Land of Smiles
Chiang Mai is Thailand’s second largest city and we headed straight for it from Hong Kong. The flight to Bangkok served the best airplane food we’ve ever had, no joke. They also had quite the selection on board for Muslims, Hindus, Vegans, you name it, impressive Thai Airways!
The first night out we encountered the Thai tri-fecta. One – Friendly people. Despite not exactly knowing where he was going our cab driver got us to our destination, charged us less for getting lost and then walked us to the door of our guest house to make sure it was correct. Two – Pad Thai from a street vendor. Cheap and delicious. Three – Elephant. As we were eating, a poor baby elephant was paraded by on the street trying to earn a Baht. Poor guy, more on that later.
Our first full day we spent wandering from wat to wat inside the ancient part of Chiang Mai. We lucked out and it poured down rain while we ate dinner and then lifted just in time to venture out to the Night Bazaar. After walking and wishing we could buy one of almost everything, we found ourselves a seat at a Dutch-owned bar to watch another World Cup game – Argentina versus Germany. Heather was rooting for the underdogs so it got a little depressing at the end.
On the Fourth of July we found a big pick-nick party hosted by the US Consulate. We both thought it a little strange that there is a consulate here, but there are actually quite a few countries represented. We decided to check it out. Aside from the excellent free food (ribs, chicken, pasta salads, Sam Adams, etc), there weren’t many other activities. We left before the fireworks to go to the famous Sunday Night Market. I’d like to think we’ve seen our fair share of markets and this one is one of the best. It’s well organized, the products are diverse enough and appear to be of relatively good quality. Mike had been holding out to buy fisherman pants since he first saw them in Bali, so for $3 USD he was satisfied! Heather also got a new purse for $5 with Hmong style stitching. We finished the night sipping wine (Italian, sorry US) and watching the crowd stroll by the market.
The van for the Elephant Nature Park picked us up bright and early the next morning for a day trip to the sanctuary. This is a place for rescued elephants to live out the rest of their life in “heaven”. You may have seen it featured on Animal Planet or other such nature shows. The park is privately funded and works to rescue inhumanely treated elephants and educate the public about these majestic creatures. Elephants are a revered religious icon, but also the beast of burden for Thailand. They don’t have horses, donkeys or camels, but have used elephants for hundreds of years to help build the country. We heard the stories of how some of these elephants were injured: broken back from forced mating, car accidents, land mines and intentional blinding are just a few. For our “donation” we got to feed them, play in the river and walk amongst them. Since most of them (all but the babies) were working elephants, they are very used to humans and some still like to give kisses.
We haven’t cooked for ourselves for over a month, so to get back into the kitchen and learn some new things we found a day long Thai cooking course. We each got to pick a soup, two appetizers, a salad, curry and dessert. We had a great time slicing and dicing and trying out the wok. We feasted on our spring rolls, pad see ew, papaya salad, pumpkin and panang curry, sticky rice with mango and banana in coconut milk. We even tried our hands at vegetable carving, we have a new found appreciation.