Thailand: Chiang Mai

I think I am well overdue for a post and I apologize for that.

Anyway, I still need to talk about Chiang Mai. In my last post I left off on a train ride with three other girls from Massachusetts. My hostel set me up with them because they happened to have a spare bed in their bunk and we were all around the same age. They were really nice and fun to hang out with, but they were really close friends so it made me miss all my close girl friends at home. One day I want to travel around South America or Asia or Europe with a couple friends (or sisters! Jo, Gabe, Sam, Ashley f? Everyone else, you reading this?)

Anyway, back to the train ride. It was a night train so I didn't have to leave for the station till around 6 pm (I think). Then we got a bunk to sleep in and blankets and pillows and stuff. The train station was really busy since trains are still a really popular form of travel in Thailand (and Korea too, I'm taking one this week, but that's a different post!). We found our bunk no problem then just hung out and talk and ate some snacks. Finally we all tried to sleep. The train was fairly quiet, but the movement did keep me awake a bit. Still, it was cool to wake up in the morning and find I was in a different place. The countryside was really beautiful in the morning, all misty and cool looking. Lots of green plants I'd never seen and rolling, open fields. It was magical.

When we arrived in Chiang Mai we caught a kind of cab to our hostels, this is where the girls and I parted. The 'cabs' in Chiang Mai were basically small pick-ups with covered back, benches in them and they had an open door at the back. But very comfortable and cheap to travel in. I made it to my hostel and was happy to find friendly guests their. The first girl I met was an American and immediately invited me to go see a temple with her and some other girls. Unfortunately we didn't make it to the temple that day, but I wandered around the edge of the main city and saw some really beautiful temples. Chiang Mai (apparently) has over 200 hundred temples. Suffice to say I will be returning there. It also has a million scooters, even more than Bangkok. Scooters were the main mode of transportation. My favourite temple in Chiang Mai was definitely the first one I found which was done in the lanna style architecture (I believe). It was different than the temples I'd seen in Bangkok, there was a lot less gold, but it was covered in beautiful, intricate carvings everywhere (photos on facebook). It was all done in a dark wood and it had huge sloping roofs. It was amazing.

I wandered some more, following the canal that surrounds the city and found one of the old gates that surround the city, it was pretty neat too, clearly in decay, it was all made from a red brick. I wish I remembered how old it was, but my memory is failing me here.

Next I returned to the hostel and met a British girl named Fabby, who was from Jersey, no not New Jersey, just Jersey, yeah I'd never heard of it either. Anyway she was in my room and invited me to dinner with a bunch of other girls, it was kinda funny because there were three girls from Australia, a girl from New Zealand who was traveling with a girl from Germany, a second girl from Germany who was traveling alone and then Fabby and I. I thought there were 9 of us, but I can't remember who everyone was now.

The hostel I stayed at was really cool. Lots of the people were traveling in small groups or alone so it was really easy to meet people and go out and do stuff. I met some really interesting cool people there and it really felt like a community. There were, of course, some bad apples, but the majority of the people were really friendly and nice.

The hostel also planned neat day trips, I didn't actually go on any because the first day I arrived everyone had already left for the lake and the second day I was sick (so sad). So I just rested at the hostel, everyone else went hiking. Luckily a few people stayed behind and later new people showed up. Including an American girl for somewhere near Pittsburgh I believe. She was only 18 and traveling alone, which I found fairly impressive. I doubt I could've done that (or would've for that matter, well I don't know, maybe I'm selling myself short here). Anyway, strange despite our age difference and stuff we actually had a lot in common and ended up going to check out some old ruins together that afternoon. They were really amzing, like the giant they were all brick and there were tons of them. We kept thinking our tuktuk driver was finished then he would take us somewhere new. It was so fun.

After, we go back to the hostel we hung out and rest for a bit (I was still not feeling great) then we went to find some food. Jessielle, wanted to go to this smoothie place near the south Giant of Chiang Mai, which was sort of across the city from us. When we got there were found tons of street food, it was awesome. We got our smoothies, well we were waiting for them another guy was getting his and he said, these are the best smoothies in Chiang Mai. They were pretty delicious. All fresh fruit and you could chose to have it sweet or sour, I got sour, naturally. After the smoothies we wandered and got some other foods then headed over the the nigh bazaar. It was sorta like the weekend market in Bangkok, endless booths of stuff. As I was walk over my flip flop broke so I had to immediately find some new ones, luckily the first stall we found sold sandals and flip flops, lucky!

The market was overwhelming and seemed to have a lot of the same stuff over and over again, still it was really neat and I enjoyed it a lot. By the time we had looked for awhile it was getting late so we went back to our hostel, but not before I got some yummy fried noodles. They were delicious. Thick and chewy with a kind of salty, spicy sauce and some veggies with them. The next day I had signed up for a cooking class in the afternoon, then in the evening the hostel was hosting a bbq for one of its staff members because he was leaving.

