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Published: September 27th 2007
We pulled into Chiang Mai by train in the morning of September 13th, after a pleasant night on one of Thailand's clean and comfortable sleeper trains. We pushed through the crowd of touts and taxi drivers at the station until we found a man holding a sign for Eagle House, our chosen hotel. We shared a van to the hotel with a German couple, Ulli and Swen, and by the time we pulled in at the hotel we had already decided to spend the afternoon together. Jeff and I checked into a small room with two different height twin beds and bright yellow painted walls. The hotel was owned by an Irish woman who was very involved in eco-tourism, and the hotel offered a variety of eco-friendly treks and day-trips, as well as a one-day Thai cooking course. The four of us decided to sign up for the cooking course for the next day, then set out together in search of a hotel with a swimming pool which we could use for the afternoon.
We stopped on the way for some lunch at a Japanese cafe and book store, then tracked down a hotel with a pool we could use
for a few dollars each. We floated and chatted for a few hours, until the worst of the day's heat faded and we returned to our hotel to change and take sun-baked naps. On the way we passed a dentist office and Jeff, Ulli and I decided to make teeth-cleaning appointments for the next evening, after our cooking class. The office seemed clean and modern, and charged a fraction of the price for teeth-cleaning as a dentist back home. We took our naps, and joined up again in the early evening to wander through the nearby night market and track down some dinner.
The night market near our hotel was a maze of fruit and snack vendors and cheap imitation brand-name clothing stalls. I picked up a $1 puzzle, to fulfill my sudden desire to crouch over a million similar pieces and attempt to make a cohesive picture (in this case, of a little boy and a puppy--it was that or a generic still-life of a fruit basket) out of them. We then walked to and across the river, passing a row of flower vendors displaying huge bouquets of roses and lilies. We ended up getting dinner at a
big, unfortunately touristy restaurant on the river, which at least served pretty good Thai food. We gasped and panted over a plate of sum tom (a fantastically spicy green papaya, tomato and peanut salad) and stuffed ourselves with curries. We walked back across the river, a bit more slowly this time, past the flower stalls and the market, down a long and hushed road with steel doors pulled over every shop front. We decided to stop for a drink at a tiny bar along the way, its walls and ceilings oddly covered with colorful paper mache and streamers. A few ex-pats were jamming on the small stage, playing repetitive riffs on drums and guitars while a smiling Thai woman sang scattered English words too softly to hear. We had a drink each, and then drifted out of the strange bar and back to the hotel to sleep.
The next day we woke up early for our cooking class and met Ulli and Swen in front of the hotel to wait to be picked up. A peppy Thai man arrived in a pickup wearing a "Chili Pepper Cooking Club" T-shirt, and we piled into the truck bed to drive across
the river to Eagle House 2, the site of the class. Two women were waiting to join us, and six stoves were set up in the hotel courtyard. Our teacher introduced himself as Mr. Suit. We all received aprons and cookbooks, and sat down to discuss what dishes to cook. Mr. Suit had an odd way of speaking English like a robot, in complete monotone. It was funny for about two minutes, but for the remainder of the 8-hour cooking class it was rather annoying. We each got to choose five different dishes to cook, which should have been fairly simple but somehow ended up being a frustrating discussion in which all of us struggled to understand what Mr. Suit was saying. In the end we all settled on our dishes, and we set out to walk to the market to buy ingredients, each of us armed with a wicker shopping basket. Mr. Suit talked us through a variety of vegetables, fruits and spices, and filled our baskets with our needed ingredients. Fish sellers snatched squirming fish from small plastic pools, smacked them on the head with the handle of a knife, and scraped off their scales while they still
squirmed. A fish flopped its way off of the table and onto the dirty ground, only to be snatched up again and scaled like all the rest. A coconut seller chopped coconuts into pieces and passed them through a shredder, creating an enormous pile of shredded coconut to be squeezed into coconut cream and milk. Fruit sellers carefully arranged their wares into neat piles, and butchers sliced at cuts of meat, removing fat and tossing the good meat into metal bowls. We left the market with our baskets full, and returned to our cooking station to begin chopping and preparing the ingredients. Armed with dull knives and rough wood cutting boards, we sliced and chopped and crushed our ingredients until all was prepared for cooking. A team of silent Thai workers swooped in to clean up for us, leaving our workspace spotless in no time.
