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Other entries in Chiang Mai

The Long Goodbye

Our original intention had been to stay in Chiang Mai for about a week, rest up and enjoy the city and it's surroundings.  We then planned to head to Pai, a tiny little town nestled among the mountains for a few days, before heading to Mae Hong Son, a bustling place near the border with Myanmar.  For the first time in our trip, due to Lisa's (our beloved sister/in law) impending arrival in Hanoi in early March, we had a deadline.  We needed to get our skates on and hoped to fit in all the above stops in a two week time frame, we could then hightail it to Chiang Rai, Chiang Khong and the border with Laos,  This would give us a few weeks to explore Laos before arriving in Hanoi and meeting 'Minnie' at the airport.

It seemed like a good plan, but we hadn't prepared ourselves for one thing, and that was both of us falling head over heels in love with Chiang Mai.  As we have mentioned in earlier entries, the laid back attitude of this northern city, it's beautiful geography and buzzing nightlife caught us hook, line and sinker and proved a fatal combination.  We definitely intended to stay until my Birthday, in order for us to celebrate in style and also for my cookery course birthday present, the plan was then to move out to Pai on the 3rd February.  That was until we discovered that the annual and world renowned Chiang Mai Flower Festival was running from the 3rd to the 5th February.

Damn it!  We always seemed to be missing out on the festivals and events that Thailand is so famous for.  In Bangkok, we missed the King's Birthday celebrations all together even though we were in the city, catching just the fireworks from the top of our hotel, and in Kanchanaburi we turned up a few days after the amazing Light and Sound Show at the Bridge over the River Kwai and then left two days before the Head Abbot of Thailand visited the town, drawing massive crowds and initiating several candlelit processions around the main Wats in the area.  Yet again it seemed we were the victims of bad timing.  Or were we? (we both began to surmise),we could always stay to the 5th and then go to Pai, it wouldn't be that bad to miss out Mae Hong Son, after all it was a 5 hour bus journey from Pai and we had already experienced a border town through our visa run to Mae Sai.  So after informing our landlord, Jimmy and new friends Ting and Aideen it was decided we would leave on the 5th.  The 4th of February arrived, another hot and sunny day and we awoke with the horrid realisation that we had to leave at 10am the following day.  However we just weren't mentally prepared to move on.

Our usual procedure was as follows; a few days before our departure we would research the transport options to our next port of call and then look for and pre-book accommodation there, but we hadn't done any of this yet!  Reluctantly we made our way to the local internet cafe, where Ric began finding out the prices and times of buses to Pai and I started to search for reasonable guesthouse options.  After 30 minutes we had a list of about three guesthouses to call and I trotted off to the phone box to try and book one of them.  But, no luck.  Three times, I was informed that that guesthouse in question was full and they couldn't be sure if someone would leave the next day or not.  All the guesthouses could do was advise us to turn up on the off chance the next day.  A course of action that we did not intend to take.  By pre-booking our accommodation as we have gone along we had saved ourselves a lot of time and effort, Ric and I had both seen the hoards of backpackers turning up and promptly roaming the streets, with their heavy packs on their shoulders, going from guesthouse to guesthouse trying to find a room and we did not intend to join them.  So slightly ruffled I returned to the internet cafe and continued my search, but to no avail, every guesthouse I called ( I must have spoken to a least ten by then) had the same answer.  We needed a plan B, rather irritated we retreated to a local bar and discussed our options over ice cold lemonades.  Pai had become another casualty of our Chiang Mai fever, obviously we decided, it was not meant to be, so why not enjoy a few more days in Chiang Mai and leave for Chiang Rai on the 6th?

