Kao Soi and Lady Boy ..(s) -- Chiang Mai, Thailand

After four fun filled days and nights in Bangkok we boarded the overnight train to Chiang Mai.  We booked our train tickets two days in advance but we were not able to get berths in the air conditioned car.  However, Molly was savvy enough to book us both the lower bunks - very smart.

We boarded the train a little before 10pm and the journey was scheduled to take 15 hours (in reality it was more like 17+ hours).  It was very hot on the train and although there were fans blowing, there seemed to be no air circulation.  Obviously, we needed a little drinky-poo to cool down!

 

 

We had some difficulty settling down for the first couple of hours - primarily because of this unbelievably drunk and super-obnoxious old British dick who was sleeping in the bunk above mine.  Before our bunks were made up he was sitting in what should have been the seat across from me but I huddled in Molly's seat to get away from him.  Once the train got going and we were laying in our bunks, there was a good breeze (albeit hot) blowing and with my headphones and the tunes playing on my ipad, I was actually able to get some sleep.  Molly was not so fortunate so she was pretty tired by the time we arrived in Chiang Mai at almost 3pm.
 

 

not exactly fresh ... but we made it to Chiang Mai

 

checking out the balcony view

 

We checked into our guest house and took some time to chill out for a few minutes.

view from the toilet in our bathroom!

Shortly we took a walk around town to see what Chiang Mai has to offer, to find some free wi-fi and to get a little snicky-snack.  We ended up at the Chaing Mai Saloon for some nacho chips and salsa and some spring rolls.  Surprisingly, the salsa was excellent - it was home made and spicy - a sort of Thai spin on Mexican flavours.  Very very good.  We did what we began to call our "beer work" -- this is where we would plan the upcoming segments of our trip, book places to stay and generally organize our activities for the next few days.  The big thing that I wanted to do, since Molly and I first talked about going to Thailand a year before, was a Thai cooking course which we would do in a couple of days but first we chose a bicycle tour.

 

our bike guide, Tee, showing us a new rice paddy

Unlike the bicycle tour in Bangkok, this tour was the full day and would take us out in the country, for some 50kms of cycling around the southern part of Chiang Mai and although it was not a foodie tour, much to our delight many of our stops featured different food/tasting experiences.

One of the first stops was a "rice cracker" factory.  The business is run by a woman, not terribly typical in Thailand but becoming more common, and this factory seems to employ only women.  The rice crackers are more like a hybrid between what we know here in Canada as rice crackers and rice cakes.  There are sweet and savoury flavours as well as unsalted.  We got to see the ladies preparing them and the crackers drying in the sun as well as sampling all the varieties as well.  We had some extras to take home too.

After a few non-food related stops (you can read all about them in Molly's travel blog at: http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/eddim/1/1373867095/tpod.html) we moved on to our lunch stop, where we would try the local speciality unique to Chiang Mai - the Kao Soi curry which is a Thai style curry with Burmese influenced cooking and flavours.  Kao Soi is a coconut based yellow curry, egg noodle "soup" - thus it is thinner consistency than many Thai curries and it is topped with crunchy, chow mein style noodles.  As is often the case with Thai cooking, pickles are served on the side.  Ours came with some pickled vegetables. Of course, being such a huge fan of anything pickled I intended to eat my kao soi with the pickles, however our bike guide, Tee, recommended that I not eat them.  Although he never explicitly explained why not, we came to figure that he thought they might upset my stomach, perhaps because of different vegetable washing techniques than we are used to.  By that point, I had not been particularly careful about what I ate, always having ice in my drinks, eating street food and brushing my teeth from tap water, etc. I truly figured that the pickles would not bother me, but just to be on the safe side I did forgo eating them.

I had the Kao Soi with chicken and Molly had hers with pork.  It was excellent; it was very rich and flavourful.  Unfortunately, we just were not that hungry with having started our day with a fairly big breakfast before the bike tour began, as well as having sampled the rice crackers already, so we didn't make too much of a dent in our huge bowls of kao soi.  We were definitely interested in trying this dish again as we would continue to eat our way through a week in Chiang Mai.

After lunch we hopped back on our bikes.  Though the morning had been a bit overcast and was not unbearably hot, by this time the sun was shining through at full strength and the temperature had risen significantly.  And we were not quite half-way through our tour yet.

Off we continued to the next stop, a bakery again run by a woman.  When we arrived they were making "sweet toast" (not to be confused with sweetbreads -- that's something totally different!).  This is bread brushed with palm butter, toasted and sprinkled with white sugar.  We sampled the sweet toast (which tastes exactly as you assume it will) and we also shared a "chocolate" covered donut which was very disappointing.  I use the term chocolate very loosely as it was a chocolate coloured spread but had no flavour whatsoever and it left a greasy film in your mouth (from the palm oil it is made from).  It was not good at all and was a bad choice -- but live and learn.  At least it made us not crave chocolate donuts for the rest of our time in Thailand!

fancy Buddha statue under repairs at the temple

We came to a Buddhist temple with a market just across the road.  I had asked Tee whether we would see any pineapple growing, as we had seen lots and lots of fruit along our route, but no pineapple.  The pineapple that we had eaten so far in Thailand was absolutely delicious, sweet and incredibly juicy.  Well, just from that question, Tee was now on a mission to get me some pineapple so we headed over to the market where he bought us a whole pineapple to eat.  The vendor cut it into segments right in front of us and packed it in two plastic bags to carry and eat (that's Thai-style).  It really was spectacular but is seems that most pineapple grows further south in Thailand, not so much close to Chiang Mai.

