We’ve had a fantastic few days in Chiang Mai. With a population of over 170,000 in the city (and more than 1 million in the metropolitan area), Chiang Mai is the hub of Northern Thailand and Thailand’s fifth-largest city. It’s elevated at 316 metres, so it’s cooler, greener and quieter than the capital and is surrounded by mountains and lush countryside.
On Tuesday we spent a large part of the day recovering from a very hectic 4 days of training, partaking in the local massage at Arrisa’s Boutique. I enjoyed a 2 hour session in an upstairs air conditioned room whilst Tony decided to give 2 girls a go for an hour. We both came out rather more relaxed and refreshed than we went in.
The afternoon was spent in the Shangri-La’s club level, working and lunching, tidying up some web programming before getting ready for dinner with FusionHQ founder Leon Jay and Do Less Work, Make More Money Vietnamese translator and author Mi at a vegetarian restaurant called KhunChurn Thai Vegetarian Cuisine.
The restaurant is basically a number of outdoor settings dotted around well-kept and attractive green gardens. There is the obligatory stream filled with giant red and black carp. The wait staff where very friendly and attentive but also left us alone to discuss business. The fruit and vegetable frappe I had was exceptional and a welcome cool relief on a reasonably warm night.
It was a good meeting over quite good vegetarian fair, albeit mostly fried or covered in quite tasty sauces (why do they need to ruin perfectly good vegetables?) There was a huge variety of dishes on offer, and on our table, although I’m not quite sure what we had as Leon ordered in Thai. I do know there were lightly battered and deep fried mushrooms, a delicious omelette, and the pineapple fried rice was exceptional. I’m sure there was a bit of tofu in there too somewhere, under the sweet and sour sauce I suspect. Several other dishes also arrived but their origin did remain a bit of a mystery.
After dinner we visited the night Bazaar market near our hotel on the way home for a couple of bargains before hitting the club lounge for a peppermint tea nightcap.
On Wednesday we brunched in the Club Lounge (is there a theme developing here?) before doing some work (yes how boring) and ordering some room service – how is it that most hotel burgers are remarkably consistent and generally very good? In the late afternoon Tony decided to indulge in another 2 girl massage but as I was still very sore from my 2 hour session the day before, I decided to wimp out and have a snooze instead.
For dinner we started with the canapés in the Club Level, and as they were so good and abundant, that soon became dinner, washed down with a bottle of Bin 8 in the biggest red wine glasses I have seen to date (yes they were bigger than Riedels). We started chatting with George, one of the Club Level staff – his English was great and he seemed to enjoy chatting with us, and looked after us incredibly well, attending to our every need.
On Thursday, after a lazy start to the day sleeping in and brunching at the Club Level we thought it was probably time to venture out and see a bit more of Chiang Mai. We decided to take a tour that included a cruise on the Mae Ping River which was pleasant enough. The river runs right down to Bangkok, and it’s somewhat reminiscent of the Yarra in that it also flows upside-down.
What was in stark contrast to the rest of Chaing Mai that we’d been exposed to was the poverty along the river banks – many ‘houses’ consisted of sheets of iron layered together to form some sort of barrier to the regular bursts of rain. Almost every house consists mostly of an open air area for the living, dining and kitchen purposes. Only the bathrooms (I assume there’s no sewerage system) and the bedrooms seem to have any privacy at all from passers-by on the street or river. Although poverty was apparent, it was far from the levels we had seen in Burma or India.
After the 20 minute river cruise we disembarked on the other side of the river and were taken to our next form of transport – a horse drawn carriage, brightly decorated with flowers – for a tour of “Wiang Kum Kam” – the lost city of Chiang Mai.
According to history King Mangrai relocated the capital of the Lanna Kingdom from Chiang Rai to the old city of Wiang Kum Kam on the banks of the Ping River in 1288. Whilst the new riverside location offered many advantages, the area was low-lying and prone to severe seasonal flooding.
According to history King Mangrai relocated the capital of the Lanna Kingdom from Chiang Rai to the old city of Wiang Kum Kam on the banks of the Ping River in 1288. Whilst the new riverside location offered many advantages, unfortunately the area was low-lying and prone to severe seasonal flooding. So by 1296, King Mangrai had chosen a new site for his capital on the higher opposite bank of the Ping River and declared the newly constructed city of Chiang Mai as the capital of the Lanna kingdom.
Years of flooding thereafter left Wiang Kum Kam buried metres underground until 1984 when Thai authorities were alerted to the discovery of a number of ancient tablets found under Wat Chang Kam just 5km south east of the Chiang Mai metropolitan area. Archaeologists quickly moved in and uncovered the remains of the ancient lost city of Wiang Kum Kam which was discovered to date back to the Eighth century.
Whilst we only visited six, there are over thirty archaeological sites including many ancient temples within the ancient rectangular shaped city wall and just beyond.
After our tour we went to a local’s home for a refreshment and some fruit, then back to the river boat to return to our departure point, then we were bussed back to our hotel for a shower, change of clothes. We ventured out again in the afternoon for another massage at Arrisa’s – this time a 1 hour foot massage for me and Tony was coaxed unknowingly into a one and a half hour massage with two girls.
After picking up our laundry (2.5 kg of clothes washed and ironed for less than $6) we returned to the comfort of the Club Level for more chats with George and some nibbles. A call from Leon soon had us rethinking our wardrobe to join him and FushionHQ staff Ben and Consultant Kristina for dinner at Diablo’s Mexican restaurant (one of their local haunts) for further business discussions.
We had an interesting TukTuk ride, with a driver with his wife (or girlfriend) in the front, telling him driver where to go and being his human indicator for changing lanes. It was one of the less mechanically sound TukTuks, its exhaust having seen better days and its acceleration somewhat lacking. But they did have better taste in music and the four of us ricked out and sang along to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” on the way to the restaurant.
Diablo’s (located next to Mike’s Burgers) is a fairly typical looking eatery, albeit more Thai than Mexican looking. If we’d not had this recommendation we’d probably have been fairly sceptical but I do have to say that Diablo’s has pretty decent Mexican fare. The corn chips aren’t quite right – much thicker, unrefined and oilier than their TexMex counterparts, but the salsa was very good indeed – even though it was the pureed style rather than chunky.
But beware the very hot pickled vegetables that looked very unassuming in their small earthenware dish. The favourite seemed to be quesadillas so we chose chicken – mine with black beans and Tony’s without. They were actually a pretty decent attempt, and whilst the guacamole and other accompaniments were absent from the table, Diablo’s did do an awesome lemon drink, or lime and mint drink – both very refreshing. And at under 1,000 baht (AU$35) for 5 people, it was a pretty reasonable buy.
On the way home we ventured through the Night Bazaar again before hitting the Club Level for our Peppermint Tea nightcap and some dessert we’d sneaked away in our room fridge (how could we possibly resist the temptation of Thai lamingtons? Actually they were incredibly NZ/Aussie and very good indeed.)
Our time in Chiang Mai is almost at an end – we’re actually pretty sad to be leaving this enchanted place filed with friendly locals. Tomorrow we fly to Bangkok as we start to make our way home.
My brother suggested I might like this blog. He was totally right. This post actually made my day. You can not imagine just how much time I had spent for this info! Thanks!