Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!

On the 1st of February, Henk and I decided to investigate the ‘Monk Chat’ program and meditation retreat we had heard about. Thus we ended up taking a sawngthaew to MCU (the local University of Chiang Mai) where we found Wat Suan Dok. We wandered through the University campus unsure of where to go until we spotted a sign directing us to a small building filled with orange-robed monks. Since we arrived there just before 6:00 pm, we were invited to stay a bit longer to speak with some of the monks. We discovered that a lot of them were from neighboring countries, Laos or Cambodia, and some from hill tribe groups. But sadly, we had to rush off – we were scheduled to have a traditional Northern Thai Khantoke dinner that evening. For this treat, we headed to the Old Chiang Mai Cultural Center.



A ‘Khantoke’ dinner indicates that the meal will be served on a ‘toke’ or a small tray made out of teak wood. The tray will then be covered with small bowls of delicious food. Ours consisted of a never-ending supply of: Fried chicken, a delicious pork curry, fried bananas, crispy fried honey-noodles, both fresh and stir-fried vegetables, fried pork-skin chips, some sauces and rice. For dessert we were brought sliced pineapple and rice cakes – we were so full by then it was hard to eat more!





At this point, we had changed our seats, moving slightly forward so we could have a better view of the stage where the dancing was taking place. We witnessed the famous Thai fingernail dance, where the women have long fingernails they wave around while dancing. Next was a dangerous-looking sword dance, performed by a brave dancer who gripped them between his teeth. One of the more impressive dances was a colorful dance where the women dressed up like birds. This was followed by the now-familiar bamboo stick jumping done by little children, which I guess is the Thai equivalent to double-Dutch.









After the dancing, Henk and I walked with the others to the pavilion outside for a lantern ceremony. Sky lanterns are released during Thailand’s Loi Kratong festival by lovers and couples. The lanterns are believed to be symbolic of troubles/problems/worries “floating away.” According to Wiki: “[They are]… constructed from oiled rice paper on a bamboo frame and contain a small fuel cell composed of a waxy flammable material. When lit, the flame heats the air inside the lantern, thus lowering its density causing the lantern to rise into the air.” Pretty neat.



I grabbed one of the large paper lanterns and waited until someone came to light the flame inside. While we waited, we watched others releasing their lanterns – they blew quickly up into the sky, some barely missing nearby trees! When ours was lit, I made sure to hold on carefully until we were ready… the building heat was making the lantern very eager to fly away. Finally, I released it and Henk and I watched as it flew quickly up into the sky, joining all the others. As the lanterns got further and further away, they began to resemble stars in the sky.





Next we moved on to a short performance of hill tribe dances in a second location. The Mien held their fluffy red clothing ornaments out and danced with them, the Akha and Lahu did some of their circle dances for us as well. Many of the dances were done by children -- which, while cute to watch, didn't really provide a skilled performance. But we have many more chances to see the traditional hill tribe dancing so no worries. Once these were over, we caught our ride back to the hostel with fireworks being set off by the dinner show in the background.













On the 2nd, we decided to visit the Kalare Night Bazaar. There was nothing too special about the market itself, but we did happen to find a place for me to get my eyebrows done. A lot of agony later, we were sitting down to an Indian dinner with my new eyebrows. After food we continued our walk, pausing to watch talented artists turn favorite family photos of foreigners into sketches and other works of art. We didn’t return back to the Old City until nearly 11:00 PM. But we were glad we returned when we did! Luck was on our side, and we scored an awesome picture of an elephant being driven by a mahout through the town between regular city traffic! Look at the tuk-tuk driving by, with all its passengers just staring at the elephant.











The morning of the 3rd was a day for temples. We started with Wat Phrasingh, where a live monk meditated amongst numerous monk statues! Next we ventured towards a Wat made of wood, one of the more traditional Lanna-style temples of Northern Thailand. The Art & Culture Center was next, sitting behind the Three Kings Monument. However, after paying our fee I started to feel hungry so Henk and I left to grab some burgers at a little place to eat on the corner nearby. After refueling we returned to the Center. We learned from the Center that Thais used to think of cities as “living entities,” in their own right and would give offerings/perform ceremonies to the city as such.



