Before beginning to cook we had to make coconut cream and milk out of the shredded coconut. This was as simple as soaking the coconut in hot water and then squeezing the juices through a strainer. The first batch of squeezing produced cream, and the second produced milk. We then reported to our respective
stoves to begin dish #1, which was soup--either tom yum koong (spicy shrimp and lime soup) or coconut soup. Mr. Suit talked at us rapidly and bounced from stove to stove, announcing what to add and when in his frustrating robot voice. We had all made soup before we realized it, and we poured it into bowls to eat our first meal of the day. The soups were very good, but my pride in making my favorite Thai dish was a little lessened by the fact that I felt like a robot--maybe this explains the voice--following commands numbly. The cooking went too fast to learn or remember much of anything, but it was still fun, and hopefully the cookbook will jog my memory when I try to cook again at home. After soup we moved on to Pad Thai noodles and curry. By the time we'd eaten the second dish we were getting quite full, and none of us were sure how we were supposed to eat three more meals. We had a brief break after the third dish, then returned to finish up our last two dishes. I made a sort of chicken dumpling while Jeff made sum tom
(papaya salad), and all six of us finished up with spring rolls. Before making our spring rolls, however, Mr. Suit called us to the prep table to make "plate decorations." These decorations meant a tomato rose and cucumber leaves. Mr. Suit showed us how to slice our tomato half into tiny slices and arrange them into a perfect line across the cutting board. He then proceeded to move from person to person, shaking his head at our imperfections and very painstakingly perfecting our tomato lines. After what seemed like forever, he deemed us ready to begin rolling our flowers. We slowly rolled our tomato lines into tomato roses, with Mr. Suit looking anxiously over our shoulders. Then it was time for cucumber leaves, which also had to be sliced into perfect proportions before being arranged into careful leaf patterns on our plates. Any imperfection in arrangement had to be corrected, but finally all of us had perfect little rose and leaf decorations on our cheap ceramic plates. It was getting late, and we began to worry about missing our dentist appointments. We rushed through the spring roll preparation, slathering the thin wrappings with raw egg and doing our best of
make neat little rolls without tearing the wrapping. We took our turns frying the rolls in a wok, then arranged our ugly spring rolls on our disturbingly perfect tomato rose plates. None of us had much appetite, but we stuffed down a few bites of spring roll before Jeff, Ulli and I said a hurried thanks to Mr. Suit and dashed away to make it to our dentist appointments.
At the dentist I climbed nervously into the chair, and my face was promptly covered with towels so I couldn't see anything at all. They used some sort of crazy electronic scraper, which accomplished the usual plaque-removal in about a fifth of the time it takes back home. Otherwise it seemed like a normal cleaning, except for the towel over my eyes which meant I sat there with my mouth open with no idea when they were going to stick tools in my mouth. When Jeff and I left it was raining lightly, and we darted under roofs and awnings on the walk back to the hotel. I worked on my puzzle for a while, crouched on the cement floor between the two twin beds, since there was no table.
Jeff read, and waited for the rain to fizzle out. We had decided to go see Muay Thai (Thai kickboxing) that evening. Swen was a little sick and didn't feel up to going, but Ulli, Jeff and I crowded into a tuktuk and headed to the small stadium. We arrived just as the first of eight fights began. Thais and tourists sat and stood around a raised boxing ring, and two Thai fighters prepared themselves for the match, praying and stretching. The fight began, and they went at it hard, kicking and punching and thrusting knees at each other. I had expected it to be somewhat dull after a round or two, but I actually found it very exciting. They pummeled each other mercilessly, but with remarkable talent and training. I found myself shouting and grunting with the rest of the crowd, and automatically attaching myself to whichever fighter seemed more determined but less likely to win. Jeff took photos from the edge of the platform, and Ulli and I sat in metal folding chairs in the front row. A few fighters ended up bleeding from cuts in their faces and heads, and dark bruises formed on their abdomens and
backs where their opponents knees slammed them again and again. It was brutal fighting, but most of the fighters seemed to be enjoying themselves. We had planned to leave partway through, but ended up staying through the last fight. It was nearly midnight by then, so we took another tuktuk back to the hotel to head to bed.
The next day we slept in, burying our heads in our pillows to block out the loud noises of buzz saws and hammering from the construction next door. There had been loud construction in Bangkok for the last week, and it had apparently decided to follow us to Chiang Mai. The noise finally forced us awake, and Jeff and I set out to find breakfast. We stopped into a travel office on the way, deciding we ought to figure out exactly how we planned to get to Laos a few weeks later. There were a few different options, including a speedboat, a slow boat, and a plane. The speedboat, although quick and cheap, was known to be extremely dangerous and not recommended: the boats often flipped and crashed. That option was certainly out. The slow boat was supposedly scenic and an
interesting experience, but it took 3 full days to get from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang by slow boat. We ended up settling on a flight, which would save us tons of time and only cost a little more money than the boat. We bought plane tickets from the very friendly travel agent, then returned to our quest for food. We found a bar and restaurant with American-ish food and a free pool table, air hockey and foosball. We shared a salad and sandwich, then played a bout of air hockey, which ended in my complete annihilation. We returned to the hotel and put on our swimsuits to return to the pool, during the heat of midday. Ulli joined us, although Swen still felt sick and opted to stay in bed. We swam--or, rather, floated--for a few hours, until a very odd old man (a foreigner, I think Australian) wandered up to us and began ranting about politics and life in general. He was kind of creepy, and we decided to leave the pool to escape him. We returned to the hotel for some rest and puzzle time, until hunger set in again and Jeff and I wandered on another
quest for food. We ended up at a restaurant called Art Cafe, lured in by a "special menu" of avocado specials. Both of us love avocados, but for the last 8 months we had missed avocado seasons again and again, everywhere we traveled. This was the first time we'd found in-season avocado, and we yelped with excitement and sat down for a meal involving as much of it as possible. We had avocado salad and a turkey and avocado burrito, and both were fantastic. It would not be the last time we ate at Art Cafe.
