7NNT25: Day 13 – Chiang Mai

Soundtrack: “Born This Way”, Lady Gaga / “Relax”, Frankie Goes to Hollywood

The battle of the aircon continues. On one hand, Chiang Mai is starting its hot season, so daily temps are high 30s, mostly dry during the day but getting a bit more humid in the evening, so turning it off isn’t an option. But I’m yet to find the right setting that doesn’t require a bit of tweaking, but I’ll keep trying (of course, part of it is that now I’m here and unpacked I’m too lazy to as reception to change rooms, which might not make a huge difference as far as I can tell it’s just the type of aircon — designed for cooling a larger space than this room). That I’m still carrying a little persistent dry cough isn’t helping.

Despite this, at some point yesterday’s travel caught up with me and i went from unsettled to dead to the world, waking after 9.30am so I didn’t get down to the hotel breakfast before it closed at 10am. Headed out to forage in the local area, which doesn’t have much as I’m in night market territory. Found some Thai iced tea, the wonderful red-orange milky tea, fairly strong, a little sweet, and great for a morning getting warm. Once I got inside the walls of the old city the options improved, and finding a little place that looked like it was run by an elderly Thai woman took the chance on some minced pork with rice, that had a fried egg on top. And more iced tea. When asked if I wanted spicy, I said white person spicy, as the Thais can sometimes get enthusiastic, but in this case white person spicy turned out to be just a hint of chilli, I could have gone more but probably just right for breakfast. It’s a great combination, stir fried minced pork, some herbs, a little chilli, rice and egg, salty tasty goodness.

Funnily enough, my cough seems to be a little better when I’m out of aircon, even if it’s in 35+ degrees, so today’s plan was to venture out for shortish trips, then back to hotel to cool down between. So with breakfast inside me, I checked out the remnants of the eastern gate of the old city, where locals appeared to be setting up a stage and seating for a concert/festival/performance, I’m not sure which but I also saw a bunch of parents with daughters dressed up in costumes.

I’ll probably do my ill-informed infodump about Chiang Mai and its history in the next post. Suffice to say there’s an old city, surrounded by a moat and remnants of the old walls, and there’s rest of the city that has developed and spread out over the centuries.

Noodle 6.0: Khao Soi (Aroon (Rai) restaurant)

My next sojourn was for lunch, and I wanted to check out an interesting place that had just appeared to be prepping on the morning walk. I’m a sucker for a simple looking place with plastic chairs and a concrete floor, so figured this was as good a place as any to start the khao soi mini quest. Khao soi is a Chiang Mai dish, featuring home made flat wheat/egg noodles two ways: in soup and crispy fried on top. The broth is coconut milk based, a little spicy, not as punchy or pungent as laksa but also not as heavy, and the traditional meat is chicken (from what I’ve read, a drumstick is the most common, but in this case it was shredded chicken). Condiments are red onion, pickles, and a wedge of lime. Aroon (Rai) restaurant’s sign points out they’ve been there since 1957, and it doesn’t have any franchises/branches (in big red block capitals “ONLY ONE HERE IN THE WORLD”). The person in charge/cook looks like she was a young girl in 1957. There was no mention if it’s been in the same family for years, but I’d like to hope it has (a quick websearch brings up someone — not me — blogging about it in 2008, and Anthony Bourdain ate there in 2002 — though unlike other places Bourdain visited, Aroon (Rai) didn’t seem to ave his image and review plastered all over, I think he’d have liked that). Anyway, that last bit in the brackets went on for far too long, the punchline is this place is good, fine noodles. And it’s the “only one here in the world”.

Back in the room, I glanced out the window down at the temple-like building not far away (standard disclaimer, lots of places look like temples to me here, if it’s got pagoda-style roof I’m calling it a temple until I see the 7-Eleven sign or some other form of ID. I mentioned it’s been warm here, but was amused that out the front they’d set up a children’s paddling pool and a couple of small people were splashing around in it.

Dinner was at the Phaploen market, on of the night food markets in the area. Last visit L and I went there several times as they do good seafood. This time I went for some filled coconut pancakes — kanom krok — that are small and crispy rice flour-based batter on the outside, and can be filled with all manner of things inside with coconut milk, and then cooked in the semi-spherical dimples of a large pan. I grabbed a mix, so there was chicken, corn, possibly taro, in my selection. Waiting for these I wandered the other stalls and grabbed a “Thai sausage”, basically three little round sausages on a stick cooked on a grill. Works well with a cold Leo beer, one Thailand’s other brews.

Headed back to a different night market (Anusarn) to get a ticket for the Chiang Mai Cabaret Show, another nightly extravaganza in town featuring drag queens/ladyboys/transgenders/people. Ticket in hand, I had some time to spare so had another serve of mango coconut rice (getting my serves of fruit) at a local stall, which was good (they are always good).

The Chiang Mai Cabaret Show’s venue is the largest one I’ve seen in Chiang Mai, perhaps the same size as 6ixcret and Ram Bar combined. Tonight Chiang Mai didn’t seem as busy — maybe all the foreigners hit Chiang Mai on Friday night and have gone to Bangkok or elsewhere for a huge Saturday night. There were maybe 20 in the crowd to start, but with later arrivals there would have been around 40 by the end. Definitely less crowded and chaotic than 6ixcret last night. The show was fabulous, the performers did a great job, mostly lip-syncing and dancing with a little bit of comedy thrown in, including audience participation and fortunately there was a table of English folk at the front who copped it. There was a show-stopping moment during “Born this Way” when the lights dropped and the air was filled with green light beams coming from the performers gloves and sunglasses — I’ve seen these a few times now, especially in Thai shows, not sure if they originated these types of effects but they certainly use them well. Show ended with tipping the performers, and photo ops for those who dared, and I dragged my tired self back into the heat before ending up at the hotel, fighting aircon, and taking a long time to get to sleep. Thought I was getting there when I developed some impressive nasal congestion, making breathing even more fun.

Plan for tomorrow is to check out at least one of the famous wats in the area, do the Sunday night markets, and eat all the things (maybe even see if I can sweat out the cold I seem to be fighting). Will also see if I can get cold and flu drugs here.