Two Beers and a Pretzel

I’ve been in Chiang Mai for 2 days now, and I really like this town.  The “Same Same Guesthouse” is really laid back, clean, cheap, and the staff is super friendly (like insisting you try the food they just cooked for free).  No AC, but large rooms with ceiling fans for $7/night – and free wifi.

The first night I walked around the old town, across the stone wall, and to the open street market.  Along the way I stopped for some street food and had spicy fish soup – sharing a table with a local.  The guy must have gotten a kick out of me turning red and crying as I ate the delicious, but extra spicy concoction, so unbeknownst to me, he paid for my meal.  As you can imagine, people in Chiang Mai are really friendly and laid back.

Later, at the night bazaar, among all the fake sunglasses, fake North Face backpacks, fake jemstones, real artwork, funny t-shirts, and shoe kiosks along the street, I found a place making large, fresh fruit juice smoothies for over $1…

I went with a yummy Pineapple / Strawberry.

Yesterday was a good chance for me to catchup on all kinds of things – especially with a fast and free internet connection.

Today I just completed my 1 day Thai cooking class in Chiang Mai.  It was actually only about 5 hours since we only had 4 students and the peak season class size is 18.

We started with a tour of a local food market where chef/owner Permpoon Nabnian taught us about the different fruits, veggies, eggs, and rice, how to chek if their ripe or good, and compared alternate ingredients.

Making coconut cream

Kafir Lime:

Plain and sticky rice:

After driving to his house in the countryside about 13km outside of Chiang Mai, the chef started by showing us how to prepare Spicy Papaya Salad, Spring Rolls with Plum Sauce, and Sweet Sticky Rice with Mango.

One important lesson he gave us was that when tasting someone else’s cooking, you taste, close your eyes, savor for a few seconds, swallow, give a slight smile, and say “unbelievable”.  Never say “mmmm”, “good”, “yummy”, “yuck”, or “eeeeww”…  Just say “un-be-liev-able” in a slow and meaningless way…

Then we each got to chose 4 out of 12 possible which the chef giudes us as we prepare them ourselves.  I elected to learn how to make spicy Tom Yam soup with Prawns (delicious):

Chicken Pad Thai, Panang Tofu, and Sweet and Sour Chicken.

I still can’t decide if it was more fun to eat the food, or to make it.  I think I’m going to take a nap after eating all of that at once…

The Sweet and Sour Chicken was really great, and a blast (literally) to make.  The Pad Thai Chicken and Panang Tofu were both wonderful, but after having similar meals for most of the last few days, some of the food with different flavors and textures topped my list.  My favorites were the Spicy Tom Yam Soup with Prawns, Papaya Salad with Sticky Rice, and Sweet Sticky Rice with Mango.

The best part is that we get to keep a copy of the cook book and get a certificate saying that we did not singe our eyebrows too terribly.

Tomorrow I start a 2 day motorbike tour of the countryside.  I should get to do the popular things like riding elephants, bamboo river rafting, seeing the Long Neck ladies in the Karen tribe, campfires, and waterfalls – also riding about 200 kilometers on a 250cc dual-sport bike.

^ the main entrance to Angkor Wat
Imagine that Cincinnati, Ohio is actually a massive tourist destination named “Kentucky Sucks” – and the only real way for tourists to get there is via Louisville…   Welcome to Siem Reap.  Translated, it means Siamese Defeated – reminiscent of an ancient battle where the Khmer (Cambodians) pushed the Siamese (Thais) out of Angkor.  And the majority of tourists get to there from Bangkok.

I booked a taxi share from Bangkok to the Cambodian border and on to Siem Reap.  As you get to the border, everyone tries to scam you.  They charge too much for the on-the-spot entry visa ($30 versus $20); then the taxi is not ready, but you can take a bus (and not get the $10 refund); they convert your Thai Bhat to Cambodian Riel (for all intensive purposes, Cambodia uses the US Dollar); yadda, yadda, yadda…

For anyone wondering what the countryside looks like – imagine Indiana with Palm trees, rice paddies instead of soybean fields, the occasional cow on the road, and thousands of mopeds.  The pictures really weren’t that good, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

The bus stopped in Siem Reap at a guesthouse owned by the driver, and he promised “no pressure”, and “free ride to other if you no like”.  Of course, his place was a dive, he was horribly offended if you tried to leave, and his tuk-tuk driver tried to charge me double the going rate to get into town.

