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Published: July 13th 2009
We'd made a snap decision to head straight up to Chiang Mai the evening before we intended to leave so this meant a morning of rushing around to the train station to get tickets then back to our guesthouse to pick up bags and be on our way. Luckily for us there were lots of seats available on the train we wanted to catch so we picked the second cheapest option of 2nd class fan seats (391B each) which we thought would be comfortable enough for the 14 hour journey up there and booked ourselves on the 2.30pm train out of Bangkok.
The train journey was quite comfortable in the seats due to lots of legroom, the only downside being that they don't turn off the lights in the seats so you don't really get that much sleep for the nightime section.. oh and the journey turned out to be 16 hours too as it ran very behind for the whole way. Eventually though we arrived in Chiang Mai at 6.30am, caught a minibus to town for less than was quoted in LP (love it when that happens) and promptly checked into a guesthouse for a snooze. Sophie fell out
of love with the guesthouse quite quickly when they stepped out the room to go and explore town and were told quite sternly to turn off the electricity, give him the passports and pay up now. Not that we mind any of these things it's just the manner it was said in.. so we set off to find a new guesthouse straight away!
Chiang Mai is a nice little historic town famous for being host to a huge array of wats and also for being the number one place for trekking in Thailand. We weren't really that keen on doing any trekking here for that reason so spent our time taking in the nice city, relaxing and enroling Sophie on a learn to cook Thai food course!
Sophie had been keen to learn how to cook proper Thail food for a while now so enroled on the Baan Thai cooking course which was a days course involving a trip to the market and cooking 6 dishes. She went for this course because you actually got to choose what to cook out of 3 options which gave good flexibility and made sure she could cook what she wanted. In
the end she opted for...
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Green Curry Paste - as suspected once you have all the ingredients this is very simple to make.. she just hopes that she can get everything back at home in Tesco's!
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Green Curry - made from the paste this was just as lovely as she'd hoped. The only disappointment being that it wasn't quite hot enough.. the instructor had told the class to put in 40 chillis but we all thought we knew best and only put in half that amount resulting in a very mild curry but still delicious with fresh coconut milk made that day.
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Hot & Sour Prawn Soup - probably the favourite dish of the day. It turned out just as it tastes from a restaurant and she was very proud.
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Pad Thai - again another very simple dish which will be easy to re-create with the ingredients back at home
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Deep Fried Bananas - yum.. nothing more to say!
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Spring Rolls - Another really easy dish that she hopes people will be able to enjoy when she returns, best of all you can use the filling as a stir fry if you
Taster plate from the course
Rambutans, Dragon Fruit, Custard Apple, Mangosteens, Sticky Rice, Thai crackers & Thai dessert with sweetcorndon't have the roll!
The day was hugely enjoyable and she came out of it amazing Dale with her new Thai culinary knowledge.. did you know that the 'peas' in a proper Thai Green Curry are actually a type of eggplant? and there are lots of different types of ginger? She didn't but now she does!
While Sophie was busy cooking Dale decided to spend his 'free day' enjoying a Thai massage. This was no ordinary massage though, he opted to go to the Chiang Mai Womens prison to have his massage and very good it was too. The ladies do this to earn some money just before they are released and it seems a nice way for them to be able to earn a bit of a living and getting them back into society too.. oh and it's much cheaper than the rest of town so everyone's a winner with this one!
Like we say we didn't do the usual things in Chiang Mai it was just nice to see the town and we needed to visit it to get to the areas to the West that we really did want to see. Of course
though it wasn't a wasted trip because we were there on a Sunday which meant that the HUGE walking market all along the main streets was on. Yet again we were amazed by the size of these Asian markets and it has probably topped the list of best markets we have been to in Asia to date! Unlike the crappy Night Bazaar this market sold lots of individual and original handicraft gifts that Sophie never tires of looking at. Dale managed to escape from the endless walking up and down the street packed with people and left Sophie to her own devices to go up and down and up and down again to see if there was anything to buy.. of couse there was but as backpackers we can't have everything we like so she settled for a pretty ring and some wooden bangles which were cheap as chips. Dale was quite relieved that she didn't come back with bagfuls of things because our 'posting home bag' is now very full and very heavy and we can't carry much more!
Pai
We headed to Pai (pronounced Bye) after getting a high recommendation from Jay and also from Sophie's best
friend Nina who'd stayed there for a few months earlier in the year. Pai is a very laid back town infamous for attracting a hippy crowd who tend to stay a lot longer than they originally intended. We would definately agree that Pai is a lovely little town, easy to get caught up in and set in stunning scenery in a Plateau between mountains but we probably didn't get the best out of it becuase it rained a lot! We really don't mind the rain but it rained a lot on our first few days there meaning we were stuck indoors killing time to try and shelter from it. We also thought that Pai is heading towards the more upmarket boutique market, the shops here are very nice to look in but we doubted that the traditional hippy backpacker would be able to afford the prices... there also seems to be a lot of upmarket bungalows opening up so we are sure that it won't be too long before the likes of us are no longer the main guests in this town which is quite sad.
Having said that we did find a gem of a room here which
could well be the best room we've had so far, we think we could only afford it because it was low season but it had none of the mouldy walls & leaky bathroom effects are are used to and instead had a lovely hot power shower, fluffy towels, tv and even matching furniture rather than the broken car boot items we usually have to put up with! At least this made being room-bound a bit more bearable!
On our second day it looked quite bright in the morning so we hired out a bike to go on a mini tour of the area and stretch our legs. Our first stop were the Tha Pai Hot Springs which were indeed very hot! The springs are completely natural with quite a few pools, the hottest ones being 80 degrees and hot enough to boil an egg in. Needless to say you can't relax in these but further down there are more areas which you can bath in but these are still very hot! We only managed to spend about 30 minutes trying to relax in there whilst skipping around like hot cakes, before we had to get out with bright red
bums & legs to prove it!
We set off to ride aimlessly around the Plateau and explore the beautiful countryside around Pai, most of this time was spent watching the huge black rain clouds on the otherside of the Plateau. After a while of riding the the sunshine we had exhausted all the sunny roads and had to make our way over to the dark side. Sure enough as soon as we'd reached the waterfall we were aiming for the heavens opened and it started to hammer it down. Thankfully we'd come prepared with our wet weather gear so managed to stay resonably dry but it didn't make for a fun time at the pretty waterfalls which had a slide you can slide down and areas to swim.. if you weren't getting so wet anyway and could climb up the rocks to slide down.
On our way back to town for lunch we got stopped by the now regular sight of the Thai Police doing random searches on western people. Again we were thankful that we didn't go in for this kind of thing and we don't have to break out into a sweat every time this happens
to us.
This tour of Pai was to be our final day here as we decided to leave the following day to try and get out and about a bit more in the next town of Muang Hong Son. Pai is a lovely place but probably appreciated best in the sunshine (like most things!) when you can relax in the lovely bars, walk in the countryside and generally chill out in the town taking in the atmosphere. We do plan to come up this way again later on in the year so maybe the weather will be better next time around and we'll stay a little while longer in this beautiful place..
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Donna and Neil
Donna and Neil
Chiang Mai market...mmmm!
We loved Chiang Mai Sunday market, all the food was really yummy there! We were lucky enough to go when the strawberries were in season and had great strawberry shakes...it was touch and go whether we would end up looking like a strawberry shake. You'll be able to get all your ingredients in the UK for your Thai cooking - we had no trouble finding everything we needed in the Asian supermarkets. Looking forward to your Eastern Malaysia blogs...heading there in about a month and a half! Take care and happy travelling xx