Chiang Mai, Thailand

Wednesday to Friday, 15 - 17 November 2006

We take an overnight train to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. The travel agency in Bangkok had promised us a 4-berth compartment with air-conditioning. However, this is a fairly wild misdescription. We arrive at the train station to find that we have 2 bunks in an open carriage with a few mouldy curtains for privacy and fans that don't work. There's no sign of the champagne and caviar supper either...

Chiang Mai is a nice town to spend a few days in. The old town is fairly compact, surrounded by a moat and the remnants of fortifications. We do a brief tour of the town, taking in the Wat Phra Singh temple. The temple isn't too different from the other temples we have seen but it does have a garden full of signs with backpacking-affirming Buddhist proverbs (e.g. "Anxiety shortens life"). Unsurprisingly, there is no sign of good Protestant work-ethic sayings like "one who is slack in work is close kin to a vandal” (Google and Proverbs 18, 9). Backpackers like the Buddhism, so they do!

We both do a cooking course while we're in Chiang Mai. Leahanne does one at the Chilli Club cookery school which is in the Eagle Guesthouse where we are staying. Dara goes to the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School, which offers a few too many fish dishes for Leahanne's liking! Both are good, you get a cookbook to take home with you and during the day we have a go at trying to cook things like Phad Thai, hot and sour prawn soup, green curry, fish cakes and spring rolls. One of the best bits of the courses was learning how to deal with that most deadly of foodstuffs, the "birds eye" chilli (i.e. not eat it).

We meet up with Leahanne's cousin, Sally-ann, and her friend Gill who have just spent the last while in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. As we will be going there next, we get a few tips from them. As luck would have it, one of Leahanne's and Sally-ann's friends from Dungarvan, Sarah, has been working as a teacher in Chiang Mai for the last year. It's her birthday while we are in Chiang Mai so we go to a birthday dinner and meet all her pals. Sarah takes great care of us and takes us to a traditional northern Thai restaurant the next night with her friends Helen and Kampon. During the meal, performers dance, juggle knives and do pantomime. Then tragedy strikes when a call goes out for audience participation. We are thrown to the lions and have to dance on a stage in front of the restaurant. There are about two hundred people watching and, judging by the amount of flash photography, Dara's unique two-left footed Thai ballet is a real treat for them! As we have missed the recent Yi Peng Lantern Festival, Sarah manages to get a few lantern balloons for us. During the festival hundreds of these "wishing balloons" are set off into the night sky. It must be a spectacular sight. We have no idea where they land though. The next day, there is nothing in the newspapers about buildings being burnt down or people being bombarded by lantern balloons so we are in the clear!

For more photos click here.