Five great things we did in Chiang Mai
Northern Thailand was never something I dreamt about when thinking about this country. Who would like to go deep inside the land when you can hop from one island to another visiting stunning beaches?
But people kept telling me how great Chiang Mai was and how much this vibrant city stole their hearts. So once it started to rain in Koh Phangan, we packed our stuff in the morning and were getting keys to our airbnb many kilometers further north in the afternoon.
On a not-so-side note: our airbnb turned out to be something very special so we decided to show it in a video (find it here and at the bottom of this post). Now back to the actual topic.
Relatively small with 160 thousands inhabitants, the city feels very dense with its traffic and ubiquitous street food stalls and markets. You can instantly feel the artistic and crafty vibe, especially after visiting the Night Bazaar with countless — and very cute — clothes, jewelry and accesoires.
Expats, tourists and Thai people mix in an eclectic crowd and it’s not uncommon to see a Brasilian guy with a hipster hat and several tattos on his arm eating Khao Soi (delicious!) in a streetfood stall next to a Thai grandpa who is sipping rum from what seems to be a private bottle.
I am writing this post during the night in a very small village in Myanmar (all shops and eateries long closed), and got a bit frustrated cause my mouth started watering at the very thought of Khao Soi. This dish stole both our hearts, or much rather: our stomachs! I guess it’s time to list the most awesome things we did in Chiang Mai and there is no way around it — consuming tones of street food needs to open the countdown:
1) Khao Soi and crispy pancake: no food like street food
After having our fair share in the belly revolution while in Bali, we currently feel like the bacterias settled hence we can eat street food and yes, we will. Cause not only is it the best way to feel the vibe of the place but it also tastes just awesome, is much cheaper and you always support the local people.
We were lucky enough to start with a weekend in Chiang Mai and went to eat in the famous Saturday Night Market but there is practically a food market every day and in several parts of the city. It can get pretty crowdy and the choices might feel overwhelming but that’s part of the charm. Pad Thai prepared in front of your eyes, huge squid and king prawns just waiting to be grilled on an open fire, curry of all sorts, many things we didn’t know the name of and fruit shakes and pancakes sent from heaven (cause there is another stomach for sweets, everbody knows that!).
The cool thing about the city is that even after midnight you can find some street stalls selling food although no shop will sell you alcohol after that time, so if you want to have a beer to go with that chicken skewer, plan for the future (speaking from experience).
And I can’t repeat this enough: if you ever lay your foot in Chiang Mai, go to eat its typical dish. Khao Soi is a marriage between a coconut egg noodle curry and chicken broth complemented by shallots, lime and chilli with crispy noodles on the top. Somebody should make that thing a hit in Berlin.
2) Massage by ex-inmate women
Since we were in Thailand, we had to go for a Thai massage. It is famous for being pretty hard (not to say painful), with the masseuse working with all her/his body on you. Elbows, knees, almost all is allowed. Tiago is not a big fan of massages in general (something I simply can’t understand) but he agreed to keep me company this one time. As usual, there was an abundance of offers so we went yet again on Foursquare to crowdsource the choice. We found a place two streets away with good rating, called “Lila Thai Massage“. Once we arrived we realised that the place has a very noble cause — it hires ex-inmate women who developed their therapist skills while in prison and now seek to reintegrate into society which isn’t always easy. Created by an ex-director of the prison, the place was ultraclean and really lovely arranged.
We booked a traditional Thai massage for Tiago and I decided to go slightly off the beaten track with the hot Compress Thai Massage. Half an hour later we were assigned two women who invited us into a room where we could change into pretty pijamish looking clothes. Not to bore you too long —although the compress thing reminded me a bit of the good old Polish “cupping” and left me with mixed feelings, all in all the massage was the right kind of hard, the women were big pros and we felt great afterwards. A big thumbs up!
3) Daytrip to Mon Cham and strawberry fields
Although streets of Chiang Mai are full of trekking offers, we were a bit put off by many agencies offering the morally dubious visit to the long neck Karen tribes and elephant riding and decided to explore the mountains by ourselves, as well as to go for a meditation retreat instead (with a mix of excitement and worry — this experience was wonderful though and it deserved a post on its own, coming soon).
