Category: Asia

We enjoy visiting the laid back city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand and each time, since our first trip there in 2011, we’ve added additional days for our visit.  For this adventure, we’ve rented an apartment to stay for one month.  We fly to Chiang Mai via Seoul and hope to be there by Tuesday morning Atlanta time.  If you’d like to follow along, check in here every few days for updates!

 

We left our hotel in Bangkok at 6:00 a.m. Tuesday morning and arrived back in Atlanta almost exactly 24 hours later! We loved our time in Asia and are grateful for a fun and exciting adventure!

Bangkok is just a chaotic as we remembered! We’re staying in a Novotel Hotel in busy section of the city called Siam Square.

It’s Monday and nearly all of the museums and major markets are closed. We didn’t wander far from our neighborhood as the temps were over 90 degrees today but we still managed to walk several miles.

Everything is prepared for the Chinese New Year Celebrations!

This display of lanterns is in one of the Mega-Malls.

Our bags are packed and we’re mentally preparing for the 24-hour marathon that begins Tuesday morning. We’ll make one stop in Seoul before we land back in Atlanta. It’s been a fun, interesting and exciting journey!

Happy New Year!

We have enjoyed our time in Chiang Rai and feel that we’d like to return one day to spend a little more time here. Saturday we took a “Grab” car to visit the Black House (Baan Dam Museum). The Atlas Obscura website describes it best (Here.)

The setting is pretty.

This is a view inside the main temple.

Some of the artifacts on display.

It’s quite an unusual place!

On the way, our Grab car driver made an unscheduled stop for us to see works by local artists. While there, he wanted to take a photo of us to show his friends. In return, we took a photo of him to show you!

The Hilltribe Museum and Educational Center near our hotel was interesting as it described the various cultural groups living in northern Thailand. It also detailed the long history of opium in the region.

Chiang Rai has a bustling Saturday Night Street Market. We found many delicious tidbits there. It’s a festive event with live music plus lots of crafts and street food.

We’re a bit sad to leave the tranquility of Northern Thailand as we know that Bangkok will be a bit chaotic!

But, onward we go as we begin to make our way back home!

We had a great time in Chiang Mai! This Nancy Chandler Map was an excellent resource that we can’t recommend enough! The Mango Lassi is also a “must try.”

We took the VIP Green Bus from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai. We paid extra to ride the VIP Bus but felt it was worth it to get larger seats, a drink, and a snack on the bus. Our tickets for the 3-hour-long trip were $9.00 each! The road was winding and a bit dusty. We were very impressed by the warm welcome we received at Nak Nakara Hotel when we rolled in a bit frazzled from the bus ride. Happily, we had time to rest awhile before we headed to the night market for dinner.

We ordered a Hot Pot! Once you order and pay 100 Thai Baht ($3.00 US) a steaming crock of broth is brought to the table. Here, Larry is waiting for the pot to boil😊!

Then we add the veggies, herbs, egg, fish, and noodles. It simmers for about 5 minutes and becomes a delicious soup!

Today we visited the White Temple. It’s difficult to describe and photos don’t quite do it justice! It’s kitschy AND stunning! The artist is perhaps Thailand’s version of Gaudi.

The same artist also designed Chaing Rai’s beautiful Clock Tower.

Back in town, we visited a more traditional temple with a very large Buddha.

We agree with those who told us that Chiang Rai is a smaller version of Chiang Mai–maybe Chiang Mai as it was a few years ago.

Tomorrow, we will contrast our visit to the White Temple with a tour of the Black Temple!

Our Thai cookery teacher Kong was also the driver of the van that picked us up at the hotel to transport us to the class. He was an excellent instructor and a pretty good driver too!

Our class was hands-on. First, Kong demonstrated the techniques in the classroom and then we each had our own station to prepare the dishes we selected at the beginning of class. We began by learning to make spring rolls.

Then took a trip to the market where Kong showed us various Thai fruits, herbs, and other ingredients. We didn’t imagine that there were so many varieties of eggplant!

Eggs and delicious fruits;

And grilled fishes!

