More Chiangmai

Sunday, Nov 8th:

One of my favorite days thus far... Woke up and met the boys at my new little diner for a scrumptious breakfast of sticky rice and mango, a Tahoe House style coffee and fresh orange tangerine juice. Went back over to their place as we figured out plans for the day and got in touch with their friend Liz. Set up a meeting spot at Dunkin Dounuts and figured we could all meet up and have Liz and her boyfriend show us around. Liz, Greg's friend from home, has been over here teaching english for the past 4 years and now has a house with her Thai boyfriend, Poat, just outside of Chiangmai. We head there first and get a tour of the place and sit down for some great passionfruit juice. Their house is perfect- modestly sized, hidden a bit behind trees and other shrubery and has a huge deck that is covered with bonsai plants that Poat maintains. We take off from there up into the mountains and go to a little waterfall along the way. Climb up a short ways and watch the local boys nearly kill themselves as they jump from the cliffs and trees into a swimming hole that's about 5 feet deep. Eat some tangerines and papya that Liz had brought and watch Andy and Greg swim around for a few minutes.

We all headed back down the path and pick up some food from the little vendors at the base of the park. I get a spicy papya salad while Andy and Greg get a mix of pork wrapped and cooked in banana leaves, meatballs on a stick, chicken legs and fried silk worms. We pack up all the food and head towards the national park that is just a bit further up the road.

We flail for awhile as we try to explain that Liz is not a tourist and lives here and pays taxes (as locals only have to pay 20B instead of 100), and finally get into the park. This little national park is just gorgeous and is very well organized and put together. There is camping and bungalows and bathrooms with well maintained coy ponds out front and an amazing selection of recycling to be had (a rarity around here). We set up our picnic at the base of the waterfall and dig into our little smorgasbord of unusual food. Everything is delicious and even the fried silk worms are not that bad. We hiked around the trail that snaked around the waterfall and ended up turning back as it started getting dark. The hike was nothing too intense but it was good to get out and tramp around again. There haven't been too many times I have sweat here that haven't been weather-induced. We all hopped onto our bikes and headed back towards town. We all headed back to our respective 'homes' and got cleaned up. Met back up later with the boys and we headed to the Sunday Night Market.

So this little town/city has the main central square which is litterally a perfect square that used to be completely enclosed by a large brick wall and even a mote. Today, the mote still remains but the majority of the wall is down. The main gates and the corners of these walls, however, are still in place and serve as a reminder of the security they once provided. Ok, enough history... So the Sunday Night Market takes place at the west gates of Chiangmai and closes down a number of streets next to it. I mean, this market is HUGE. It really did seem neverending. I feel we only saw about half of what there was and we were shopping around for probably 4 hours or so. The boys did their Christmas shopping as I looked at everything with the attitude of 'yea, I could get it but do I really want to carry it with me for the next 3.5 months??'. I walked away with a little hills-tribe-made pouch for my iPod touch and a plate of padthai while the boys were buying bowls made of mango wood and wooden frogs that actually sound like frogs and decorations and necklaces to send home. I had to call it a night as my legs were just shot from being on them all day... Said my goodbyes to my shopaholic friends and now bed. Pai tomorrow!