Chiang Mai

One more week until my colleagues and I are back to our adventures.  How fitting I'm blogging about Thailand right now because that's where I plan to go...again.  I was planning to go to Nepal, but that fell through.  Apparently, it takes at least a 2-3 week tour just to see Mount Everest on foot.  Other tours through valleys and mountain passes were 9 days, which I do not have.  I also didn't want to helicopter the Himalayas, so I put Nepal on hold for now.  I looked to alternatives.  Cathy and my parents suggested I go back to Thailand.  It was a tossup between that and going to Tokyo. I chose Thailand.

Yes, I really like it down there. The shopping prices are right, the people are friendly, it's easy to navigate, and the food is crazy delicious.  So sue me if it's cliche as an expat to say that I love Thailand.  I'm going there for hardcore Muay Thai training.  For those unaware, Muay Thai is Thai boxing.  By hardcore training, I mean about 6-8 hours a day. I just hope that my body won't shut down half way through the week.

Okay. Enough about my plans.  They'll happen and I'll blog about them later...check back for updates.  Back to my trip to Chiang Mai.  Hands down it's my favorite place in Thailand until I travel more of the country and find somewhere better.

Cathy choosing lunch at a cafe inside the old city walls 

Lemongrass juice.  It wasn't that great, but at least it was fresh.

Thai yellow curry with chicken? I don't remember what I got, but it was delicious.

We went temple-hopping for the day within the old city. Before sunset, we stopped for a massage in what looked like a refurnished family garage. The old ladies who massaged us had awesome hand strength. They mashed Cathy and I as if we were pieces of dough for making bread.

Wat Chedi Luang

Cathy trying out the prayer bells.

Street food in Chiang Mai is diverse and flavorful.  Something about the
Burmese and hill tribe minorities' influence of the area?  I had fried fish in sour sauce,
mango pad thai, some sort of white dessert, and a Singha beer for dinner.

Mango Pad Thai.  Not sure where the mangoes in it were...

Cathy loved trying different roti.  They're more or less crepes.

The Night Market is filled with interesting things to buy.
I got myself a set of standard Thai spices for cooking.
I suppose since I'm going back down to Bangkok, I should learn
how to use them in a cooking course...

After walking around the Night Market, we found some seats near a free performance,
got some coconuts and fruit smoothies, and relaxed as we people-watched.

Siam

In Wuhan, there are no super-clean metropolitan super-malls. Cathy had no idea what these sort of malls looked like. Well, it so happened that Bangkok has a string of well-known super malls around the Siam area.  If alone, it would not catch my radar signal on my solo travels.  But we needed baht and a well-known currency exchange called Super Rich was in the Siam area.  We pinged that area on our maps for the day.

Cathy at Siam Paragon

Typical Asian traffic

After getting more baht for cheap, we went to scope out the various shopping centers around the area.  One of them had things that really wowed Cathy.  For me it was pretty normal, which just shows how spoiled we North Americans are with our material culture.

But honestly, I had fun.  It's been too long since I've been to such a mall.  Okay, okay, I was in such places in Seoul.  But I have to admit, it was pretty interesting to see how hard candy was made in Central World.  And the Vietnamese food that we had for early dinner made my day...well actually, more like month.  No such food exists in Wuhan, that's for sure.

A hard candy maker

Early dinner at Central World. We had Vietnamese food.

My sassy girl.

My favorite part was by far walking into Toys R Us.  Cathy was so impressed with the toys in the store, she decided to buy some for her baby cousin (see my Jingzhou posts).  She kept on saying that it's so hard for families to find such quality toys for their infants in China.  That, unfortunately, is a sad reality for early childhood parenting in China.  Toys are bad quality and sometimes even dangerous (Cathy and I watched an expose on TV a while ago about how some kids toys for domestic consumption in China were being made out of uncleaned, untreated, used plastic). Couple that with parents being too busy, some being too uppity to actually raise their kids, and the one child policy, that creates one neglected population of kids. Good thing for grandma and grandpa, that's for sure!

Ironically, half the stuff in the store was made in China. Export quality products.

But I digress.  Back to Siam.  For me, I really liked looking at the board games since Wuhan is devoid of stores with board games.  I didn't buy any because I didn't want to lug game boxes around Thailand, but staring at them reminded me of my brother's vast collection of awesome games.  We used to play many rounds of various games back when my brother visited Vancouver.  Sometimes I sat out because I got bored of playing, but now I really miss those fun times.

Being in Toys R Us was a uncanny experience.  For a fleeting moment, I felt as if I was back at one in Metrotown in my native Burnaby.  Ah, the bittersweet taste of nostalgia....but whatever bitterness I had was soon replaced with sweetness once Cathy and I got some REAL ice cream!

This stuff was rare in Wuhan until just recently.

Siam by night. We left Bangkok shortly after.

We took the rapid transit train to the long distance bus station once the sky turned dark.  We then boarded the last bus heading northbound.  Cathy tried to get some shuteye, unimpressed with the uncomfortable seats and the blaring Thai pop concert on the TV screens.  However, I stayed up watching it.  I learned that Thongchai "Bird" McIntyre was a pretty powerful force in Thai pop culture.

Stopping at a rest stop, I got out to take a look around.  The stop was filled with people eating and buying snack food despite it being about 3 AM in the middle of nowhere.  I took to the snack food, even though I saw some foreigners repulsed by it.  It all looked both familiar and delicious to me.

Thai snack food has an uncanny resemblance to Filipino snacks

Heart clogging pork rinds. Delicious!

In the early morning, we arrived in what would end up being our current favorite place in Thailand  - Chiang Mai!

Wo gen Cathy qu Taiguo!

