Chiang Mai - Happy New Year!!
Bangkok was a blur. It was New Year's week and everything was sold out. The trains and buses were not an option we finally settled on a flight to Chiang Mai. We then ran into our next problem – every hotel in town was booked. We sat in an Internet shop with Google maps, trip advisor and our cell phone. Cross-referencing location and reviews in conjunction with a place within walking distance to chabad for shabbos. After trying like 20 places, two hours and going a little further down the list of recommended places – we finally found one. Chiang Mai here we come.
Everyone we spoke to who has been to Chiang Mai loved it. But, such glowing reviews is a double edged sword. Our expectations were high going in but the hype made us a little leery to get our hopes up and then be disappointed. Chiang Mai is famous for trekking, hill tribes and elephant rides. We got into town and immediately were captivated by its charm. After being in so many crazy fast paced cities, Chiang Mai had such a chilled atmosphere, we totally understand why Chiang Mai became a must visit destination in Thailand. One thing that always helps keep up a reputation of laid back fun is the Thai massage culture. The streets were lined with lazy-boy chairs with ladies yelling from blocks away “you want massage?” Regular massage, Thai massage, oil massage and the ever popular fish massage. Regular road side massages seemed a little dirty, the pictures of Thai massage contortions seemed a little painful and we won't get into what we heard about the oil massage. But fish massage was new. All around town were big fish tanks that people stick their feet in and let the fish go to work. Supposedly, the fish make your feet nice and smooth by eating off the dead skin and calluses. Naturally, I had to see just how good these fish were. There should be warning for those who are ticklish like me. The fish swarmed my ankles and toes and it is like a hundred little fingers tickling you at once! I couldn't take it for very long and after a few minutes I had to take my feet out. But, they never looked better.
Just like Bangkok, as we walked around town we saw a ton of 7-11 stores. Now in Bangkok we did not find a Slurpee. But we only went to two locations, I thought it was just a fluke. Now we got to Chiang Mai and we went to three locations on the first day – no Slurpees! Now, I started to feel like the guy in the old Got Milk commercial. To refresh your memory, the commercial starts off with some jerk firing someone on the phone and as he does that he gets creamed by a bus. This bad guy then wakes up in an all white room. The room has a table with a giant plate of chocolate chip cookies. He takes a bite and screams heaven! Heaven! Then he opens a giant fridge and it is full of milk cartons – he is as happy as he can be. But, the first carton was empty, the second was empty same with the third, fourth and fifth. He then looks around and says where am I? (Here is a link to the commercial so you can get the full effect http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHWHJZUXSRg ) That's how I felt in Thailand! I thought I was in heaven, incredible weather exciting cities, great food and 7-11's everywhere! But then no Slurpees anywhere! I started thinking this was my hell! But, then we found it – the long lost Slurpee machine and all was right with the universe.
Chiang Mai has also transformed itself into an Eco-tourism/adventure destination as well. We booked a combo day trip and woke up early the next morning to see what the mountainous North had to offer. It was an incredible day in amazing scenery. We drove for an hour and entered into a lush mountain region where every turn around the bend led to another breath-taking view. Our group went to an area for an elephant trek through the mountains (yes more elephants!). This trip was not as authentic a feeling as in India but still very fun. It takes away a little when instead of having a mahout on the animal with you, he is walking along side to make sure our ride stayed on the path. We were sitting on a bench on top of the elephants back, but with no driver, there was room for us to try our best mahout impersonation so Danna and I took turns sitting on the elephants head and driving for a while. It is not as easy as the mahouts or Danna makes it look. I thought I was gonna fall on my head - and the hardest part was getting back off the animals head and back on the bench – you basically have to step on the poor creatures forehead and push yourself back up. Not pretty but effective.