The cooking class was really cool. They picked me up from the hostel and drove me there. I met the other people in my class in the truck on the way there. The first guy I met I was a Korean guy, I immediately was excited because we had something in common. It was really funny though because I asked him where he was from in Korea and he kept saying oh you won't know it, you won't know it, well, what do you know, but he was from Changwon as well. I got really excited and was like I live there! He was so surprised. The he asked which part of Changwon and I told him and he said he grew up there, what are the chances of that? Unfortunately he had moved to Seoul for university, but it was still cool to meet someone from my city in Korea.

There were also three Chinese girls one from Shanghai, one from Toronto and one from California, they were really cute. They met online and all decided to travel together. I thought it was cool. It was also nice to meet another Canadian. Later, at cooking class I also met a girl from Vancouver. Such a small world.

The class was really simple, you just chose four dishes to make (one of them a curry paste which you then made curry from) and the cooking instructor took you to different stations to make the food. The first thing I made was a papaya salad, it's a kind of famous Thai dish, you can google it. It was really yummy. It had a spicy sauce and you made it with a mortar and pestle, which is really different. The second thing I made was a green curry paste and I realized I'd been using all the wrong ingredients! Oh no. Also, the teacher only used the roots of the cilantro rather than the leaves which is what I'd always done. So I definitely learned a thing or two for my own green curry recipe. I'm excited to try making it when I get home (unfortunately cilantro and some other Thai ingredients are a little hard to find in Korea). Next, we made a curry from our paste and I kept getting the teacher to add extra paste, I think I was the only one who thought it wasn't spicy enough.

The last thing I made was a sweet and sour veggies dish, it had ketchup in it which kind threw me off, but I think they were just trying to use ingredients available to their primarily western students. Everyone has chose Pad Thai for their second dish so I was the only one making sweet and sour stir fry, still, it was delicious. After we finished cooking we got sit down and eat our meal. They also provided rice and some snacks for us as well as a really, yummy sweet tea that you added lime to and it changed from a dark blue colour to a dark purple colour (photos on fb). It tasted delicious as well and really complimented the food.

After we had ate and were relaxing the teacher came over and offered us a shot of Thai rice alcohol to help with digestion. Then she gave us a cook book with a bunch of Thai recipes (which I'm really excited to try out on my friends here at some point, given I can find the ingredients for the dishes. After that they drove us back to our hostels. I rested up before the BBQ that night.

The BBQ was awesome, there was tons of grilled meat, salad and mashed potatoes. It was so tasty. And almost everyone staying at the hostel attended so there were tons of people. Someone also made jungle juice which is basically a mixture of booze and juice that doesn't taste that boozy, it's usually pretty strong so it can be dangerous stuff. During the BBQ I met a lot of cool people including two Quebecois girls, another girl from Vancouver and a girl from Edmonton, awesome more Canadians.

After the BBQ a bunch of us went out for a bar crawl and to do Karaoke. It was pretty fun. Lots more drinking, some kind of creepy guys and lots of terrible singing made for an awesome night. When we went back to the hostel, me and one other guy (who had lived in Korea for a bit too so we bonded over that) were really hungry so we wandered down the street looking for some late night food. We found a fairly busy looking soup place with a really yummy looking beefy noodle soup, of course we wanted it. The lady seemed hesitant to sell it to us so we thought she was closing and we were going to leave, but then she seemed to change her mind. She warned us it was spicy, but we persisted that we wanted it (it smelled really really good). Well it was spicy, really really spicy. I think it was the spiciest thing I ate it Thailand and I can usually handle spicy food better than most westerners (no offence guys).

It turns out this soup not only had noodles, but cubes of congealed beef blood (yummier than it sounds) and blood in the sauce, but it was mainly really really spicy. I think it was also something about the strong beefy, flavour and the blood as well as the spice that made it hard to digest at 2 am so neither of us were able to finish our soup. It was really flavourful and tasty though, I don't think I've ever had anything else like it, maybe next time I'll go for a less spicy version (I can't believe I'm saying that!).

The next day I was supposed to leave for Bangkok, but due to the fact I couldn't get the night train I decided to instead stay an extra night and catch a plane to Bangkok on Saturday morning. Yay, an extra night! I spent the morning sleeping in, but during the afternoon I went and found food with Jessielle and we wandered around Chiang Mai looking at random places. I think the last night was the best though, or at least when I had the best food. I went out with a few of the people from the night before and we hit up the street food places. Immediately one of the guys I was with found a yummy looking pork place, we weren't going to chose it right away, but on our second pass he realized it was actually a really famous pork place that had been featured on a travel show that we'd both seen, well that decided it for us, we had to try the pork. It was super flavourful and came with just some rice and an egg. The only problem was the portions were kinda smalls so we were still hungry after.