Back in the classroom Chef Larry has organized the ingredients for his Pad Thai.

We made Yellow Curry and Panang Curry and both were fun and easy to prepare.

It was an international group as our fellow students were couples from China, the Philippines, England, and France.

We hope that we can recreate these dishes at home!

Tomorrow we take a three hour bus ride to our next stop–Chiang Rai.

We are making the most of our last couple of days in Chiang Mai before we head to Chiang Rai on Thursday.

We’ve taken advantage of the excellent value for massages here. Our favorite place is no-frills Fah Lanna near the night market. Larry is standing at the entrance feeling refreshed after our 2-hour treatment.

For 450 Baht ($14.27 US) we enjoyed a 1 hour Traditional Thai Massage and a 1 hour Reflexology Foot Massage! A treat!

Today was our last yoga class at Freedom Yoga. We highly recommend this studio for excellent instructors and challenging classes. Larry is outside the studio enjoying a post-yoga banana.

Just down the road from our hotel is a fun-to-explore paper-making studio. The young woman who works there is adorable and proud of her paper.

Friday, February 16 is the beginning of Chinese New Year. This street in the Chinatown section of Chiang Mai has already started decorating with Chinese lanterns.

Colorful carrots for sale at the street-side market today!

Another example of local street art. This somewhat creepy character is lurking behind the bushes. Well done though!

As much as we love the Thai food, sometimes we’re happy to find a sandwich and French Fries on the menu. We had a nice lunch at the Hinlay Curry House nearby.

Tomorrow we’ll try Thai cooking! We hope to learn some new menu ideas!

It’s Monday morning in Thailand and because of the time difference we’d have to jump out of bed and head for a local pub to watch the game. My Place Lounge opens its doors at 5:30 am as the kick-off is 6:30 am. Since we barely know who’s playing, we will miss the game this year!

Over the weekend we checked out some street art.

And found a restaurant version of a favorite Thai street food treat! This is Mango with Sticky Rice with the addition of a scoop of coconut ice cream from Cafe des Artists.  Very good but we still prefer the street food version.

We happened on this beautiful Buddha in the garden of a temple Saturday evening.

We discovered upscale MAYA mall that has opened since we were last here. It’s so posh that it made us think we were back in Hong Kong!

The flower arrangements around town both large,

And small, are lovely!

We have just a few days left in Chiang Mai. Enough time for another yoga class, a Thai massage, a cooking class, and a few more things on our list of things “to do” before we go!

Every first weekend in February, the Flower Festival is on in Chiang Mai. This is our third festival parade and it was just as colorful as we remembered from previous parades.

We can hardly imagine the number of flowers that are used in constructing floats like these–and there were many more!

This photo shows how closely the flowers are placed to make an image when constructing a float.

It isn’t a parade without marching bands! This one had a clever pirate theme!

There are also people representing various cultural groups dressed in traditional costumes.

So many attractive people dressed beautifully –many adorned with flowers. It’s a colorful spectacle!

Larry summoned a “Grab” car for a ride to Meena Rice-Based Cuisine Restaurant. Our Thai-born friend Tip recommended it highly and we are grateful for the recommendation!

The setting in the country-side is peaceful and in spite of the remote location, it is popular and very busy!

Larry’s herbal drink, butterfly-pea flower tea was pretty AND delicious!

My Rice Berry Herbal Drink was less pretty, but equally tasty.

Our beautifully presented lunch was a treat!

Minced spicy pork with egg and multi-colored rice:

Fried fish with cockle curry:

It was a 10-minute walk back to the main road and on the way, we I couldn’t resist stopping by some cute boutiques selling local crafts.

Our next stop once we got another “Grab” ride was further down the road to the sparkling Maiiam Contemporary Art Museum.

We enjoyed seeing works by contemporary Thai artists. For the next several days there is a special exhibition titled “The Poetic Language of Flowers.”

Coincidentally, we’ll see more flowers as tomorrow morning at 9:00 the Flower Festival Parade begins. We plan to be there for the flower-decked floats and the marching bands–an event that we’re looking forward to!