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Chiang Mai (CM) was nothing like we thought it would be but I (in particular) have a tendency to hope places might be more rustic than they actually are! Regardless, we didn’t expect to see Boots Chemist, Starbucks, Burger King and other companies vying for business on CMs main streets. As far as a city goes, CM was OK and we enjoyed our time there, did a lot of walking and consequently saw a lot.
This is Wat Phra Singh, which is apparently a perfect example of the classic northern Thai or Lamma style, was built around 1345-1350.
The Thai bus companies seem to like individualising the buses which makes a nice change from boring old white or red…. although they could have gone a wee bit over the top with this one!
We met up with Aoy and Shawn (who we met in Laos) for dinner at their favourite local café/restaurant.
The chef was a legend. Apparently he’d trained and worked in some fancy hotels but had got fed up with not being able to call the shots so left and set up this not-so-little street corner café-type place.
From the outside it didn’t look anything special and nothing changed when you walked in but the food this guy single-handedly dished up with one wok was the best Thai food we’ve eaten. He dished up some 300 dishes a day, plus all the take-away dishes that people came and ordered throughout the day. He just didn’t stop cooking and it was great to watch him - he was incredibly quick and I’m amazed half the ingredients didn’t miss the wok! At times he literally threw them from a distance into the thing.
We took a tuk-tuk out to Wat U Mong, in the forest on the outskirts of CM. The Wat wasn’t as maintained as the others but was far larger and had a great brown lake full of squirming catfish which looked fantastic – all these whiskers kept appearing out of the water, followed by a huge gaping mouth then the swish of a huge back and tail as the fish dived again. I couldn’t count them there were so many.
There was a rather scary ‘fasting’ Buddha at Wat U Mong and we’d never seen one quite like this. It was a big contrast to all the other Buddha images we’ve seen on our travels.
The museum of insects is an interesting place to visit if you like insects and are ever in CM. Its also the most unusual and quirky museum we have visited yet and is owned by world-renowned mosquito expert, Manop Rattanaithikul. The ‘high tech’ doorbell kind of gave it away that the owner was a bit of a character….
The jandles were linked up to some water buffalo bells that alerted him when he had a visitor
Manop was incredibly eccentric and so passionate about what he does. He is around 75 but so energetic and in really good shape. He reckons he’s had malaria about seven or eight times but doesn’t take any medication. What he does instead is monitor the level of malaria in his blood (peering at it under a microscope) and only takes medication (only the hard stuff, quinine) when he suspects he might die. He and his wife (also a mozzie expert) have spent most of their lives in awful conditions in various swamps around the world discovering new species of mozzie and doing research for various organisation. A really interesting chap to talk to.
It was really Manop that made the visit really worthwhile (the entrance fee was very steep) and he spent ages talking to us about all sorts but in particular, mosquitoes and we learnt a lot about mozzies and malaria. I may never take malaria tablets again but then I can’t look at my own blood under a microscope like he can! Perhaps unsurprisingly, the museum housed both live and dead mozzies and I got absolutely eaten. Euan got bitten too but our reactions were so different - we've both been bitten in the below photo but you can't see where on Euan. Anything bites me and, from the reaction, anyone would think I was about to loose a patch of skin! Euan, on the other hand, doesn’t react at all (perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised?)
The museum itself housed a very eclectic mix of objects, mainly insects but mixed in were unusual shells, meteorites, fossils, coins and the odd sword thrown in for good measure. Some of the butterflies were really pretty and some of the flying insects he had on display had bodies as big as the palm of your hand. It would be like a ball hitting you in the eye!! No thanks..
Apparently someone in the US offered Manop US$2 million for his collection but he reckons its not for sale at any price as its his entire life’s work.
We decided to continue our journey south although were sorely tempted to do a loop of northern Thailand as we’d heard Chiang Rai and Pai were lovely towns. We’ve got something like three weeks to get from here to Singapore and its sounds like a lot but we needed to keep heading in a southwards direction so it was onwards on a sleeper train to Bangkok. Travelling at night is still a great option and this is one of the sleeper apartments on a Thai train (this is 1st class by the way – we ‘treated’ ourselves).
We left in the daylight and we had the guards carriage right next door where all the doors and windows were wide open so we had some great views (just had to make sure we didn’t fall out the door as the train rattled along!).
This is Tha Chom Phu station and has to be the prettiest and most well maintained train station I’ve ever seen. At another station we stopped at there was a welcoming committee of over 16 dogs all whom freely roamed the tracks and even when the train was moving away they were still passing underneath it. Clearly train-smart dogs!
We decided to continue our journey south although were sorely tempted to do a loop of northern Thailand as we’d heard Chiang Rai and Pai were lovely towns. We’ve got something like three weeks to get from here to Singapore and its sounds like a lot but we needed to keep heading in a southwards direction so it was onwards on a sleeper train to Bangkok. Travelling at night is still a great option and this is one of the sleeper apartments on a Thai train (this is 1st class by the way – we ‘treated’ ourselves).
We left in the daylight and we had the guards carriage right next door where all the doors and windows were wide open so we had some great views (just had to make sure we didn’t fall out the door as the train rattled along!).
This is Tha Chom Phu station and has to be the prettiest and most well maintained train station I’ve ever seen. At another station we stopped at there was a welcoming committee of over 16 dogs all whom freely roamed the tracks and even when the train was moving away they were still passing underneath it. Clearly train-smart dogs!
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