It seems annoying, but you quickly realize that these people are dirt poor, and many normal tourists fall for their scams, so more power to them.  After a while, the locals can tell that you know the game, and they lighten up.  That’s when you start to notice how warm and friendly Cambodians really are.

I ended up staying at “Shadow Of Angkor II” in the Psar Chaa neighborhood.  A very nice guesthouse with AC, in room fridge, in room hot shower and a pool for $20/night – plus all towels and linens, and 2 free bottles of cold water every day before you left to explore the temples.  This was nicer than many low end places, but no where near as expensive as the brand new (and isolated) super luxury hotel/spas on National Road 6 (2 km away), but it was very close to all the nifty shops and restaurants in the “old” tourist area.

The first night I explored Psar Chaa.  There are lots of kids selling books and toys, landmine victims performing music and selling more books, as well as tons of places to eat and a number of really cool shops.  However, stories of Siem Reap are boring compared to the Indiana Jones style adventures you can have here at the temples…

After going across the massive moat and thru the main gate, you finally see the main temple of Angkor Wat – about half a kilometer away…  Angkor Wat is old and huge.  Built in the 12th century, it’s the largest religious complex ever constructed.  The outer wall (not counting the moat) encloses and area twice the size of Vatican City.

It’s amazing who you run into here…  The Traveling Bunny!!

And a view from the corner…

Walking around inside the main walls, but outside the temple, there is a forest with tons of monkeys…

I spent the rest of the day riding around in a tuk-tuk and exploring 6 other temples.  All were impressive, but Angkor Wat takes the cake – so I assume most people won’t really care about pictures of another ancient ruin…  However, there was one that was especially interesting – the faces on the Bayon Temple of Angkor Thom (the complex built as the capital after Angkor Wat was essentially abandoned).

The orange figure in the middle is a Buddha statue draped in orange silk.  If you look carefully, you can make out the faces on each tower for which this temple is famous.

In the evening I had a great sweet and sour chicken.  The main strip in the Psar Chaa neighborhood of Siem Reap has a number of restaurants that donate a portion of the profits to local causes like saving street children, helping landmine victims, etc…  So when the food is this good, you don’t mind paying a bit extra for a good cause… and yes, that’s a real pineapple.

In general, Thai food is much better than Khmer food, but it’s all better than fast food back home…

The next day I woke up for sunrise over Angkor Wat.  It was a little too cloudy to be spectacular, but a little photo-shopping of the image gives you a close approximation of the color…  and you get to see part of the moat…

Then I went to more temples, including the Ta Prohm temple made famous by Angelina Jolie traipsing around in the Tomb Raider movie.  This is the ruin with trees growing everywhere…

A flight back to Bangkok on the 1st was $50 on Bangkok Airways.  After about 1 hour in a turboprop, I caught a cab back to the Thanon (main street) Sukhumvit area and checked into The Atlanta Hotel on Soi (side street) 2.  I had to go to the nearby Indian Embassy the next morning to iron out my Visa.  The downside of this is very nearby Soi 4 and the Nana Plaza, a famous red light district reputedly full of girls who used to be boys.  I had to walk by on the way to the embassy…  it was eerily reminiscent of the creepy old guys with young girls in Costa Rica (except some of these ‘girls’ had adams apples).  Luckily, unlike many hotels in the area, The Atlanta has a strict “No Sex Tourists” policy, does not allow “visitors” and has a nifty 50′s era lobby, great cafe, and Big Band and Jazz music playing.  Other than that, the rooms are your basic dive hotel (it is cheap) with a decent location in the heart of central Bangkok.

On the 2nd, I applied for my India Visa.  They say it will be ready on the 8th, so I’ll have to miss the Full Moon party on Koh Pha Ngan… Oh well, it’s really just a bunch of drunk 20-something British tourists, and I had enough of that in Australia…

That evening I caught a flight to Chiang Mai.

As an aside, major travel websites are a massive ripoff…  That flight was $120 on Expedia (excluding taxes),  $45 thru a local travel agent (including taxes), and would have been $35 if I could have gotten the Thai Airways website to work (mid day internet is horridly slow in Bangkok).