Chiang Mai has been an independent state from, “the time when King Mangrai founded Chiang Mai city in 1295… until it became a tributary state during King Bayinnuang’s reign in 1558” according to signs at the museum. We learned about various hill tribe groups and their proficiency at growing opium, which I’ll discuss later when I tell you about them specifically. After reading a bit about the founding and growth of Chiang Mai, Henk and I walked through some life-sized displays of traditional houses and shops. We finished at the center around 1:00 PM and ventured out further to get a closer look at the famed city walls. The walls surround the city, with the entrance into the city available through four gates – the most popular being eastern gate of the city which is known as Tha Phae Gate. (The name means “raft landing,” since that was the original activity at the gate.) We stopped for a bit of a “photo shoot” at the walls. Tell me if you like our photos!











Next we made our way to Wat Chiang Mun. By now, Henk and I had walked all over the city and gotten a great overview by now. Our second Lanna-style wooden temple had a really unique ceiling – complete with stars and animal designs. By now we had discovered that “Lanna-style” temples have T-shaped “pointy” roofs, which made them a bit different than the average temples we had become used to. Wat Dokeung was next with large “cartoonish” colorful and modern murals on the walls. By now another hour had gone by, and we were getting exhausted of walking. Our feet were aching, and we happened to pass by a travel agency that had fish-foot massages on offer. We took them up!









After a quick peek into Wat Dokkham (which was very golden!) we passed Tha Phae Gate to reach Wat Saimoonmuang. By now, the Wats were all starting to look similar and we realized we had reached the maximum-Wat-per-day overload point. Thus we headed towards our final two Wats: The first was Wat Chedi Luang – a huge hall with an electronic Buddha that tells your fortune for a coin. No joke! We popped one in and got our fortune… but unfortunately for us it was in Thai! But talking Buddhas aside, I was most impressed by the ceiling decor. The cluster of strange shapes on a brown background made the image look as if it came straight from a Louis Vuitton bag! (Or a knock-off, rather. This is South-East Asia after all!)













Henk had a little surprise for me next as we ended our day at a chocolate shop across from the temple. One Banana-Chocolate and one White-Chocolate shake later (oh, and some delicious chocolate cake of course) we had our energy back enough to make it to the final Wat of the day. I’m not quite sure why there were random stupas made of large bamboo baskets all around, but they looked pretty cool. Henk had a bit of a headache by now and wasn’t feeling too well so we headed back to the hostel to rest. What we thought was just heat sickness didn’t go away however, but I’ll let him tell you about that.







Francesca

Francesca and I arrived in Chiang Mai, far up in the north of Thailand, on the 27th of January. We had enough of Phuket and were really looking forward to a city that seemed more of a match for us . We had read the pace of life in Chiang Mai would be much more relaxed, the people much nicer and the activities a little less touristy. Francesca had found a nice guest house in the middle of the old city of Chiang Mai and after arriving at Chiang Mai’s small airport right outside of the city we took a taxi to said guest house.

The Garden Chiang Mai would be our base for the coming week and our room certainly was nice. The Garden is run by Tim, a Brit, and his Thai wife Tong. Having an expat explain things to us helped us understand the city better and he gave us some good tips right off the bat that would aid us later on. Furthermore, they only had three rooms, so peace and quiet were pretty much guaranteed. One of his staff even brought the bags upstairs for us, so the only thing left for us to do was go to our room and get some rest. Tim also offered us free WiFi, so I did some research to find a nice restaurant for later that evening. Francesca and I have our little tradition of finding an Indian restaurant in every place we visit, so that was an easy choice. Or so I thought… I wrote down two addresses on the map, and around 7:00 PM we went out looking for the restaurant.

