Chiang Mai

The best stretch of our trip was 3 days in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, an hourlong flight north of Bangkok. (Interior flights in Thailand are only about $100/person, fantastically cheap.)

Chiang Mai is Thailand's cultural capital, influenced by northern "hill tribes" -- in the photo above, Lucinda is wearing a traditional hill-tribe hat -- as well as Burma (to the west), China (north) and Laos (east). Wikipedia tells me there are nearly 200,000 city residents, with 1 million in the metro area. But it didn't feel crowded and had much less grime than Bangkok.

Our hotel, Yaang Come Village, booked on Expedia for about $200/nite, was lovely. Its entrance-building is next to a massive rubber tree (you can see Arno's tiny shape next to it in the second foto).



Our room had murals painted on the walls. (Click foto for a closer look.)


The sweetest hotel accoutrement was this tennis-y bug zapper. You press a button, swing away - and fry mosquitoes! Revenge for years of bug bites. (Our hotel attendant warned the kids not to play with it.)


Our first afternoon, we walked to Chiang Mai's "old city" to see the excellent Sunday Market. It wasn't crowded at dusk but was packed by 8pm.


I thought Bangkok's famous night market was quite dull: heaps of counterfeit Gucci, Polo, Chanel, Dior, Vuitton, etc. We quickly realized that Chiang Mai's market was going to be more genuine - not just for tourists - when we saw the table of cooked bugs for sale, including...


...fried grasshoppers and...


...grubs with a leafy seasoning. I once wrote a story for The Boston Globe about a "bug chef" in Washington State, but this was the real thing.


Other curiosities: Monks buying books.


A girl dressed for a stage performance.


We bought street food for supper and Blaine made the best choice. From this woman, who was cooking in clay pots on a side street...


...Blaine bought spicy curry-noodles for about 25 cents. The most delicious dish of the whole vacation.


Here was my favorite dish, which Lucinda and I bought at Chiang Mai's regular night market. Mango sticky rice for 50 baht, or about $1.50.