Chiang Mai

One reason we came to Chiang Mai was to see what it might be like to live there. In a way I'm glad we came during during the burning season so we could see it at its worst, to see if it's as bad as I'd read. In February and March, at the end of the dry season, the air becomes very polluted and smoke-filled. Apparently farmers across a wide swath of SEAsia burn their fields in preparation for planting crops, and there are planned burns of forest, and it adds up to quite bad air quality. When we first arrived, there had been unusual rains, so the air was cleared and not bad at all. We did experience some unpleasant air in Chiang Mai, but not nearly as bad as we'd experience later, in Chiang Khan.

But Chiang Mai, what a wonderful city. We really loved it, and felt like it was easy to see how we could slip right in and live there. It's accessible in some way that Bangkok certainly isn't, and not just because of the size (although yes to the size being important relative to Bangkok!). It's the second-largest city in Thailand, and the Ping River runs through it (not all that beautiful a river, at least where we've seen it). There is a good-sized expat community there, and in fact on our last day we stopped for a quick lunch at a place run by a German man....so there is English spoken in places, but not all that often by Thai people unless they are running a business that serves tourists, like a massage place, on which more in a minute.

This made me laugh so hard.

The donation coffin sign was in front of this large complex,
which seemed to be some kind of aid society -- the only
description that was in English. So fancy! We talked
about what it would be like to live in a dragon culture.

I would've loved to go to this, except:
1 - it didn't start until 9:30 and we were still sleeping early
2 - that two-drink minimum per person requirement

More immigrant cultures here than I'd expected!

I understand how this is a complicated issue,
and it also is not. It is, and it is not.

Although of course girls are most often sold,
I was so glad to see this reminder that, here especially,
boys should not be sold. Just no selling of people.

Cannabis only very recently became legal,
and vendors must have been sitting there at the
ready, because there are SO many cannabis shops!
This one was bizarre; what is the cigar store "Indian"
all about?

The best food we ate in Chiang Mai was not Thai, strangely enough! Except for the food at the We-La-Dee our first two nights, the Thai food we got was mostly unremarkable. Certainly the Thai food at the hotel, the Maladee, was unremarkable and tasteless. All the Thai breakfasts we had at the hotel were flavorless, and even the avocado toast with poached egg -- as un-Thai as possible -- had no flavor it was really weird. 

Not really congee, but the condiments stirred in did give it 
a bit of flavor

This was the best thing I ate at the hotel:
great yogurt with ripe, juicy mango, and a 
chunk of melt-in-my-mouth honeycomb
sprinkled with toasted sunflower seeds.

Marc got this breakfast one morning, hoping it would be
flavorful -- a traditional Thai noodle breakfast -- but again,
nope. The condiments helped some.

We returned to a place we'd enjoyed the last time we were in
Chiang Mai -- Lemongrass Restaurant. I think the last time we
were so impressed in large part due to contrast; compared to the other
food we ate here that time, this was AMAZING. This time, we thought
it was good enough, but not as amazing as we'd thought before.
This was Marc's seafood curry.

Still at Lemongrass, this was a Thai Beef Salad.

This restaurant was The Terrace, and we were hopeful, given
the reviews. It was terrible! Terrible food, terrible service,
and at the end, they said they'd only accept a credit card for more than $30.
OK, obviously we had baht, but the whole thing felt shady. Bad, bad food.

But gosh, we ate Indian food at a sweet little place called Rajdarbar that was the best Indian food we've had anywhere (including India, but that's not saying a lot). The food was so, so, so good, and the small place was staffed by very eager-to-please employees who seemed so happy that we enjoyed their food. A large table of very loud French people disrupted the space, so weird for French people to be so loud, but the food was so good we really didn't care.

This food was SO GOOD. I got channa masala, which I almost
always get, so I use it as a basis of comparison. Without a doubt
this was the best channa masala I've ever eaten. Marc loved it,
too. Everything we got was exceptional.

