VIII. Chiang Mai

After an overnight train ride due north we arrived at our destination around 9am. Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand and it is known as having more temples per square kilometer than any other area in South East Asia. Originally, we were using it as a jumping off point for the Elephant Nature Park, but we had a couple of weeks that were pretty loosely scheduled so we decided to stay and chill out. After all, we really needed a rest after the strenuous adventures of sitting on a gorgeous island with nothing to do but sip vast quantities of umbrella drinks.

A pattern that is developing upon our arrival in a new town is we either get the worst room in the right hotel or a good room in a wrong hotel. Either way, we've learned not to unpack until the second day which was when we moved into our right room at Gap's House Guest Lodge and Cooking School. Gap's is a little hamlet of teak houses surrounded by a thicket of lush vegetation in the middle of the old section of Chiang Mai. In the middle lies a restaurant which is famous for serving the finest vegetarian buffet around. It was certainly the best I've ever had, and at 80 baht ($2.13 US) it is definitely some of the cheapest too. Yeah, you can get cheaper street food, but in reality, most of the veg. street food is loaded with meat and tastes like boiled straw with a few drops of nuclear chili sauce dribbled over it.

Old Town in Chiang Mai is fortified by walls and a surrounding waterway which is great because moats are always cool in my book. The entire city is full of little pockets of beautiful traditional teak houses sprinkled amongst the new world economy architecture of cement and glass, yet it still maintains the charm of a small town. And as in many places in Thailand the Sunday night market serves as the one event where locals and tourists blend into one shopping tour de force. And believe me, foot massages are a plenty here.

Granted, we saw more monks in Dharamsala, but the guide books are right about the plethora of temples. I think that Helen and I must show up really strong on monk radar because everywhere we go now we get stopped by groups of them so they can practice their English. At Wat Suan Dok, the largest temple in town, there is a program called MonkChat in which you...um...chat with monks. But since September is low tourist season it's usually cancelled for the month...did that stop them from cornering us in temples? No! But in reality I have to admit I love talking to monks. They're very gentle and polite and many of them are pretty funny. I can sit there and chew the fat with them all day.