More Chiang Mai

Originally we had booked in for three nights in Chiang Mai, but the cooking class we wanted to take wasn't immediately available.  We decided to extend our stay and relax a bit.  It may seem funny that we were happy for a travel break, but given that we had been so busy our last few days in New Zealand, then had two trans-oceanic flights in four days followed by some marathon touristing in Bangkok, a break actually didn't sound so bad!

So how did we fill our days?

We checked out the night market outside the nearby mall.  Stalls serving up tasty homemade Thai food, and even full foot massage and Thai massage areas - sandwiched between a Sizzler and a Starbucks.

We checked out more temples in the day time.

We found a lovely park where the locals (and some showy falang (foreigners) practising handstands) hang out on Saturday evenings.  In the shot below, you see that one girl even brought a table on which to set up her laptop.

We visited the Saturday Walking Street, which is Chiang Mai's Saturday evening market.  There is also a Sunday Walking Street, but the locals we ran into said the Saturday market is much better (and less crowded), so we followed their advice and went to check it out.  We got there pretty early, which turned out well as we missed the bulk of the crowds.

I don't know what these are, but they probably fall in the category of cute-but-useless.

Just some of the many, many kinds of juice available.  I'm not sure how I feel about the sweet corn - delicious or disgusting?  I turned down the chance to find out.  At 30 cents a bottle, the experiment was just too costly...

We almost bought these 'I heart dog' shorts for my Dad until we remembered that he's not a 300 pound tourist so they probably wouldn't fit.

More food for Chad to try.

Look!  I can eat street food too!  Corn off the cob, with sugar, salt, and condensed milk.   Yummy.

Kids fish in the moat at sunset.

And more opportunities for street food.

The sun sets over Chiang Mai.  Yes, it's quite smoggy there.

If it's deep fried, it must be delicious.

We checked out temples in the night time.

One day we splurged and went to a fancy spa for an extended massage.  The next day, back to reality, we took a half day Thai massage class so we could have more affordable massages at home!

Ready to learn.

Our school was in our instructor's house.

And the house was located in this cute little lane.

We went again to the night food market near our guest house.

Cute little clam shells.

Chad tracks down a Thai dessert doughnut with green sauce.

And enjoys!

Our last night in Chiang Mai was a full moon and one of the three major Buddhist holidays of the year, called Magha Puja.  On this night, Thai Buddhists (and apparently the population is about 95% Buddhist) go to the temples to light candles and incense and then walk around the temple three times holding flowers, candles and incense. We went to check out the action and to take a walk around the temple with the locals (though we didn't light candles or incense, which somehow seemed as if it would be disingenuous).

Crowds of teenagers brought their scooters and their iPhones while paying their respects.

The light of the full moon wasn't quite this blurry as it shone down on the temple.

At the biggest temple in Chiang Mai, food vendors lined the street to feed hungry worshipers.  And to serve their holiday balloon needs.

Four days slipped though our fingers in no time.  It is fair to say that Chiang Mai provided further evidence that Thailand is an awesome place to visit!