After researching some more unique spots, we rented a motorbike big enough to ride a mountain and made ourselves on the way to our chosen spot: Moncham, a mountain top covered in strawberry fields.
But before, two words on the motorbike situation: Thailand officially requires an international driving licence to drive any vehicle. Almost everybody knows this and nobody really cares which fuels the following ecosystem:
- most of the foreigners whether don’t research it before or are too lazy to get one back home as they read that it’s not really a big problem
- the bike renting agencies don’t require it and belittle the police threat when asked (“ah, you pay 200 baht and you can go”)
- the police is cashing out on occasional but targeted controls on the way to tourist spots.
Unfortunately we ended up in the too lazy group (preferred to eat pastel de nata in Lisbon instead of queuing in some office) hoping it won’t really be a problem. And it wasn’t the first two times in the Old City when the polite policeman found the Portuguese driving licence good enough. It turned out to be on the way to Moncham when the corrupted policeman demanded 1000baht for letting us go pointing at some paper all in Thai except for the written in big block letters “International Driving Licence”.
He was apparently trying to hide this procedure from his collegues as he was almost violently hurrying us up and looking nervously to the sides. As we didn’t want much trouble and really wanted to make our maintain trip happen, we obeyed, however with a dirty feeling inside. Later on the road we heard about the common techniques of keeping only 200 baht in the wallet to avoid the highly overpriced fine.
Anyway.
The ride up to mountains was just amazing. The bike was fast, we felt like badasses and the villages, rice fields and hills we were passing on the way to the top were among the most beautiful things we have ever seen. The 1000 baht were totally worth it, we thought.
Once we reached the top, we had what you could call “a lunch with a view” in simple bamboo huts overlooking the valleys. The area around the tophill restaurant was so surprising! A garden full of blossoming flowers and butterflies in a density per square meter you could only see in a botanic garden. All that surrounded by strawberry fields. The fields are part of Royal Project Farms supporting poor local farmers in cultivating cool(er)climate crops in order oto sell them for higher prices in the market.
4) Thai Farm Cooking class
The Thai food is so delicious, why not learn some basic knowledge and recreate it home? We’ve heard it’s great fun and subscribed for a one day course on an organic farm outside the city. We went for the well recommended Thai Farm Cooking School and were not dissapointed.
We were picked up by Wass, our really funny guide for the day. Wass kept explaining the secrets of Thai kitchen in really good English to our small international group while at the same time threatning us with throwing the ones who failed in executing her instructions into a pond with the alligator called “Nadja”. And so I came really close to loosing Tiago to Nadja as he forgot to leave out one carrot piece for decoration purposes (something incredibly important, as Wass explained, raising the price of the dish by 100 additional baht).
We sampled spices, produced our own curry, fried spring rolls and learned how to make sticky rice blue (my personal favourite!). It was really lots of fun and at the end we even got a recipe book for training purposed at home. Without Nadja. Secret tip: if you burn your lips with chilli, plam sugar will give you relief.
5) Blues concert in Night Bazaar
On our very first night in Chiang Mai we totally accidentally ended up on a blues concert. After exploring the Night Bazaar we just followed what seemed to be great music, walk up the stairs to a little bar called Boys Blues Bar in the middle of the Bazaar and we didn’t leave for the next 3 hours. A cross-generational Thai band together with a British crazy chick and her absolutely impressive guitar mates. We were dancing and singing, it was truly a blast!
Where we slept, what we ate, where we hipstered
Trigo House — this video will explain everything:
Khao Soi — a food stall near the entrance of the Ming Muang Market on the inside border of the Old City. Serves 2 sizes — small and large for 40/50 baht.
Nimman district — hipster area with horrible spicy salad bars (curiosity was punished) and mediocre restaurants but awesome cafes where you can feel like a real digital nomad. Upscale, modern, posh and very hipster pretty. A place to live and feel special for many startup and blogger people out there. While there we spend two productive working days in a cool but unassuming Cafe Roastniyom with great coffee and even better matcha cappuccino. The cafe is build around a tree. A real tree.
