2/10–Dinner and Ansuran Market Cabaret show

Every time we have come to Chiang Mai, we have walked past the Ansuran Market Cabaret with the performers all lined up outside enticing us to come in.  We’ve never made it in all the weeks and now months that we’ve spent here – so tonight we make a conscious effort to go out to dinner late so we can arrive at the show by 9:00 to get a good seat. 

We’re also winding down on our nights left for dinner, so we are strategizing where we want to eat during our last week here.  Tonight we return to the Silver Eagle Indian restaurant that we loved so on our first visit.  We’ve wanted to return, and as a bonus, it is directly next door to the Cabaret. Perfect!

John, the owner (yeah, his name is actually Liaquat Ali, but he has John in parenthesis on his business card), greats us enthusiastically, and the waiter (who we wave at every day as we pass by him hawking customers on the street) comes over to say hello.  (I feel like we’re neighbors or something, we see these guys so often!).  We do our normal wine and beer, then try to figure out what we want different tonight.  We end up with Chicken Samosas for an appetizer (it looks so good, I can’t even wait to take a picture of it before I dig in – oops!), then follow that up with Chicken Butter Masala (never heard of that before and it is every bit as good as Masala or Butter chicken alone!) and Chicken Seekh Kabob (which is like the Greek kabobs but much spicier, I thought it almost tasted like jalapenos in there!).  Of course we have Butter Naan and Garlic Naan as accompaniments (no time to diet now – that will come all too soon when we get back home!). 

While we eat, there is music playing, but it’s always crazy in the market with music and noise, so I’m not really paying attention to where it is coming from.  One song  sounds just like Jackson Browne, but with an occasional Thai accent/pronunciation. How do they do that?  Is it a recording, I ask?  To which Ed replies, no dummy, it’s the live band right over there – and as I turn my head I see an entire band up on the stage at the back of the market area that I obviously, never ever noticed.  Sheesh. Ed has decided I’m really blonde, not grey.  LOL.

So, dinner over, John gives us a 10% off coupon “for life” – he signed his name to it! – sweet!  We then walk the 20 yards over to the Cabaret. We’re early enough to get a really good seat.  The show is free if you order drinks (somewhat over priced drinks, but still). Otherwise you are expected to pay 200b for admission. We of course order drinks, but as we pay I realize that I didn’t replenish our funds for the evening. Crap!  I only have about 300b left and that’s barely enough for another round. We’ve got a good 2 hours until the show will be over so we need more cash.  Bummer!

I ask our waitress where the nearest ATM is located and she shows me!  Seriously, she walks me out of the bar, into the back alley (you know, you’d think I would have been a little worried, but nah, I’m just walking through a back alley with a waitress to get to ATM!), out into the little Soi we just found that cuts through to the middle of the market, and out to the corner of the main street where – voila! – there are 2 ATMs.  Too sweet. 

Cash back in hand, we order more drinks, and sit and watch the show room fill up. 

The show finally begins – and what a show it is.  They are all just lip-syncing to the music, but it is fun and the performers are so pretty!  It’s amazing – I’ll let the pictures and the videos tell the story….

We particularly love the half guy/half girl!

Dancing Queen Video

Over My Head Video

I Love You Baby Video

It was a great evening of fun!  And so – have you figured it out?  Yep, these are all Ladyboys, or Katoeys, as they are called here.  Even the hot Diva chick didn’t start her life as a chick!  They are amazing, because they are all so pretty and feminine and so completely accepted here.  Most have had implants or  surgery, and all take hormones, and even my little ATM escort was a Ladyboy.  Fun!  So glad we finally did this!

2/10–Afternoon Waterfall and lunch

Back through the countryside we traipse on our way to the Mae Rim district and the Mae Sa waterfall.  Sakon tries to entice us into going to the umbrella factory so he can show us how they  make umbrellas, but we’ve been there twice, so we thank him but pass. I think he is feeling guilty that all we want to do are these 2 things – but really – that’s all we want to do!  We are very happy sitting here in the back of his “nice car” (that’s a big selling point with all the tour guides), drinking our water and watching the outskirts of Chiang Mai pass by.

And pass by they do – Sakon drives like a maniac!  Well, relatively speaking, everyone here does.  He races through empty stretches of road and passes anyone he can. We’ll get to Mae Sa really quickly this way!  As we wind our way from the far east end to the north, we take one of the ring roads where there is tons – and I mean TONS – of development and building. Oh my – the boom is on here for certain.  New housing development after housing development – it goes on forever.  Crazy!

We finally turn North heading toward the mountains and right into Mae Rim, which I was not expecting!  It is a very crowded, busy town with tons of restaurants, stores, etc., lining the main road. I was expecting a country, rural atmosphere – but not so.  As I mentioned before, this is a very touristy area – but it is mostly outdoor activities – so I assumed it would be rural.  We turn off the main road and start up a winding 2 lane road, which is more what I was envisioning – and here are all the tourist attractions:  Tiger Kingdom, Snake Farm, Monkey center, Orchid and Butterfly farm, ATV riding, Bamboo rafting, Bungy jumping, Insect zoo, elephant poopoo paper factory, elephant camps….I could go on, but why?  None of this appeals to us – we thought maybe the orchid farm, but then when we drove past it was packed with tourists – packed.  You could barely get in the parking lot. Nah – we’re going to the waterfall.

