Our train from Bangkok arrived in Chiang Mai on Thursday morning around 8 am. Part of our package deal with the travel company included transportation to and from the train station. They provided little orange stickers so we could easily be identified in the crowd. Once our group was accounted for, the drivers split us up into hotel groupings and loaded us into the local taxi, a red truck with two parallel benches and a luggage rack on the roof. Our taxi was comprised of a group of 4 girls who were here to backpack through the back country and a young couple from Great Britain. We compared experiences in Bangkok and offered each other tips. It was nice to come across another group of English speakers with the same interests.
We arrived at our hotel, and within 20 minutes the organizer for the tour company stopped by our hotel to confirm our tour packages. She was very sweet, and assured us that we would not be scammed like in Bangkok. We then headed to the diner at the hotel for some breakfast. It was the usual two eggs and toast, but here we could have bacon instead of a hot dog. Now that we were comforted that there were now gem shops on our tour, and we ate some food it was up to our rooms for a short rest. We didn't get much sleep on the night train. After a short rest it was back down to the diner for lunch. They had decent pad see ew, spicy green curry with little green egg plants, and boring fried rice. But we were feeling adventurous so we also ordered some shakes. BEST DECISION. Essentially it is fresh fruit and ice blended together. I ordered passion fruit, Allison had watermelon, and Mom pineapple. It was just like drinking fruit. We are now obsessed with the cool refreshing beverage. Some places even have the option to add yogurt, which is particularly delicious with the passionfruit.
For the afternoon we scheduled a trip up the Doi Suthep which is the local mountain that the hill people, Hmong, still live on and is also where the Wat Doi Suthep is located. First we traveled all throughout Chiang Mai, and our guide gave us a brief history lesson of Tha Pae, which is now Chiang Mai. We drove past the Tha Pae wall and saw the moat that 40,000 resident had dug for the king over 700 year ago. It is really cool. The we headed way up the mountain to the Hmong village where they have an amazing garden with all types of flowers, including poppies. There is also a small shopping area that sells items made in the region, including the intricately handmade purses. Our tour guide, "Thunder" was quite a riot and had a wealth of information about the history of the area.
This is one of the pictures from our "photo shoot" we wanted to make sure to get the poppies in the picture.
After a walk through the village, we headed back to the bus and headed down the mountain a little ways to the Wat Doi Suthep which is a beautiful Buddhist temple overlooking all of Chiang Mai. The temple has 320 steps, or for 20 Baht you can ride the cable car. We took the advice of a riotous couple from Australia who have been coming to Chiang Mai every winter for 16 years and rode the car up, and walked down the steps. Once we were at the front of the temple, Thunder told us the legend of Suthep, who was a hermit that lived in the hills. After his death, a temple was built for the hill tribes. Thunder also explained that monks robes are orange from the bark of the jack fruit tree. Initially the robes are white cotton, and a monk scrapes the bark from a jackfruit tree and boils the fabric over a three week period to get the rich orange color. Any color difference comes from the bark, it does not signify and rank difference amongst the monks. If you see a monk with dark orange, or red robes then his dye was obtained from further inside the jackfruit tree.
After we entered the inner courtyard of the temple, Thunder further explained Buddhist practice of walking around the center courtyard clock wise three times to show upmost respect. He also gave insight into the flowers, candles, and incense as all various offerings to Buddha. Then we visited a monk who was handing out the blessed string dipped in holy water. Out of respect, we chose to received one. Buddhist monks are not allow to touch women, so the men from our group had the monk tie the string around their wrist, while the women held out their hands and the monk gently dropped it into our palms without making any contact. After taking a group photo, we headed down the 320 stairs to our meeting spot. We were given 30 minutes to shop, use the restroom, and grab a snack. The fun Australian couple purchased a bag of thai pork rinds, and they were delicious. Although I prefer the mexican pork rinds that have some chili on them. I was surprised that the thai have not done that yet.
On the way back to our hotel, Thunder kept our long drive occupied with various stories, thai legends, and a short lesson in the thai language. We had a fun group and laughed for over an hour. Once we were back at our hotel we called Uncle Rick and Kannika and met them in the lobby. Rick and Kannika took us to a cool restaurant just outside the old Chiang Mai wall, called John's Place. It was 3 stories and over looked the city. On really busy nights, there are several traditional Thai dancers, on Thursday there was one. She was so beautiful, and her hands were so precise. Kannika ordered several dishes including Lam which is a traditional dish from her home in Isan that is chopped chicken or pork with onions and a salty lime sauce, kung phaw chicken, green curry, and a local dish of chiang mai sausage. It was all really good. We drank and ate and spent hours chatting. For desert we ordered sticky rice and mango. We really like the mango and the coconut creme, but the sticky rice is a little weird to me. After dinner we walked along the Tha Pae wall, and stumbled across the BEST rotee in all of Chaing Mai. Is was these two older women, and they carts was covered with newspaper, magazine, and online articles about their rotee. Allison and I ordered a banana and chocolate with a drizzle of sweetened condensed milk. It was delicious!
No comments:
Post a Comment