10/30 Chiang Mai

Off we go, in the pouring rain! Oh my gosh, pour Leng! Once again he’s going to be soaked, heck, we got soaked going through the puddles and the huge ponds that are the streets of Siem Reap. We get the airport in tact but totally soggy! TIC!

Smooth as silk – check in, departure tax, boarding area, get on plane, food – oh man – do they feed you on these flights. Every plane we’ve been on – and we’re talking all these flights are less than one hour – we get food – breakfast, lunch/snack – it’s great. Don’t have to buy a darn thing……no further comments…….

So anyway –we’re up and off – and back in Bangkok in no time, head to our transfer gates, we hop on the Chiang Mai flight and land in ex-pat land right on time. Bags and we’re out the door. We wanted to get a tuk-tuk to the guesthouse, but that’s a long story – so we ended up with a cab and were deposited at the Green Tulip 10 minutes later.

Quick, easy, and what a cute place! It used to be a garage of all things – and the remodeling they must have done! Now it’s a great, fun place to hang out in the restaurant/café area (with techno music when Stella – the owner – is there) and decent, clean rooms spread out over 5 floors of beautiful teak wood. We walk in and immediately are taken into the family by “Nine”, the defacto den mother of the Green Tulip. Nine (her real name is Nye or Nya or something, but she just calls herself Nine now for us farangs) is a hoot. She knows everything, sells tours like a true F&I manager, and generally just makes everyone welcome and feel at home.

She shows us to our room, which has a great little balcony looking out back away from the street, and immediately sets upon Ed for not booking all our tours with her. We settle in, then come back downstairs to begin our exploration of the place everyone just loves in Thailand – it’s supposedly got great restaurants, bars, shopping (way cheaper than Bangkok) and 15,000 ex-pats who have made this their home. As we leave, Nine is still selling tours, and we’re considering changing our cooking tour to take hers – we’ll see!

We head out into the heat – although everyone says it’s supposed to be cooler here, I’m not getting it. It’s still HOT! We get the feel of the place and find the Garden – which is the place to be on Sunday night when they have bands starting at 7. We head back to the hotel, cool off then head out for the evening.

Chiang Mai is made up of a few basic areas, with the old town and the close surrounding “sprawl” the major trading area. The old town (which is where we are staying) used to be enclosed within a wall (that you can see remnants of around the city) and has a moat all the way around. Immediately outside the old town are some high rises and residential areas, as well as the “hotel” zone and the night market. We’re on the exact opposite end of town from the hotel zone, it’s quiet and peaceful on our streets and nice to walk around at night.

The downside is that this place is bigger than it looks. We head out to get to the Night Market and it defeats us. Highly unusual, and only by a block because we didn’t go far enough, but it was still too much of a haul from our hotel. We had stopped for refreshments at the Beer Bar – which actually also had wine (yay!) – before continuing on our trek. When we finally turned back, we decided to hit the “beer bar” area to see what was there in terms of food and drink. The only challenge was getting across what we started calling the “zoom zoom” road. It’s the ring road around the walled part of the city – and it is crazy. You could stand there the rest of your life trying to get across. We made it twice – but we were ready for sustenance after our 2^nd time!

Ended up at this teeny little place called the S & T Bar/restaurant. 3 tables from polished oak tree trunks, a small bar, pool table and one huge TV. We had Pad Thai, Fried Pork and some sort of Spicy Pork (we think) with peppers. Beer and a big wine and we were at $10.50 US. Jeez! Oh – and did I mention the internet? Every bar, restaurant, guesthouse has free internet. Either big terminals or laptops available for anyone to use. It’s really a great feature of the city in general – you’re connected where ever you go.

Walked back to the Tulip, had another beer with Stella – although no white wine – she only drinks red wine, so I have to settle for beer here…bummer! Then to bed – we’re doing our Trek tomorrow – so we have to prepare!