Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai
Tuesday 11/04/2017

We arrived in Chiang Mai on Tuesday, flying from Bangkok instead of taking bus or train. It was pretty cheap and the flight time was under an hour so totally worth it. Chiang Mai is the largest city in Northern Thailand and is a lot smaller than Bangkok (with a population of 150,000 compared to 8 million) but it does have a lot of tourists, especially now as it is Songkran (Thai New Year, more on that later). There are 800 temples here and the centre of the city is pretty easy to walk around if you can stand the temperature. (37C right now as I'm typing this!) We found a nice backpacker hostel to stay in with our own room and air con and as soon as we checked in and sorted our stuff we immediately had a walkabout and visited a couple of the temples.

Wat Chedi Luang

Bad ass dragons

Then we had a cooking lesson! We are now confident curry makers and will be hosting a dinner party on our return, come at your own risk, friends...
It started off in the market where Bow, our instructor, took us through all the special ingredients and showed us what we would be using. I, of course, immediately forgot most of the facts but I now know there are three different types of ginger and the Thai word for pumpkin is Fak Thong. We ended up making Spring Rolls, two main dishes (including the curry paste; Babs made Kow Soi and I made Green Curry), Pad Thai and Sticky Mango Rice.

Edible food I made

It was actually a fantastic experience, especially since we didn't have to do any washing up. And the food tasted great of course. Mum, I'm gonna cook you something great once were in the same country that also happens to have a good market/shop nearby :D

Next day we took a red truck taxi up the side of a mountain to visit a temple there - super busy due to the time of year again, but still worthwhile.

Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep

After that we went on a walking tour of the city to look at another temple and some monuments and generally get a feel of the place. By now, some people had already gotten an early start to the next days festival activities... so in self-defence we had to arm ourselves...

Happy New Year, bitch! *splash*

The origin of this New Year tradition is that is a time where they clean the Buddha images, and the water that is used is then gently poured over the heads of people seeking a blessing. This has now evolved into a 4 day citywide 'respectful' water fight where streets are closed, the streets are lined with bins and buckets full of water; sometimes from the tap, often from the moat that rings the centre of the city; and you just have to accept it and join in. There are also a lot of parades and religious activities taking place in this time, so there is a lot going on.

This guy was just warming up

We did find a party to go to. There was a lot of water.