lots of countries in Asia they have Cockerels in cages, if you walk away from the tourist areas. The locals keep them for fighting. There are leaflets and advertising boards everywhere for the Thai boxing fights here but no mention of the cock fighting. I’m sure it’s illegal… we’ll it should be!!!
There are lots of Spirit Houses here. We mentioned them in our blogs back in 2013-2015.
A spirit house is a shrine to the protective spirit of a sacred place, usually Wats and old trees but you also see them in houses and businesses. The location may be chosen after consultation with a Brahmin priest.
As a non believer I can’t help but judge them with regards to the fact that they put fresh fruit and perfectly good fresh food (and drinks…..and plastic straws!) in front of the shrines and spirit houses as offerings. Whereby they offer free fruit in cafes etc that is ‘going over ripe’ and would be best put out as an offering to the spirits in my opinion. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind, they can’t actually eat or drink it let’s be honest, and it’s the thought that counts surely. 😬
They sell bottles of Butterfly pea here!!! Is it a miss-spelling? Surely not, I mean just how many butterflies would you need to collect enough of their pee!? You can’t exactly keep them and force then to drink and therefore pee night and day. Lol! (apparently Butterfly Pea is a type of plant!)
We had a meal which the menu said had ‘Cilantro’ in it which is never heard of so I ‘googled-it up’ ……
‘While both come from the same plant, they have different uses and tastes. Cilantro is the the leaves and stems of the coriander plant. When the plant flowers and turns seed the seeds are called coriander seeds. … In many Asian recipes cilantro might be referred to as Chinese Parsley or coriander leaves’
Well I never knew that! And I love herbs…. especially Cilantro as I now realise!
Christmas. Well if it’s not peeling sprouts on Christmas Eve and cooking for 12 or so of the family on Christmas Day and going to The Marsh on Boxing Day to see the Mummers* it’s not really Christmas, but that’s OK. We had a lovely day walking around Temples and Wats in the sun and eating rice and noodles. A girl who was on her own asked us to take a photo of her by this Temple. So we asked her to take one of us too. (Below)
She told us she was from Taiwan. Not everyone has company on Christmas Day, we saw lots of people walking around on their own. It’s not a happy time for some people, it’s easy to forget that sometimes. Others of different religions were just not celebrating it of course.
* http://www.marshfieldmummers.co.uk/
The hotel’s owners were very thoughtful, they didn’t play Christmas music for the whole of December, they just played some instrumental Christmas music (quietly) on the 25th just the gentle melody in the background for anyone who felt the need to remember it was the festive season. They did however put a lovely display of Christmas food out by the coffee machine, when I say Christmas food It wasn’t mince pies and a tin of Quality Street. Lol! There were tiny little cakes with Father Christmas and snowmen on. They had attempted something similar to Stollen and had lots of different cakes and biscuits in festive packaging. Sadly there were no children staying there on the day so us adults sat nibbling the ‘free’ Rudolph biscuits with our ‘free’ coffee.
This biscuit wrapper has inspired me to try to write a children’s book, I think I will call it “The reluctant Reindeer” I’m always thinking of ways to make money in the future!
They may have thoughtfully made some cake a festive red colour but it was still banana bread. No brandy soaked raisins or crushed nuts! lol!
One of the reasons we chose Thailand to rest over Christmas and New Year was because we had been here before and we knew that the accommodation is cheap but good and the food is delicious. Thai food is one of our favourites. Although the quality of the food is so much better here than in China and the menus are in English and translated correctly, I was sceptical about this Chicken soup which looked suspiciously like the pigs snouts they sold in China!!!
“You can’t make a silk purse out of a sows ear” as the saying goes but you can cut it into thin strips and eat it! They did it in China and they do it here! People seem to like to eat chewy things in Asia! Having said that, and having moaned about the meat they served in China, two of our favourite restaurants here in Chiang Mai are Chinese!
One called the Blue Noodle serves very simple but very delicious stewed pork and stewed beef with noodles in a tasty clear broth for £1.25-£150 and there is always a queue of Chinese tourists (and us) waiting for a table there.
Another favourite little Chinese cafe here doesn’t have its name written in English, so we call it the ‘orange uniform’ cafe. It takes 30 minutes to walk to it from our hotel, or 45-50 minutes if we try to take a short cut through the little lanes. lol! We always have their delicious crispy pork noodles and add the bowl of broth to them. They are so tasty and at the equivalent of £1.25 are a bargain!
Chiang Mai has a lot of Chinese living here as well as visiting. The taxi driver told us that on our way from the airport the night we arrived and we’ve confirmed it over the last three weeks. The Chinese seem to like to eat very chewy meat like I said. We had the BBQ crispy pork and the Chinese sit eating chicken feet, intestines or the pigs ears I told you about! Maybe we are missing out, maybe it all tastes better than the BBQ pork but we just can’t face it. lol!
The large weekly Sunday market near our hotel is manic but we love people watching. It’s mad what they think people will buy! These guys did not purchase these gasses. We had a laugh with them and then I spent the rest of the evening singing Elton John songs in my head annoyingly! Lol!
One stall was playing Yellow River!! That took me back!!
In keeping with social media trends…. here is our version of the ’ten year challenge’. Instead of photos taken ten years apart, here are our photos from now and six years ago taken in the same place, here in Chiang Mai.