Next we tried a really delicious kind of coconut soup/puddling thing with tapioca balls and a quail egg in it. So so so good. It was the best thing I ate there. It was really creamy and deliciously sweet, but  also had a rich salty, savoury flavour in it. I still crave sometimes. After that Rob and I (the guy who lived in Korea and also really liked food) wanted something else to eat so we ended up sharing some greens as well, which were also delicious. I almost forgot, to start my street food feast I had a pork bun as well. After stuffing ourselves full of delicious foods we went to the nigh Bazaar again. I also ran into the Korean guy from my cook class again and then we just wandered around looking at stuff. We were all still pretty tired from our night out the day before so we ended up heading back early, grabbing some beers and hanging out at the hostel to watch a movie. It was just chill night.

The next morning I packed up and caught a flight to Bangkok, then from Bangkok to Shanghai. The only thing about my trip I kind of regret is not getting a better flight home. I had an 11 hour lay over in shanghai over night. It was so boring. I sat in really uncomfortable airport benches and tried to sleep, but you couldn't. A mother sitting beside me got angry at me at one point cause I grabbed a bottle of water her kid knocked over. She didn't speak to me or anything, but gave me the coldest glare and grabbed her kid. It was a strange night. Finally, morning came and I got my flight to Busan, thank god!

I honestly loved my time in Thailand, but there was definitely a lot of stuff I didn't get to see. I really want to go back there and see more, learn more and experience more of that wonderful region. I know it's a bit of a cliche to travel to South East Asia in your 20s, but it's a backpackers paradise with young people everywhere, amazing food to eat and a wonderful, ancient culture to explore and learn about. I have to admit it still fascinates me and I long to go back to that region. I can't wait to see what Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam have in store! I will go back. I will. 

Thailand. Bangkok

I thought I could write just one post about Thailand and fit everything, but I think I'll break it up by city or something? I'm not sure. Anyway, here's the first one.
The whole trip was a bit surreal, it was my first real 'vacation' I call it that because it was so short, but it was also more of a backpacking vacation than the regular stay in resort and lounge on the beach sorta deal. Anyway, part one Bangkok and stuff. I don't even think I have all of my adventures there listed yet!

I've wanted to go to Thailand for a long time. And I almost didn't go.
I found myself sitting my friends apartment the weekend before my winter break obsessing over what I should do (as I do) and basically being talked out of it by my friends. I went home in more doubt than I'd been in before and feeling sad about the whole situation. I imagined staying in Korea for the whole winter break. Sitting at home everyday (as I'm prone to do) watching hours of travel shows and movies and wishing beyond hope that I was somewhere beautiful and warm as well. Well that pretty much did it for me, I had to go.

I literally booked my ticket that night and despite the closeness to my departure date I managed to not get an awful price. Then I found a hostel and all was right again. I was going to Thailand!

The pessimist in me is still surprised the trip went off with a hitch. I made it to the airport in plenty of time, had no delays or trouble with my flights and arrived at the hostel with no problems either. The first day I was there I was pretty tired and overwhelmed, it probably wasn't the best day to go see Thailand's largest and most famous tourist attraction, but honestly I didn't even think it through. I asked the front desk what I should see and they said go to the palace.When I was about to leave I overheard the receptionist talking to someone else about going to the palace... well here was my chance! I told a bemused british guy that I was going to the palace as well and would he like to go together? He agreed. I briefly worried he had a girlfriend somewhere who would view my intrusion as something more than friendliness, but the guy (Rob) seemed pretty chill and unconcerned about a jealous girlfriend popping up so I figured that wasn't something I needed to worry about.

So he showed me how to take the sky train (best thing ever) and also the ferry (also very helpful) and we went to the busiest tourist attraction I've ever seen. Now, I will offer my advice here for any of you planning on going to Thailand. If you visit the palace and Emerald buddha, do not do as I did and go at the height of the afternoon. No, definitely get up early and go in the morning. As well as being insanely busy with people. Literally everywhere you also have to keep your knees and shoulders covered up, I actually didn't know this so I wore shorts just above my knees and a tank top. Oops. Luckily I brought a long sleeved top and we found a lady selling long, wrap-around skirts near the palace entrance (no doubt making a bundle of ignorant tourists like me). You can also rent or buy (?) clothes to wear around the temples inside. I wasn't concerned about it though, pretty pink wrap around for a 100 baht? (approx $3 cad), well you can't go wrong with that anyway.