It didn’t take long at all to walk from the middle of the old city to the north wall. The restaurant was supposed to be right outside the old city walls, but even with the address in hand, asking people in the right street if they knew the place we were looking for we still only got shrugs… I guess the restaurant wasn’t there after all. I also knew of a second place that would be another short walk away. It took us about 10 to 15 minutes to find that restaurant, but the owner seemed less than interested in giving us the menus and once I had grabbed them myself the menu didn’t look too fantastic. We retreated once more and decided Indian perhaps wasn’t for us that evening.

We found a little place nearby that looked a lot quieter and had a decent menu, so we settled for this. Francesca felt like some Western food and ordered a burger. I wanted to try the yellow curry and was pleasantly surprised by the accompanying rice: it was served in a heart shape. After dinner we headed back to the guest house, only to find a nice-looking Indian restaurant on the way back. Oh, irony! At least we knew where we were going to eat the following evening. As flying tends to wear us out a little we took it easy the rest of that evening, as well as the following day.



In the evening Francesca and I went out for the Indian food she had been craving (and I as well!). The restaurant ‘Spicy Bollywood’ had a good selection of curries and naans, and comments from visitors written on the wall. It must have been faith there was a comment about the quality of the butter chicken right next to Francesca. She obviously went for the butter chicken, whereas I tried a curry I hadn’t had before.



For the 29th we had planned a cooking course. The north of Thailand is pretty well known for its cooking courses. Francesca and I thought it would be helpful to learn about the ingredients of the dishes we had been devouring in the previous weeks, so we looked online for a course. We had read about a ‘Jungle Survival Cooking Course’ in the Lonely Planet, and the accompanying website looked promising so we booked it. Now, we weren’t going to go into the jungle, but we would learn to cook with ingredients only found in the jungle. A cooking course with a different flavor!
Francesca and I were picked up early in the morning and taken to a local market to purchase the ingredients fresh from said market. Tom, our guide/chef gave us a short introduction whilst we waited for another couple to join us. In the mean time we had a look around, wondering what kinds of food we were looking at. When the French/Chinese couple joined us the real tour of the market started. Tom explained how most of the vegetables, fruits and spices come straight from the mountains, so they’re as fresh as can be. He had us try fried banana flower, an unusual part to eat from the banana tree, but pretty tasty nonetheless!







As we continued through the market, snack in hand, Tom and his assistant purchased several ingredients and had us sample some more local delicacies. We got to try a lemon-substitute (since lemons don’t grow in the forest), which was used to add flavor to certain dishes. Tom also bought ant eggs after I said I would want to try them. Plus, the market offered a large variety of meat. We saw stalls and stalls of pig and/or chicken meat, fresh and not-so-fresh fish, eels and frogs… Tom ordered some live frogs to be killed for us, and had us try fried pork skin whilst the killing took place. It was a little too hard to really be tasty.









Luckily our desert was much tastier: little pancakes with corn in them. We all got a little banana leaf basket filled with these delicious things. Knowing we still had to eat for pretty much the rest of the day we took it easy and put most of them away in the bag. Our final stop at the market was the 2nd floor where a funny Chinese lady (who raved about Francesca’s beauty) had a large selection of fruit spread out over the floor. Tom ordered what he needed and had us try some tamarind. After the final food tasting we went back down and Tom put us in some rickshaws to be taken to the ‘The Jungle.’ It must have been pretty amusing to watch a big guy like me being biked around by a small Thai man. The space in the rickshaw was certainly very limited!







‘The Jungle’ was really located in the middle of the city and had a simple fireplace and a bench available. Pong, Tom’s assistant started by cleaning up some coconuts for us. We got to finish our own coconuts for drinking as well as cooking purposes. The final part of opening up a coconut requires a knife, with which one hacks up the coconut’s top shell, in order to make a circular opening. I can honestly say it’s harder than it looks! With less than perfect circles out of our coconut we went to drinking the coconut water.