And speaking of fruits, Thailand also offers an abundance of delicious, fresh tasty tropical fruits. Some of which I've never had before. I already talked about the durian and although we didn't eat any fresh durian we did try some other new fruits for the first time. We had mangosteen which I would describe as kind of a cross between a plum and a passionfruit. It's not as sour as passion fruit but still has a bit of tangy flavour. The fruit is basically like little sections that you can scoop out of the skin -- I would almost liken them to the shape and size of garlic cloves (but NOT the taste!) with a bite of juicy, sweet freshness when you bite into them. The first day we had them at breakfast on a fruit plate we didn't know what they were and had to ask after we had eaten them.

mangosteens front and centre

bananas - both green and ripe are much smaller but with

the same flavour as the bananas we are used to

We also tried some rambutan which my sister had in abundance in Papua New Guinea and which I know she loves, though I have never tried it. If she ever happens upon it in Canada she is sure to buy some. The rambutan has a spiky red outside but the spikes are soft, not prickly. We found the rambutan to be similar to a grape with some veins in the flesh. The ones we had were juicy but not terribly sweet. They also have a large seed in the middle. Nice and refreshing but not my favourite for sweetness.

rambutan on the right; whole durian centre back and cut durian

in packages in the front centre - it is described as "pillows of custard"

Finally, we also tried a fruit known as longan. Like the rambutan, longan is in the lychee family. The outside of the longan is brown and slightly fuzzy (similar to a kiwi skin) but when peeled it is white and the fruit looks remarkably similar to the lychee and the rambutan. They also taste fairly similar and also have a large pit. Longan can be eaten fresh or dried - we tried the fresh ones.  On our bike tour we passed many fields with trees loaded with longan fruit - it was just starting to come into season.

longan trees - they are so loaded with fruit they use

bamboo poles to prop up the heavy branches

Of course, Tee insisted on buying a bunch of longans that he found at the market as well so we now had a 1/2 pineapple each, packages of rice crackers and a huge bag of longans to carry around.  Along the route of our bike tour we also stopped to look at jack fruit trees, banana trees and we literally walked into some mangos hanging from a tree.

mangos - but watch out you can easily bang your head on them

like Molly and I both did -- known as "mango-bang"

We wrapped up our bike tour after several more stops (a few too many because the afternoon was very hot and every time we stopped we lost the slight breeze from riding) but because Molly and I were the only patrons on this tour it was adapted for us - every time we asked a question there was a stop for us to look at whatever it was that we mentioned.  It was an excellent day and we felt great (though my butt was pretty sore from two very long bike rides in just 3 days) and we were definitely ready for a drink and some dinner.

Chiang Mai seems to be the home of 10,000 bars and since we were there during low season many of them were empty save for the working girls/lady boys out front coaxing you to come in for drinks.  We stumbled upon a Canadian owned place late one night called "The Wild Boar".  It caught my eye because the owner had a cute little dog who hung out in the restaurant (and who later was joined by his girlfriend - Buttercup, the service dog of a US Army Vet).  There we shared a post-drinking snack of poutine, the daily special!

 

 Wild Boar's resident doggie

and his girlfriend "Buttercup"

 

For most of our nights in Chiang Mai we ended up in one of two places.  "Thai One On" was conveniently located just across the street from our guest house which was pretty handy but I was also drawn there by the HUGE, gentle and adorable rottweiler owned by one of the Thai staff and named Mr. Me.  Thai One On is owned by an American and we met several other Americans who now call Chiang Mai their home - so they were giving me tips on what I need to do to retire in Thailand!  I'm making my arrangements now -- only a few more million Baht and 4 years to go!

 

Thai One On

 

 

Our favourite place though was "Paradise" Bar.  We hung out there several nights.  We became fast friends with the gorgeous Lady Boys and Jack working the bar; they were so warm and friendly and when they were not busy with "customers" would sit with us, offered to share their street food with us, and chatted about their lives, hopes and dreams.  

 

 

 

 

Usually we were just at Paradise for drinks but one night we ordered dinner; I had the Pad Thai -- my first so far in Thailand and Molly ordered the glass noodle salad. Well, imagine our surprise when the food was delivered by the server from The Wild Boar just two doors down! Turns out not all these bars have kitchens but they all serve food - so they have some arrangement with the closest restaurant to provide patrons with food.

 

 

My Pad Thai was quite good.  It sweet and slightly spicy and lots of chicken.  It was very comparable to any that I have had in Canada.  Molly's glass noodle salad was totally different than what we were expecting.  The chicken was ground rather than chunks and we were not expecting the bed of lettuce, but she said it was tasty and spicy and she enjoyed it.

 

On our last day in Chiang Mai we were killing some time before we had to head out to the airport for our flight down south to Phuket and the islands.  We walked to a bistro near the night market area and stopped for a cocktail.  Turns out there is a distilled clear liquor called "Maa Jai Dum" which is made in (and only available in) Chiang Mai.  This was the first we were seeing this alcohol so obviously we had to try a speciality cocktail made with it.  There are three flavours:  original, banana and floral - we stuck with the original with lemon soda.

 boxes of booze - Chiang Mai speciality

Well, it was delicious ... and potent!  It was like vodka on steroids!  I wanted to buy a bottle to take with us down to the islands but we didn't think we'd be able to carry it on board the plane and packing it in my backpack didn't seem like a good option.  We hoped that we might be able to find it somewhere else so I could buy some but sadly no.  We just got that one drink - but then again maybe that's not a bad thing.  It seemed like we would have been able to drink a lot of it - and then we probably would never, ever want to drink again!!!!