I bought the pink scarf, which I had around my shoulders, here in Chiang Mai back in 2014 and I was wearing it around my head the day we came across the ornate door again the other week!
We first saw this old couple in the market in Chiang Mai in 2014 and they were still performing in the Sunday street market during this visit! How mad is that! Once a performer, always a performer!
I blended into the background seeing as I was wearing such a mismatch of colours and patterns 🙈
This was Jack fruit growing in the grounds of a Temple. I love Jack fruit. We bought it for breakfast along with rose apples, which taste more like water melon. Can you get it in the UK does anyone know?
Something made me look up at the entrance of one of the Wats and I saw this ‘bees’ nest!
Breakfast in the market. I thought of you, Courtney and Laura! They sell fruit smoothies everywhere here Lauren so we thought of you too!
Thapae Gate, is a touristic hotspot here and one of life’s mysteries. We walk past it or through it at least twice a day. What is with the obsession with the mainly Asian tourists who have their photo taken with their back to the wall either side of the gate in a pose that looks like they are about to start the ‘grape vine’ step in an exercise routine or amongst a mass of pigeons fluttering all around them? The locals are making a killing out of it, not only selling the bird seed to get the pigeons to land all around their feet but by providing the service of shooing the birds away with a stick making them fly up around the people posing, and capturing the perfect photo for them with their own camera!
I wasn’t feeling it! Lol! I was just waiting to get pooped on to be honest, but it actually happened to Glen instead as he was under a tree. lol!
Tapea gate is THE go to place for all events and celebrations here. They had a marathon starting there before Christmas…. at 3am in the morning! Suffice to say we were not there to establish whether they too have runners dressed as the likes of Donald Duck or superheroes as they do in the UK! (Which reminds me, I don’t think I wrote about the fashion in China… re the ‘Hulk’ trousers, as Glen called them!?)
New Year’s Eve. We could just show you these photos below and let you believe that we had a magical night in the warm evening air. Watching these (what should be illegal!!) lanterns floating up above us, filling the sky with orange ‘stars’ as the people’s wishes comes true as they let go of them and they drift away towards the Ping River in the distance…. but I’m going to tell you how it really was. Glen enjoyed the atmosphere and got in to the spirit of the event and I just thought it was a health and safely nightmare! Firecrackers going off sounding like bombs, liquid fire dropping on people’s heads from the lanterns as they rose up above our heads and some of the paper lanterns catching fire and falling back down into the crowd to the jolly cry’s of … “woo! woo! watch out!! ha ha!” 🙄 nobody seemed worried even the people with small children!
Do you know what, as wonderful as it all is experiencing different cultures at this time of year you can’t beat a night in on NYE in front of the TV, you know where you are with a good old pre-recorded Jools Holland Hootenanny, and it feels much safer!
I think I need to write a ‘China round up’ blog because I don’t think I told you about the amount of CCTV cameras everywhere and the amount of security checks etc either!?
I need to finish the Japan ‘round up’ blog first though….
OK so that’s finished and published, (although I’ve realised I forgot the mention how men in Japan carry what looks like women’s handbags, good for them) …..back to this Chiang Mai blog… the problem is i’m a starter rather than a finisher, I’m good at starting things but not finishing them!
I’m sure you’ve read about whether someone is ‘a starter, a finisher or an implementor’. There are three parts to every project they say, starting, finishing and everything in between. When it comes to the blog I’m more of a starter and Glen ensures I finish it and don’t continue adding bits and bobs forever more! Glen is more of an implementor as he ensures our dreams of visiting different places and countries are put in to effect. Booking the accommodation, arranging transport, the relevant currencies and visas etc. So he is now asking (begging me!) to finish this blog and pack ready for our journey to a little homestay in India this afternoon.
A short taxi journey, two flights and a longer taxi journey…. as I type this I’m still feeling the fear…… and backpacking anyway!😬
Another great travelogue 😍
I am going backwards in time with your blogs! I missed a few when i was in UK for Xmas. I wondered about the photo of what you described as Jackfruit hanging from a tree. Huge knobbly dirty yellow coloured things. They looked more like Durien to me! But maybe i am wrong. Did you ever try Durien on your travels?
Wishing you both a fabulous 2020 and thanks for the blogs – it’s wonderful to read about your journey.
Stay safe xx
Again another set of beautiful photos, as well as super commentary! Continue with your safe journey. X
Very colourful!! Need to show the kids this one! Haha Mum you with the pigeons 😂😂
“You can’t make a silk purse out of a sows ear” as the saying goes but you can cut it into thin strips and eat it! – Priceless.
Great that you were able to revisit places in Chiang Mai and take the updated photos.
Looking forward to reading about your Indian experiences in due course!
Take care – Alan.
Thank you all for your comments as always.
Karen and Rosemary, I didn’t have time to write about the Graffiti as we dropped the photos in just before leaving for the airport. I will go back in to the blog another day when I’ve got five minutes. Mx
Love the graffiti x
Love the graffiti!
What a lovely read on a rainy Monday lunchtime in Bristol. Made me smile looking at the sights and sunshine. Thank you xxxx
Once more a compulsive read and lovely photos
No need for us to visit now, better to enjoy from our armchair.
Love Mum and Dennis x