Whilst we drank our water Tom gave us our next task: filleting our own fish! Again, much harder than it looks. Tom explained how you’re supposed to start at the tail, making a small incision, working your way up to the fins. Then you start at the tail again, this time taking off all the meat. Much less fish comes off one fish than you think! We continued by chopping up some onion, some basil, and grabbed our coconuts to clean out the skin. Next, we put the mix together in a bowl, adding spices and one egg and stirred until it looked like the spices had spread out nicely. Using a spoon, we filled our coconuts with this mixture and put the little cap back on the coconuts, which Pong then put right next to the fire.









Francesca started on the next dish: our own sticky rice, made in bamboo. One stick of bamboo is filled to about two-thirds with rice, and topped off with water. One then rolls up a banana leaf and plugs this in the bamboo. The bamboo went with the coconuts to the fire, having been left in the caring hands of Pong.



Tom had us sample the next delicacy: spiced-up live shrimps. Yes, you may read that again. Live shrimps! They were not too small either, some being the size of a finger. I took a spoonful of the disoriented creatures and put it in my mouth. They actually jump around in your mouth! Due to the overload of spices you can’t really taste much of them, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.



We weren’t quite done preparing our many-course-meal though: we each got a chicken leg, which we seasoned with sugar and turmeric, and stuck on a sharp piece of bamboo to roast over the fire. The fire was starting to get covered in food, so Tom brought some other snacks and drinks for us to try. A cup of blue tea, made from a local flower tasted pretty good. The next dish was a bit more exotic: silk worms and crickets. Yes, insects are considered a snack in Thailand and thus can be found at pretty much any market. I quite liked the taste of the silk worms, but the crickets were a little too crunchy for me. Still, they didn’t taste bad either. Francesca had a little sample of each as well, but called them ‘gross’ and ‘sour.’











Francesca and I had no idea how much food Tom had bought, but apparently we weren’t done yet. He brought out some of the sticky rice with beans, as well as the fried snack covered in coconut we had tried in Phuket. The ant eggs were next. They actually tasted really good! Apparently, they don’t require too much cooking, so all we could add were some dried herbs. For the less adventurous Tom also served buffalo meat.









We also got to make our own egg, which we’d cook in a banana leaf basket of our own making. Once you heat banana leaf over the fire it becomes flexible and with some toothpicks a basket is soon made. We put an egg in the basket and it went next to the fire.









Whilst our food was getting ready Tom translated/told some of Pong’s epic stories. Pong was apparently quite eccentric. As a young lad he came down from a hill tribe village to make money. He worked long hours, both day and night, without complaining. The only request he had was to be allowed to go back to the jungle for some days on end from time to time. He knew how to hunt, set traps, make his own shelters and much, much more. He showed us how a simple contraption was used to capture chickens. He also told us how one day he’d found a giant snake in his trap. Of course he ate it!







We also got to try our hands on some more bamboo blowpipe darts, slingshot and knife throwing, whilst Tom put the frogs on the fire. The food looked quite done by 1:00 PM and 10 minutes later we were enjoying our own fish curries. Mine was a little spicy and quite dry; Francesca a lot juicier and far less spicy. Both tasted really good though! The curry was accompanied by our fried eggs, which tasted a little bland. Our sticky rice was much better: I couldn’t get enough of it. Francesca’s definite favorite was the chicken, which looked really good and tasted fantastic.















The table got filled with corn, cooked young bamboo and finally also ‘Freddy the Frog.’ Francesca had tried frog before, but I hadn’t, so I ripped off a leg and munched on it. Frog tastes a lot like chicken, and since desert was on the way I didn’t eat too much of it. Pong filled a big piece of bamboo with old coconut milk and beans, which had been cooked on a fire. The mix was quite sweet and flavorful, and if we hadn’t been full by then, we certainly were now.