From the elephant ride we had a two hour (round trip) hike to a waterfall through the mountains. North Thailand is just a beautiful place. Wild banana and papaya trees dot the landscape with other palm trees and flowers with butterflies everywhere. The hike was actually a lot more rugged than we expected. Narrow ledges and stream crossings. Balancing over fallen trees and bamboo bridges followed by a giant waterfall. The hike back felt a little longer than the way out there but we were excited about the next portion of the day. We got back on the minibus and headed to a river for whitewater rafting. The rafting was a ton of fun. The highlight of the rafting trip was at the end of the rapids run we switched to a traditional bamboo raft and Danna got to drive! She stood at the front a long raft with another piece of bamboo to use as a push poll to guide the 6 people in our group down the river. As we were coming to the end, a group of elephants was waiting on the bank watching us drift by. We dried off from the river and then went to a marketplace with handicrafts made by the various hill tribe villagers. One of the most famous are and unique traditions in the region is that of the Karen tribe. The women of this tribe wear brass rings around there neck, wrists and ankles as a beautification method. As the women get older, they add more rings. The weight of the rings around the neck (sometimes up over 10 pounds!) actually pushes down the collar bones and elongated the neck substantially. In fact after this bodily transformation takes place, the women cannot remove the rings as their necks require the rings for support – if they take them off just the weight of the heads could potentially break their necks. After the handicrafts we stopped into a butterfly and orchid farm to finish the day. It was an awesome day and really one of the most fun days we have had on the trip.
The next day was Friday, New Years Eve. With only half a day, we decided to do another popular Chiang Mai activity, a cooking class. There is a great vegetarian restaurant in town that offers cooking classes to make traditional Thai foods. In general, Thai food includes a lot of shellfish and fish products. So a true vegetarian Thai meal has a lot of interesting substitutes to help achieve all the flavors that non-veg meals contain. We had a small group of 5 people for the class, including two orthodox Israeli girls. It was very interesting and fun making different types of curries and coconut milk based soups. Everything was vegan in nature – we did not use a single product from any type of animal. Mushroom powder replaced the fish sauce for salty, soy protein replaced the meat and chilies are everywhere to give it a kick. The highlight of the cooking class was learning how to make Pad Thai noodles. This is a dish that Danna loves and orders all the time back home and now we got to make it! It came out awesome and Danna could not wait to sit down for the official meal before diving in to that plate. It was a really fun morning activity leading into shabbos.
We went chabad for shabbos and there was a lot of people. Friday night dinner probably had 100 people. Friday night was also New Years and the town was packed! It turns out that Chiang Mai is especially famous for New Years – both Chinese and Western (as they call it). There is always a night market but this night basically all the streets were closed to cars and there was stalls set up everywhere. A stage had live music and most famous of all was the release of the New Years floating offerings. Since it was shabbos we could take part or take pictures of this amazing tradition. If you check the blog pictures, I took two pictures off the web that show what it looked like during the release of these peaceful displays of hopefulness for the new year. Basically, it is a large paper sack around a square frame which holds a candle. You then light a fire under and hold until the sack fills with hot air – then when it is ready it is sent skyward to coast with the wind. There were thousands floating and twinkling in the sky – a magical sight. The peacefulness was interrupted at midnight when fireworks blasted from everywhere! Any open spot in town had there own make shift fireworks show going on and that is aside from the professional ones coordinated by the city. It was an awesome and explosive way to bring in 2011.
Sunday we set off for another highly acclaimed activity known as The Flight of the Gibbon. About one and a half hours out of Chiang Mai we set out for one of the world's largest zip line courses. The company boasted a 39 platform course which included the longest straight zip line in the world. Also, the course is set in an old forest that also happens to be the natural habitat of Gibbons a very endangered monkey in these parts. We were very excited for the day and everything was very professional and really well done. The course was magnificent and we were really fortunate to be able to see a mother Gibbon and her baby swinging through the trees near one of the platforms. It is really a wild feeling to be 75-100 feet high (at least) and have a small platform that you have step off and hope the line holds. Then you go zooming across the sky to a platform on another tree some distance away. Couple that with really wobbly rope bridges, repelling strait down a couple huge trees it was a day packed with adrenaline rushes. The only let down was that the super long zip line was out of order that day – but still the 38 platform course was incredible. The day finished with another short trek to an even bigger waterfall - then ride back to Chiang Mai.
What a few days. We really needed a fun injection into the trip and Chiang Mai came through on every level. The decision to go to Chiang Mai also finalized our Southeast Asia route for the next two months. From North Thailand from where we would make a long circle back around through Laos, Vietnam back to the Thai Beaches and back to Bangkok. Now we were gonna keep moving deeper into SE Asia to visit the “Jewel of the Mekong” - Laos.