The next night we got Lebanese food at a place in the corner of the Night Market, also fantastic. I ordered one set menu and when Marc ordered a different set menu, the owner said, "That's too much food. I'll make you something." Baba ganoush, hummus, falafel, tabbouleh, a variety of barbecued meats, gigantic rounds of puffy bread (but not pita), and limeade that made our heads vibrate it was so limey. Marc could see into the kitchen area and told me to be glad I couldn't see it from my seat, but that's a common enough experience that I just do not even look. The food was so, so, so good, who cares.

This was SO DAMN GOOD!

The bread was great, but not pita. More like a tortilla?

Kind of the Platonic Ideal of these foods

The hotel wasn't really our kind of hotel, but it was OK. They kept giving us free drinks, even after the first day when they gave us multiple welcome drinks, first a red one, then a clear one, then a purple one, and then at night they brought two little milk bottles with what tasted like honey in water. The sun beds are actually IN the pool, on a ledge, so to get on and off you have to step in the water, which isn't that big a deal but it was strange. It was their deal, I guess. The hotel owners' parents had owned a stationery shop in Chiang Mai for decades, so the place was decorated with typewriters, stamps and stamp pads, stationery. In fact, in our room, next to the stationery they supplied a set of alphabet stamps and a stamp pad. I really liked that touch, a lot.

Welcome drink #3, the jasmine one (yummy!). Every time
we came to the pool, every day we were there, they brought
us these drinks.

OK, sunbeds in the pool, that's their deal. Hmph. 

One big thing we will both remember about our time in Chiang Mai, though, was our massages. Marc had a truly great idea to get massages on our last day, since we had several hours between check-out and our flight to Bangkok. GREAT! I always love a massage, and what a great way to end our time there, and to get ready for the transition to our next place. We didn't really know what "Thai Massage" meant, and were honestly just hoping it would be more than someone just kind of rubbing around on us. Marc found a highly rated place and went there to make our appointments, so it was on. Ruby, the owner, was very friendly and the place seemed like a real massage place, not a "massage" place -- a concern I have always, in Thailand.

When we arrived, June asked us if we had any places where we were hurt, and Marc said very plainly, pointing, "Don't touch my knee, it hurts." Ruby seemed to take that as a challenge -- oh I will fix your knee! -- and spent 7 or 8 minutes rubbing her thumbs hard into the hurt spot, and rubbing up from his knee along some nerve or meridian or something, showing her student how to work with it. Hmmm. Turned out to be a sign that we didn't know how to read.

We were in one large space with a curtain pulled between us, and we wore brown linen scrub-type things, top and bottom, and apparently this is exactly how Thai massage goes. They don't touch your skin, really, except for places where the scrubs don't cover -- calves, neck, arms. IT HURT. It hurt a lot. Thai massage is also called "assisted yoga" and there was a lot of that, of arranging my body into arching positions, stretching positions, and them amping it up until I nearly cried. The massage itself hurt so much I was wincing and just wishing it would stop.....but then as she worked on the right side of my mid- to lower-back, there was a loud POP that made her yelp and say, "What was that?!" as I said, "What was that?!" On Marc's side of the curtain they heard the whole thing. My masseuse and I sat in a kind of horror -- now what? What do we do now? I anxiously moved my legs and feet, and was relieved that they moved, because I had no idea what she could've done to make that loud pop. Her response was to go hard on the exact spot, and she spent probably 10 minutes digging her thumbs into the area. By the time it was over, Marc and I limped out of the place in a bit of stunned disbelief. What was that. We stopped at a little cafe on the way back to the hotel and had some lunch (I had the only papaya salad I've even seen on a menu!), and we tried to process what had happened. What was that with my back? What was that excruciating experience all about? 

As we took the car to the airport, we were sore and stiff, but sad to leave Chiang Mai. We'll definitely come back (but never again Thai massage!, and never again during the burning season). I think we were both expecting to enjoy the city, even though our first time there was a big disappointment -- in part, I think because then we were just inside the old city walls, and that's pretty touristy -- and we really did enjoy it. We left Chiang Mai in physical pain, and with a sadness to say goodbye for now.