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A rose is a rose
Stacks of roses at the flower marketDay 6
...in which we found the food, fruit and flower market, spent a few hours in an optometrist, ate some dodgy tofu, got another massage and wandered for hours in the Saturday Walking market...
Pretty close to our hotel was the fruit and flower market (which also contained lotsa food, and some clothes). Some more jackfruit was purchased, as well as some snacks, and some clothes. The flowers were pretty amazing, with a huge range of species and colours. oh, on the flight over to Thailand, Chris watched a documentary about Thai herbs, and one of the ones mentioned was "Pigeon Wing Flower" which is bright blue and supposedly very good for blurry eyes. The flower appeared to be called "Butterfly Pea" in stores here. A bit of searching, has suggested it was Clitoria ternatea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clitoria_ternatea). Not much info about eyes, but some other interesting items as an anxiolytic, but also as an antimicrobial. There was a lot of it for sale (dried mainly) in the market. Also huge amounts of whole dried rosella! Another healthy plant used heavily in cooking and medicine here is Maroom or Moringa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moringa_oleifera).
After the market we dropped into
Dried herbs
You can see a couple bags of the Butterfly Pea (or pigeon wing flower) on the left. Nice deep purple colour. an optometrist so Nena could get some new glasses. A couple of hours later (and a large amount of money) we left.
For lunch we tried to find a restaurant that had got great reviews. The reviews did warn that it keeps odd opening hours, and sure enough it was closed. So we wandered back to another place and ordered a couple of different curries with tofu. A few mouthfuls in and we both realised that the tofu had seen better days and probably shouldn't be eaten. We left and quickly downed a couple of Yakult drink from a nearby store. Handy tip for tropical travellers - probiotics are your friend!
After that we had another massage (not as good as the last one), and then started the long walk along the Saturday Walking Market. Really long. Some tasty nibbles, a couple of postcards, a few hours and a tropical downpour later we got back to the hotel. Great market - but wear comfy shoes if you plan to see the lot!
Day 7
...in which we hired the world's dodgiest bikes, rode around the old city, had a couple of average coffees and
Sticky Rice!
So tasty - sticky rice with random fillings (banana, beans, mango, etc.) a very tasty lunch, and revisited the night bazaar...
We walked to the nearest bike hire place and grabbed a couple of bikes so we could ride around and see more. The bikes were in terrible shape. Brakes didn't work, pedals wobbles, grips moved, and they squeaked and clunked continuously. Oh well - at around $1.50 for the day we couldn't ask for too much.
First stop was a coffee from a small shop, which tasted as if the coffee machine hadn't been cleaned in the last few years. They made up for it by ample quantities of sugar added. Next we went down Wualiai Road, which contains a lot of small silver jewellery shops and Nena bought some earings.
We also popped in to Wat Phra Singh which contained some important Buddha images including a jade one which is a duplicate of the emerald one found in Bangkok, and the Lion buddha which is highly revered (although it's history isn't well known). There was an extremely old lady in one of the buildings talking to one of the monks, and when she left we were outside putting our shoes back on. Nena helped her
Toy Market
Playing with silly effects on the camera. down the stairs and the lady with her told us she was 97 years old.
For lunch we went to Dada Kafe which was delicious and tasted very fresh. The only downside was that for some reason they allowed smoking, which seemed odd for a "healthy" cafe.
We spent the next few hours basically doing a back street tour of Chiang Mai old city on our bikes which was really enjoyable. It's so much cooler when you are riding - you use less energy and get a breeze at the same time. It's the best way to travel!
For dinner we went to a vego restaurant that was close to our hotel. I think it was called "Taste from Heaven" or something like that. Very tasty.
Day 8
...in which we hired better bikes, went to Japan, went to Melbourne, and then learnt how easy it is to cook kick arse Thai food...
Going to a different bike rental place, we got a pair of bikes that had working brakes and then started heading West towards the Chiang Mai University area stopping along the way to admire Wat Suan Dok,
which looked pretty stunning (but was under renovations). Next stop was the Chiang Mai Uni art gallery, which had some great bronze sculptures with well written explanations in English underneath. Just next to the art gallery, is a little Tea House in a small earthen building. The lady running the tea house was Japanese, and this was evident in the food, and the style of the room. We had a lemongrass and pandan tea, and a superb dish (sorry - can't remember what it was!).
Back in the city, we went to Cafe Rider which was a trendy little cafe full of bike paraphernalia (especially fixie bikes) which would have fitted well in to Melbourne. They made a bloody tasty frappé too! 😊
After dropping the bikes back, we were picked up and taken to the Asia Scenic Cooking School and spent the next 5 hours learning about Thai food, markets, and how to cook great food. It was all hands on, and we each prepared three dishes. They were very friendly, informative and it was a fun night. They also dropped us to the airport after the course so we could fly down to Phuket!
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anonymous
non-member comment
Hi Guys, I came across Clitoria terneata in Malaysia as it is used to colour the rice a vibrant blue! it looked so unatural! I have come across seed here too. Will have to give it a go!