'What are you two like!' was Aideen's response when we told her of our newly hatched plan later that evening, both she and Ting had already toasted our imminent departure twice before.  Laughing at our erraticism, she readily agreed to meet us for lunch the next day and arranged to call on us at CM Bluehouse at about noon.  The 5th of February arrived, and congratulating ourselves on our decision to stay and savour the delights of Chiang Mai a little longer, we showered and dressed in anticipation of Aideen's arrival.  Noon came and went, but it wasn't long before we were interrupted from our reading by a cheerful knock on the door.  Aideen and Ting were both joining us for lunch and then Ting was planning on taking us down to the local park to show us the highlights of said Flower Festival which had delayed our departure in the first place.

Lunch was a pleasure as always, especially as Ric had discovered the joys of Kao Soy, yet another Thai dish that we have both become addicted to.  Kao Soy consists of thick egg noodles, drenched chicken curry like a soup and full of fresh vegetables and a kind of pickled cabbage.  Incredibly tasty and also very messy, the dish is eaten with chopsticks, which in the past I have never been able to master.  The trick to eating Kao Soy is to grab some food with your chopsticks and lower you face as far down to the bowl as you can, munching on the noodles and biting off what you cannot fit in your mouth, therefore enabling you to enjoy your lunch without splashing it over yourselves and your neighbours, something I have yet to get down pat!

Lunch consumed, we headed off to the park and the Chiang Mai Flower Festival.  After a rather protracted walk at Thai speed(!), we arrived at the gates of the park and were greeted by crowds of tourists, locals,vendors and budding horticulturalists all milling about together.  We were delighted to find all the beautiful floats from the earlier parade (we had unfortunately just missed, an annoying habit of ours!) displayed throughout the main promenade of the park and merrily set about wandering around admiring the beautiful handiwork.  These were the most wonderful floral floats I had ever seen, not that Ric and I are experts in this field by any means, having never shown much enthusiasm for the subject, but you have to applaud anyone that that can create amazingly lifelike elephants out of flora and fauna.  The photographs below, barely do justice to the intricate arrangements, but at least they capture some of the incandescent colours and also the pure size of some of these floats, it was all quite breathtaking.  After an hour or so, the afternoon sun began to wear us down and we headed off in our separate directions, but not until arranging to meet Ting and Aideen for a quick farewell drink later that evening.

A few hours later we were happily chatting away to Ting and Aideen over a few Chang beers, when it suddenly hit Ric and I again that we were barely ready to leave Chiang Mai yet, we hadn't packed a thing and it was now 10pm.  Well, there was only one thing to do and this time we promised ourselves we would definitely leave for Chiang Rai on the 7th February.  Aideen and Ting had already guessed as much and informed us that they had decided to throw a goodbye barbecue at Ting's apartment the following night, which we thought was extremely sweet of them both.  The next day was spent seriously doing our research and we sorted out our accommodation in Chiang Rai, as well as finding out which bus we needed to catch and the timings.  Everything was in order this time we were definitely going.

As arranged, Aideen knocked on our door about 8pm and informed us the Ting would be with us shortly.  Unfortunately, there had been a change of plan as Ting had been called into a teachers' meeting after work and he had not been able to arrange the barbecue he had planned, so instead he was taking us to a 'barbecue'.  None of us were sure what Ting had planned and when he turned up we eagerly followed him out onto the street where he hailed a tuk-tuk.  With Aideen, Ric and I crammed into the back and Ting jammed into the front, amiably chatting to the driver and hanging on for dear life, we sped off.  We had no idea where we were going, but after a drive of 5 minutes or so we pulled off the main drag and rattled down a dirt track behind some apartment buildings.  The tuk-tuk parked up outside of what can only be described as an aircraft hangar.  Inside there were hundreds of tables and chairs and people (all Thai) milling about all over the place.  'Ting where have you brought us?' we implored intrigued, 'Barbecue!' was his enigmatic reply.