After dinner we joined Swen and Ulli to check out the night bazaar. We paid too much for a ride in a soengthaw (a sort of pickup truck taxi thing) and piled out into the midst of an enormous market. The shoppers were all tourists, and the wares were an assortment of T-shirts, silks, jewelry, statues, paintings, vases and other crafts. We bought a few T-shirts and I got a funky pair of cloth shoes, but mostly we just wandered and looked. After a couple of hours we grew wary of the endless stalls, and decided to return to the bar we'd found
earlier, to play some pool and foosball. A few moments before leaving the market we impulsively bought a squishy flour-filled balloon with eyes and yarn hair, which provided a good fifteen minutes of fun before beginning to leak flour out of tiny holes. At the bar we had a few drinks and played pool, air hockey and foosball, while bored soccer fans watched a 0-0 game on TV. Soon we were all yawning, and we walked back to the hotel, leaving our flour balloon man as a gift for whoever took over the pool table after us. Jeff and I said goodbye to Ulli and Swen, who were heading off on a one-day trek the next morning and then leaving Chiang Mai directly afterwards. I struggled with my puzzle for an hour or so, and then slept until the next morning's roaring construction forced me out of bed.
That next morning Jeff and I returned to Art Cafe, and I had a great feta, bacon and avocado omelet with two fluffy American-style pancakes. Pancakes have been available everywhere we've traveled, often stuffed with bananas or chocolate syrup, but they're usually thin and more crepe-like. These were fluffy and thick
like I remember, and I stuffed myself with the joys of a home-style breakfast. After eating we set off walking into town, stopping in a few little jewelry and craft shops but mostly just wandering. We got thoroughly lost in a local market area, pushing our way through narrow rows of clothing and plastic odds and ends. We escaped the heat in an air conditioned coffee shop and internet cafe, then returned to the mid-afternoon heat and the maze of roads. Sure we would never find our way back, we hailed a tuktuk and bargained the driver a bit down from his first price. We had no idea how far we were from our hotel, so we could only guess at what price was reasonable. We set off, and within thirty seconds we realized we were no more than a five-minute walk from our hotel. The tuktuk driver dropped us at our hotel and received his exorbitant fee for the one-minute drive, smiling as he drove off. We took our usual afternoon reading and puzzle time, and then decided to get foot massages at one of the countless massage places in the area. We picked out a shop with smiley
ladies sitting out front, and were led up into a pleasant dark room with mattresses laid out on the floor. The foot massages were delightful, and we asked for another half hour of full-body massage. We stumbled outside after the massages, dizzy and giddy. The ladies pointed us in the direction of the Sunday night market, and we floated towards it with no idea what to expect. It turned out to be a huge outdoor market, with block after block of everything for sale. There were silks and carvings and T-shirts and picture frames and sunglasses and statues and paintings and gift boxes of herbs and funny hats and cheap watches and paper umbrellas and hand-carved soap and leather sandals and keychains. Little girls danced in the road in sparkling costumes, and bands of blind musicians sat in rows playing their instruments. Crowds of Thais and tourists moved slowly along the aisles, touching and prodding and bargaining over everything. Vendors announced their wares and prices, and a few beggars wandered through, hands outstretched. We found a section of food stalls, including some dirt-cheap freshly-made sushi. We ate sushi and papaya salad and pad thai sitting on plastic stools at low
plank-wood tables, then pushed our way back into the crowd of shoppers. After a few hours we had had enough, and we returned to the hotel for the night. We packed and left Chiang Mai the next morning, heading north by local bus to the town of Suppong.
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Harmeet Singh
non-member comment
Thai
Ahhh...Mr Suit reminds me one of our guide in Ayothaya (ancient capital of Thailand)....my friend and me wanted to leave the tour in the middle or wanted cotton to stuff our ears !!! and yeah the ballon man expressions are hilarious :)