The last stop on our SE Asia trip was Chiang Mai. This city was unexpectedly fun due to the backpacker-friendly culture and the accessibility of so many ancient temples. Every street corner seems to have its odd little cafe or trendy youth hostel, and many restaurants have highly decorated gardens and interesting twists on typical Thai food. The expat community is very large, and it is quite common to hear English. Yet amidst the international mix, there there are all the signs of a very ancient and very religious culture. We participated in something called "Monkchat", in which we were able to converse with the local monks. They are trying to learn English, so they could practice their language skills, and we were able to ask them questions about Buddhism and their beliefs and experiences. We loved gaining understanding about the practice of Buddhism while observing it all around us!
We stumbled upon several open street markets. We were tempted to buy everything, but we had no room in our backpacks, so we had to practice some self control. We did, however, partake in street food! It was all insanely cheap and incredibly delicious.
We took a cooking class here, as we love Thai food, but don't often make it at home. We chose a class that let you choose which items from the menu you wanted to make, so we could make different things and have a wider variety of recipes to take home! To start the class, the chef drove us to one of the markets and took us shopping for fresh local ingredients, explaining to us what each item was... some of which we had never heard of nor had any idea of the flavor. The entire group was amazed at the potency and uniqueness of the various spices and vegetables we were collecting and sampling throughout the market.
Once back at his kitchen, we were all put to work peeling, chopping, smashing and grinding. We learned that "curry" isn't a particular spice, as is often thought; curry is any mixture of spices typically found in the Asian world.
We made several dishes including spring rolls, pad thai, penang curry, noodle soup, and of course, mango sticky rice. Devin made his extra spicy with the abundance of hot peppers laying about the table.
A highlight of our time in Northern Thailand was traveling outside the city into the hills where there was an elephant preserve. Many tourists like to ride elephants, but we learned that those operations typically do not treat the elephants very well, and it can seriously hurt them, especially the younger ones. Instead, we opted to go with a company that rescues elephants from the abusive tourism, and instead allows you to feed, bathe, and play with them. After learning to feed them bananas and sugar cane, we gave them a mud bathe, and walked down to the river to wash them. This actually turned into a full mud fight between all the participants, and made for a very memorable day!
Once we were in Northen Thailand, we realized that the region has a lot more to offer than we had time to cover in our three days there. We would love to go back to Chiang Mai and do more hiking and exploring of the surrounding mountainous areas, as well as enjoy more of what is a super trendy and quaint city.
Technically, Chiang Mai wasn't our last stop, as we spent one day in Bangkok before flying back to Barcelona. Although Bangkok has it's famous temples and attractions, we really weren't too excited about navigating a huge city. We used our time in Bangkok to just rest, went to a movie in the theater, and shopped at a 37-acre market. We don't feel like it actually counted as being in Bangkok, as we mostly hid from the madness of the city.
Our time in SE Asia was like a sampler platter, we have tasted a bit of different areas and scoped out the scene. It definitely wet our appetite for more, and now have a better idea of where and what to concentrate on the next time we go! We loved each place that we went and appreciated the differences between them all as well. This part of the world is beautiful in every way - incredible scenery, genuine people, delicious flavors, and fascinating culture. We can confidently say that we will be back!