And he wasn't wrong.  Once we had found a free table (the place was heaving) and sat ourselves down we took the time to have a quick look around.  We were surrounded by people who seemed to be cooking their own food on small tin barbecues in the middle of their table.  We also had one of these apparatus, it looked something like an upside down colander, and before long a guy turned up and quick as lightening lifted up our 'barbecue' and shoved and spadeful of piping hot coals underneath it!  'Now we are ready to cook!' Ting beamed, but we had no idea what we were doing!  After some encouragement Ting persuaded Ric and I to get up and go and get ourselves some food.  Nervously, we sidled over to the long troughs, which seemed to stretch the whole length of the hangar and were filled with, vegetables, meat and fish, all raw and ready to cook.  Following the example of the locals we each grabbed a basket and some plates and proceeded to stock up on noodles, raw meat and fish etc.  Back at the table Ting complemented us on our finds and shot off to get some more food, leaving us with a sizzling barbecue and scant instructions on how to use it!

Hesitantly, Ric and I began to load the barbecue up with meat using the chopsticks provided, no knives and forks here chaps!  Watching the people around us we began to gain some confidence... that is until it was time to turn the sizzling food over.  Horror of horrors, it was all stuck fast to the metal of the barbecue and a horrid burning smell had started to pervade our area, as the meat began to curl up and turn a horrid shade of black!  'Ting, where are you?' Ric muttered under his breath as he frantically tried to prise the meat away from the pan with his chopsticks, I had long since given up, as mentioned previously I am cack-handed with the things at the best of times, and quietly consigned myself to starvation.  Looking around with exasperated eyes, I noticed that the Thai clientele on the next table were rolling up with laughter!  We were obviously amusing them no end!  It seemed like an eternity that Ting and Aideen were gone and by the time they did get back to the table they were greeted with a sticky black mess.  'Ting, we broke the fire.' I explained sullenly.  Luckily, Ting saw the funny side and cracked up and with a few flicks of his chopsticks he cleaned off the majority mess and then showed us how to use the fat provided to lubricate the barbecue so the food doesn't stick.  Ahh, so that's how it's done!

Embarrassment behind us, we followed Ting's example and began to cook ourselves a proper little feast, I even got to grips with my chopsticks and with the help of my benevolent host made sure my bowl was full.  Beef, pork, chicken, liver and an array of seafood was all consumed, along with tons of veggies and noodles which we boiled in the broth/soup that Ting poured into the channel around the 'colander'.  We ate and ate and ate, and perhaps got a little carried away with the cooking, as there was still quite a lot of food on the go when we all proclaimed ourselves absolutely stuffed.  Ting seemed very happy that we had enjoyed ourselves and even insisted on paying the bill outright, which was a bit awkward on our part, but he insisted that he was our host and at least allowed us to get the drinks in at the next bar.

Once paid, we all jumped into another tuk-tuk and headed off to The Good View Bar down by the river.  This is a rather swanky Thai place, and in fact Ric and I had witnessed a big launch party, of some sort, earlier in our stay and it had seemed pretty elite.  With Ting as our guide, we sashayed into the bar, sat ourselves down and ordered some drinks.  Ting explained that he wanted to bring us here as the live music was the best in town.  The Thai are mad for live music out here and we have been treated to an array of styles whilst we eat, drink or even shop, but this band were extremely good.  As before they played a mixture of Thai and Western pop, but their knowledge of up-to-date Western tracks was applaudable and Aideen and I were thrilled to hear songs that had been in the charts when we had left home.  Ric as you can imagine was not as enthralled, least of all when Aideen and I serenaded him with the full version of 'Lay a Whisper', in the tuk-tuk on the way home.

Dropping us off at our guesthouse gate we said a melancholy goodbye to our new found friends, Chiang Mai had become a real home to us in the past few weeks and their friendship meant a lot to us.  We all knew that we would be keeping in touch and assured Ting that we would see him again, as we are determined to return to Chiang Mai in the future.  We couldn't delay it anymore, Chiang Rai was calling and our deadline was looming, my last view of Ting and Aideen was of them on his bike, waving like mad as they zoomed off down our by now familiar soi, and I am not ashamed to say that I shed a few tears.

So onward to Chiang Rai at last.

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Photos / videos of "The Long Goodbye":