Settling In

Chiang Mai is a vibrant, beautiful and modern University town.  It is easy to navigate either by walking or hailing a shared “red taxi” or tuk-tuk.  Monday was orientation for the students (and professors) and then Tuesday and Wednesday were regular class days.

I had a chance to do some exploring on foot the past couple of days and have thoroughly enjoyed.  I walked in a different direction yesterday,  and using a very detailed and well documented “Nancy Chandler’s” map of Chiang Mai, I found lots of interesting eating and drinking places.  One was called Compassion Café.  The café features raw and vegetarian food – good beer and wine.  When I walked by there on Monday, it was hard to tell if it was closed for the day or forever.  I spotted a sign giving hours of operation and indeed they were closed on Monday.  Carol, Christina and I went there for dinner on Tuesday and it was incredible.  How does Vegetarian Philly Cheesesteak sound?  We split that for an appetizer and then Christina had raw Phad Tai and Carol and I both had vegetarian burgers.  I’m sure most of you know that Carol and I are devoted meat eaters but I must say this was extremely flavorful, filling and healthy to boot.  The owner/server was delightful – she was of Chinese/Thai heritage but grew up in England and had a very strong British accent.  The downer about this great find is that they will be closing the restaurant for good at the end of June due to health issues.  We will just have to go back soon to sample the remaining dishes on the menu and help them deplete their stock of BeerLao.

I had a lunch adventure on a walk to Wat Umong the next day.  Wat Umong is a temple with a tunnel.  There are many Buddhas at the end of tunnels where the ceilings are painted with – well, I really am not sure what was there.  It was quite dark and no flash photography allowed.  There were various shrines, museums and dormitories for the monks and a pond filled with fish waiting to be fed.   I saw several people buying bread at a small stand next to the pond and paying homage to the spirits by feeding the fish and pigeons.  Seems like the fish and birds really get the best end of that deal.

On the way to the Wat (rather while lost on the wrong way to the wat) I decided to stop for lunch.  There was a place that looked interesting – lots of students and even a couple of Westerners so I went in and took a seat.  I ordered Larb and soda water.  The server had some difficulty with my order even though I was pointing to my selections.  After a while, a different server came up and rattled off a question in Thai.  Getting no response from me, she called the owner over who asked if I wanted Larb.  I said yes about the same time the original server brought me a coke.  I shook my head no and told the owner I ordered soda water whereupon she looked at the server and said “soda water” which she promptly brought.  After quite a long wait, my original server brought me a dish of something that I was not expecting.  It seemed to be spaghetti in some sort of mushroom cream sauce and a glob of mayonnaise on top.  It wasn’t like any Larb I was familiar with.  I took a tentative bite and found it to be about as yucky as it looked.  I was however quite hungry so decided that I would eat some of it and chalk it up to some sort of different variety of Larb and a learning experience.  After three or four bites – server #2 appeared with a plate of what looked exactly like the Larb I was expecting.  She saw me eating this other dish, yelled at server #1, and took my plate of spaghetti away.  The real Larb was delicious and prepared me for retracing my steps and finding my way to the Wat.

There is no shortage of coffee shops here in Chiang Mai.  There is even a two-storied Starbucks.  However, we were concerned about having our morning two or three cups before breakfast.  Nescafe to the rescue.  We have a hot water pot in the room and we can get our caffeine fix while Carol preps for the day's class and I read the news on line or write blog entries.  

The internet connection at the hotel is very spotty.  It seems the head technician is in the hospital but the staff is talking to him by phone and will ask if there is anything that can be done.  I think it just needs a reset but it could be when all of the guests (students) try to access the internet at the same time with facetime, facebook, skype and you tube that the bandwidth just gives up.  Therefore, I am posting this without Carol's proofing and no pictures for now.  More illustrated posts soon.