The temple was insanely beautiful and decorated with colourful, shiny stuff and gold. It was insane. Everywhere you looked you saw something beautiful, interesting or old. The only complaint I really have about the whole thing was how busy it was. You couldn't look at anything without five people standing in your way or trying to get by you or whatever. Unfortunately all the temples I visited in Bangkok were like this, although the palace and emerald Buddha were by far the busiest. The other thing I wished for a lot while there was some sort of information about the buildings, artwork, architecture...anything. I guess having stuff to read everywhere would slow down the immense movement of people through the grounds, but still, it would've been interesting and enriched the experience.

Actually, now that I think about it, there were people offering to be tour guides, but as with all things in Thailand you should be a bit weary of Thai people approaching you and offering you services so Rob and avoided what we assumed was a tourist trap. Another thing to avoid in Bangkok were the Tuktuk's although I did end up riding in one after a night out. Apparently they try to scam tourists by taking them to various businesses and getting them to buy stuff they don't want, a guy at my hostel had an experience where they took him everywhere but where he wanted to go and he finally ended up at a suit shop so he just bailed, not the best situation to be in.

The other temples I saw were sorta similar to the first, not identical by any means though. The reclining Buddha was definitely impressive and I enjoyed the atmosphere at that temple more than the Emerald Buddha temple, but it was also less impressive in other ways. When you went in to see the Emerald Buddha you couldn't take pictures and the guards asked us to sit down. There was something about sitting on the floor like that, with a bunch of other tourists, just being quiet and admiring something so stunning and old that I will never forget. It wasn't even the Buddha itself, but just the sense of sacredness and holiness that came over the room. Despite everyone there as a tourist just to stare and gape at the statue. It still didn't lose it's power somehow.

Wat Arun was still my favourite temple though. You could climb up the side and get a wonderful view of the Chao Phraya River which winds through Bangkok's old city. It was stunning. Some of my favourite moments in Bangkok were definitely going down the river on the ferry. They were crowded with tourists (everywhere was) yet some how very relaxing for me. I guess just being on the water is relaxing in a general sense.

Besides visiting temples in Bangkok I also went to Khao San Road, which was basically a bar lined street (from what I saw of it) and the atmosphere sort of reminded me of Canada day in Victoria in the Inner Harbour...I don't know, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it certainly felt crazy. I may have tried scorpion well there, it tasted awful, like burnt paper or egg shell, without the stink. I didn't eat very much though. I also had a delicious wrap (middle eastern and Indian food is popular in Thailand).

I also visited Chatuchak weekend Market which was seriously the most insane thing I have ever seen, well shopping wise anyway. I got lost in it for over an hour (maybe two). It's a weekend market too, I honestly don't understand how that works. I feel like it's one of those things where they say it is a weekend market, but it really isn't. Anyway it's really hard to describe how massive this place is. You enter a maze when you go inside, no metaphor. A literal maze. I tried to imagine trying to find your stall in it and had trouble. It didn't feel real, but also felt like a living thing, constantly changing and evolving as I was there. I definitely saw people put up new stalls as I wandered around. I was surprised, even shocked when I saw the same places more than once, second guessing if they were actually the same place (well that's a bit dramatic, but you get the idea). They sold everything you could want there. So many cute, cheap clothes, knick knacks, both touristy and not. It was a shoppers paradise and possibly someone else's hell.

When I was taking the sky train to the market I looked out the window and saw a massive array of buildings and wondered if that was it, row upon row of roofs all crunched up close together, it looked sorta like a slum from the roof, but nicer.

I also visited a floating market, it was small and less interesting to me. Still really neat to see the women on their boats making food. I wanted to go to one of the larger ones,but unfortunately they were further out of town so I would have had to plan ahead a lot more. Still, I got some really yummy food there and enjoyed looking at the stalls. The market I went to was about a 30-40 minute bus ride away from the hostel so I also got a nice view of the city that way and there were lots of locals on the bus.

I should mention here how the fair system was very different on the buses and ferries. They had a woman with a long tube case full of coins and tickets go around and ask each passenger for their fare. I couldn't help but think it must get confusing when a lot of people got on the bus or ferry. I never did see the ladies miss anyone though, they're probably used to large crowds anyway.

Bangkok was super fun and busy I met some really cool people there, including a French girl who'd been studying in Hong Kong, a Hispanic guy from Porto Rico, a fun Norwegian girl, lots of Germans, two guys from the same neighbourhood in New York City who were strangers before I told them about each other and a few other really interesting people. I was really worried about traveling alone in Thailand, but there are seriously so many backpackers I had absolutely no trouble meeting people to do stuff with. I think it's a great country to travel alone in as long as your safe and take care of your belongings. The backpacking community there was amazing and so fun to be a part of, even for a brief period.

After Bangkok I took a train to Chiang Mai and met some interesting girls from Massachusetts, but I will save that for my next post about Thailand! If there is anything else you want to know about, any pictures on facebook you have questions about or anything your confused by please feel free to comment! I love getting some comments. Anyway, enjoy.