Thailand.  I seriously didn't think my travels would bring me here.  I know it's on most people's hit list for traveling in Asia, but it really wasn't on mine when I first left Canada for this side of the world.

Well, it so happened that Cathy could easily get a tourist visa for Thailand.  Unlike some countries (ahem...Canada), Thailand more or less accepts Mainlanders if they want to see the country.  And so Cathy and I chose it for a destination of travel.  And what a beautiful country it is.  I can now see why so many Western expats love Thailand.  It's freakin' awesome.  The weather is great and Thai food is pretty much superior to most Asian cuisine.

We flew into Bangkok fairly late, but caught the last train away from the airport towards our hotel near Th Khaosan, a major enclave for foreigners. Khaosan Road isn't accessible by the train, so we stopped at the station closest to it.  Typical Asian antics immediately ensued once off the train - arguing with drivers over taxi or tuk-tuk fares.  Fortunately for us, a somewhat confused Frenchman and extremely confident middle-aged Aussie were willing to pile into a taxi with us.  The Aussie bargained hard for all of us and won.  We got to Khaosan Road by 1 AM for cheap.

The driver dropped us on the other side of Khaosan and told us to walk through it.  We were confused, but followed his directions.  Walking down the foreign enclave at 1 AM with luggage wasn't really our cup of tea, especially with blaring disco music, half-drunk washed-up hippies, and half naked women.  Okay, okay, the half naked women thing I can dig.  But, it wasn't the most ideal hotel-searching situation.  We eventually found our hotel after a tuk tuk driver helped us.

The next day, we set out for the Grand Palace.  Although there were so many people in and around it, Wat Phra Kaew proved to be quite photogenic.  We stayed around the premises for a while taking many pictures.  After that, we went to check out the Sunday Chatuchak Market.  We went snack-food crazy.

Tuk Tuk rides are as fun as they are dangerous. You don't have much
of a choice but to take them. I didn't mind it, but I'm not sure about Cathy...

Wat Phra Kaew. Thais get in for free. Foreigners paid 10 bucks or something ridiculous like that.
I probably could have passed off as Thai, but I saw a group of Filipinos get busted for trying to fool the guards.

Trying some manual shots with my SLR.

"Are you looking at that handsome Thai guy over there?"
"Are you looking at that GROUP of hot Thai girls?"

We spent the good part of the morning just taking pictures of this beautiful place.

Cathy's rented long dress. We weren't allowed into the Wat unless we covered our legs.

Elaborate artwork was all around us.

Gorging on marinated pork kababs and coconut ice cream at the Sunday Market.

Fresh fruit smoothies.  I seriously couldn't get enough of these when in Thailand!

Delicious and flavorful skewers

Some sort of chocolate drink

After the market, we went back to Khaosan Road in the evening for dinner.  We went into a Pad Thai restaurant.  2 groups of white tourists were in behind us.  They were given bigger, nicer tables.  We were given the rickety table that leaned to one side.  Our server acted dismissive to Cathy and I and interested in everything this American couple were saying.  Also, they were seated after us, got their food before I even got my drink, and left while I got my drink after I asked for it 3 times!  An older female server got me my drink. The guy server was unapologetic.  I can't stand so-called "people of color" kissing up to the white man.  It makes me puke when Asians put on a yellow-face (or in this case Thai-face I suppose) for laowai just to seem "friendly" or "authentic."

Also, hen Asians look down or talk down to their own people, all I can think about is the word "traitor."  I've seen such a person before in the Philippines.  Heck, some students at the school display this spiteful attitude towards the Chinese teachers and counselors.  Uninspiring fools.

Is it too much to ask to be treated like equals?

Maybe the server hates Chinese.  I can only speculate, but he did seem like an effing racist who has in turn internalized racism and acts in a typecast way.  Way to go Uncle Tom.  After waiting an hour, after inquiring about our food multiple times, I threw down the money for my beer, and told them to get serving lessons before we left.  While the woman who served me beer seemed worried, the guy didn't even flinch.

While Cathy and I kept somewhat civil about this incident, I hope that server pisses off some Thai boxer in a 'roid rage who so happens to look Chinese in the future.  That'll teach him a lesson.

Th Khaosan

After leaving that establishment, we went down a side-road that veered off Khaosan.  Getting to a part-street-food-part-restaurant that had mostly old women as workers, we knew this place would serve up some good eats.


Restaurant tip in Asia #1: Food tastes better if there's a old person cooking.

The place was pretty packed...

Restaurant tip in Asia #2: The more customers in a walk-in restaurant, the better the food.

...so we had to sit at a fold-out table across the street behind some middle aged Italians.  Service was excellent despite the place being so busy.  After about a minute of ordering beer, it appeared at the table.  The old lady who was cooking barbecue seafood even came over to us and took our order. As you can see in the picture below, the prawns were pretty big.

Failing the Pad Thai, we opted for good ol' barbecue.

After eating, we walked around a bit more before going for our First Thai massage.  It would have been nice to go into a Thai spa to get our first Thai massage, but now I see places like that are just filled with useless gimmicks to up the price.  Cathy and I stumbled across a place on a road that was not frequented by pedestrians.  The sign read "Real Thai massage," but when we entered, it was a barber shop.  A couple in their mid 50s were sitting there reading newspapers.  They looked like they were a Filipino uncle and aunt of mine.

Bringing us upstairs, where there were 4 roll up beds on a bumpy laminate floor surrounded with tasteful but slightly worn netting.  It looked like something out of my relatives' house in the Philippines!  Once the guy started massaging me, I almost fell asleep because it felt so good.  Cathy looked like she was in heaven when getting her's.

Ended the night writing postcards together in our hotel room. What an interesting first day in Thailand!