We sat around the table for a while longer as Tom shared more of Pong’s stories. Pong had once been walking through a field near the Burmese border and stepped on a landmine. He knew they only go off once you step off them, as they’re triggered when you step on them. He screamed for help, but nobody came. He tried to look for something heavy, but obviously couldn’t reach anything without stepping off. So he made the decision to jump off the mine. He had carefully taken his shoe off, so it would absorb some of the shards, and leaped sideways as far as he could. Parts of his leg still got hit, but he hadn’t died. Some locals came after they’d heard the blast and took him to the hospital. His bones had been shattered in his lower leg and were replaced with a metal equivalent. He could still move his leg, and it actually looked pretty normal. The only odd thing was that he felt no pain and could push the skin in much deeper than ‘normal’ people can. He proved this by hammering his leg with a brick.

Tom then took us back to our hostel, where we relaxed the remainder of the afternoon, being filled up to the rim with our own delicious dishes. Dinner was definitely not necessary that evening.

The 30th was another quiet day. We decided to check out the city and walked to the east gate, looking for a place for Francesca to get her nails done. Some calls were made and we got an appointment later that afternoon. I sat around patiently whilst Francesca’s nails were covered in a bright blue, some flower designs and sparkles. Very pretty!



Sundays are always special days in Chiang Mai, as the central street gets filled from west gate to east gate with stalls for the Sunday Market. Ratchadamnoen Rd, as the street is named, is quite long and the market is absolutely huge. Tim and his band start playing quite early in the day, and the market really starts around 5:00 PM. Francesca and I used the afternoon to research some of the tours and tour companies we had heard about, seeing what the options were for hill tribe trekking, one of the main activities in Chiang Mai. The problem with the trekking’s popularity is the enormous amount of companies and slightly different itineraries they offer.

We decided to end our research with the start of the market, which had quietly filled up the street whilst we were talking to tour companies. Francesca and I stuck to the left side of the road, walking down the side streets which also had stalls. It didn’t take Francesca long to find a delicious snack: strawberries covered in chocolate. We spotted some puppetry and walked back to Ratchadamnoen. It was my turn to try some new food and I spotted some little shrimp pancakes. Yummy!







As we continued down the street we saw a wide variety of art, clothing, souvenirs, food, and many other items not belonging to any of the aforementioned categories. One of these was a wooden gun that shot rubber bands. Francesca got to try her hand and aimed at little toy soldiers. Apparently my girlfriend is a sharpshooter because she hit all her targets!



All the temples are also involved in the market, as they open their grounds to food stalls. We found one that sold a lot of food we wanted to try and decided to return there after we were done with the market. Francesca and I walked all the way to the east gate. I tried some ‘ancient ice-cream,’ spotted squid-on-a-stick, and found amusing artwork. Outside the gate were some more stalls, but they looked to be more of the same, so we turned around to have dinner. Francesca wanted to try the chicken with honey and the ‘twisted potato on a stick.’ I got myself some squid-on-a-stick, some chicken-kebabs and some sweet corn in a cup. We took our food to one of the corners filled with massage chairs, and sat down for an hour of foot-pampering and food-devouring.











The hour went by way too fast, but was highly enjoyable as we looked at the masses shopping away whilst we relaxed, getting a rough Thai massage. I wanted to try a desert after we were done with the food and the massages and found a stall selling ‘vegetable jelly made by Chinese plant, black in color, eaten with sugar.’ Perhaps not the healthiest… But also not very tasty. I threw it out after a few bites and that says a lot!

It was almost 9:00 PM by now, and we were still not done with the market. We continued our exploration. We caught the end of a dancing/singing performance by some young schoolgirls. I wasn’t too unhappy about this, because what we heard was horribly off-key. We continued and Francesca noticed a stall selling insects. We were happy to say we’d already tried most of them. Exceptions were the cockroaches and the ‘whirligigs,’ whatever they may be. Being stuffed as it was we walked past the creepy crawly delicacies. Francesca also wanted desert and found herself a banana doughnut with chocolate sauce.







At 10:00 PM we had seen the entire market from beginning to end, and went back to ‘The Garden.’ Tim was still playing classics with his band, but we longed for our beds and pillows. Boy, did we sleep after that many hours of walking!