And to the waterfall we go – where we pay our 230b entrance fee and drive up to the main parking lot.  There is NO ONE here.  How bizarre is this?  A few Thais, all with little carrier baskets with picnic supplies. Darn! Wish we would have thought of that!  Oh well – we’ll have Sakon take us somewhere for sustenance – for now – we hike!

Sakon says he’ll meet us in 10 or 15 minutes to take pictures. Then points us to the trail and says “up, up, up.”  Ok!  Up, up, up we go!  This place is fabulous – again – there is hardly anyone here, it is beautiful and peaceful and the waterfall goes on forever.  There are at least 10 levels.  And at many levels you can swim and just mess around in the water.  Would be a great day trip to bring your bathing suit, your lunch and picnic up here all day.

Up we go…climbing to levels 7 and 8. Sunny enjoys being back in the wilderness too as we climb around rocks and signs  to take scenic pictures.

We go as high as we dare, climbing steep rock steps, then head back down to find Sakon on his way up.  Now the real photography begins! He is so adorable – stand here, go there, no – not right, over here!  As Ed says, we’ve had more photos taken of the 2 of us today than we have in the last 5 years! It’s great!

The only thing we draw the line at is going into the water.  We’ll skip that too – but the rest – well you can see from above – we listened to direction!

This place is great. So peaceful. So lovely.  You can see/hear it from the video:

http://youtu.be/_DkQoFmY20s

Glad we chose to do this – it was really a great location for a few wilderness hours.  But now, we’re basically done. Sakon wants to take us to the orchid farm, but I’m totally opposed. We tell him we just want to go to lunch – can he take us some place with good Thai food?  He says yes, but then gets a little confused over lunch and LPG because he was going in the trunk for water bottles for us and that’s where the LPG tank is, and well, miscommunication! 

So, we go back to food – miming eating.  We want good Thai food.  Yes, good, restaurant.  Sakon keeps on talking about the Orchid farm, restaurant is good, always full.  I finally put my foot down (Ed says I whined!), and say no, no orchid farm, but a restaurant.  I’d rather not eat than eat in a tourist trap.

So we head back down the windy road with the tourist attractions – and passing the damn orchid farm, it’s even crazier crowded.  Fine. We have food in the condo.

We get another tour around the outskirts of town, this time skimming the Northern section on another ring road, finally dropping off into the road next the Ping which will take us to the condo. Sakorn points out the highlights and talks to us about the 200 Wats (temples)  in and around Chiang Mai. We think we’ve probably been to 100 of them! As we get closer to home, the traffic thickens, and then Sakorn pulls off into the lot of a restaurant on the left. Cool!  Miscommunication handled!  It’s a fabulous outdoor spot right on the Ping with only a couple of tables occupied.  He leaves us there and says he’ll be back in an hour.  We were going to ask him to eat with us – but he gave us no option. So, ok.

As it turns out, this is Khuey Chiang Mai has been around for 22 years, starting out near the moat in the city, then a year or 2 ago moving out to this new, bigger location on the Ping. We find all this out later when we get back home (after researching it on a site hysterically enough called HungryFatGuy.com – the site is in Thai.  It’s all about food and this Hungry Fat Guy reviews restaurants, but the even funnier thing is the Google Translation – I laughed until I cried!).  But, anyway, back to the restaurant.

We hang out at a great teak table in the shaded portion of the raised eating space, watching the Ping river and trying to figure out just exactly what we want to eat. The menu is enormous! With fabulous selections like Ant Egg Omelet and Stir Fried Jew’s Ear Mushroom with Egg.  Or how about a big old bowl of Pond Snail Curry?  No, but wait, they have Salted Puffball Soup!  Yes!

We decide to be a little less adventurous and go with some more traditional fare (shown below from L to R):  Lanna Northern Style Pork Curry (the pork was tender as could be and the sauce the perfect blend of spices), Minced Pork Omelet soup (which was delicious – a combination of our 2 favorite meals – Khao Soy type soup with a whole pork omelet floating in it!), Half a chicken, fried with lemongrass (the fried lemongrass on top was delightful on it’s own – the half a chicken not so much – literally – it was very small, so our least favorite).

We also had 2 large beers – with ice.  I’m liking beer with ice now. Keeps it oh so cold and sort of waters down the carbonation, which is a huge help for me!  We leisurely eat our meal, enjoying the scenery and breeze off the river, as we wait for Sakon to pick us up.

Our hour is over, and there is Sakon, waving to us from the parking lot!  We hop in the “nice” car and make our way down the Ping to Chang Klan Road and our condo – with one pit stop though – the CD!  True to his promise, we stop on the way and pick up the CD with all our fabulous pictures, as well as a couple of others he threw in there to show us where else he could take us (the white palace in Chiang Rai in particular!)

He drops us off at the entrance to our Soi (street), and we are fully expecting him to charge us extra for the CD.  Nope – it’s included!  Totally cool – so of course we give him a big tip, because he is adorable and it was a great day. We also have his card so when we come back, if we want a tour, he’ll be the first one we call!

Rest and relaxation, then a night out on the town (or the market!).