We are back in Thailand after having taken two flights; one from Saigon to Bangkok and the second from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. We arrive on Sunday evening the 11th of April. We are here for the New Year festival of Songkran.
Songkran
Songkran, the Thai New Year celebration, officially is three days of “water celebrations”, which this year was April 13 – 15th. Thai people often times return to their home town for family celebrations. We chose to be in Chiang Mai for Songkran for this reason. We arrive to find the festivities have already begun! Fortunately for us we arrive in the evening and the water “festivities” end when the sun goes down, so we do not get soaked.
Lucky for us our arrival coincides with the Sunday Walking Market, this is a very large street market that encompasses 5 square blocks. We head out to market to find dinner and see what is happening. We find the most amazing Phad Thai for 25 baht (.75) and a lot of “special” performances happening throughout the market. We decide this particular market is aimed for locals as they post prices and have many items one doesn’t usually see at tourist markets. We enjoy this evening very much although we are a bit tired from traveling today.
April 12th, one day before the NY, Jeff heads off in the early morning to see about water pistols for us. He comes back soaking wet but with 2 water pistols and water backpack with pistol. We are set and by 1pm we head out to see what is happening. A lot is happening and we barely get out of our guest house before we are targets, soon we are soaked and it feels great! The temperature is likely above 100* today.
Chiang Mai is a city within a city. The old city has portions of the old city’s wall, four gates and moat surrounding it, with the newer part of the city spreading out in all directions from there. Celebrations happen everywhere in the city but the major area is both sides directly next to the moat. We make our way to this area and find a spot we enjoy, to play. There are some rules to the water fight, one being you do not get people wet when they are inside a pub or restaurant. This is one way to escape the party and watch, which I must say is enjoyable too.
April 13th the official start to Songkran. This means there will be parades and many more people participating because people are not working, a national holiday. We head to the river to watch one of the parades. New Years means many things but is seen as a time of renewal and the locals bring Buddhas and small Stupas out of their temples for “washing” in the parade. Saffron flower scented water is what is used for this purpose and can be bought all along the parade route. They use small bowls to pour or toss the water onto the Buddhas as well as the people parading along with the Buddhas. We enjoy the parade except for the one point when the “red shirts” push their way into the parade, honking and generally disrupting a nice parade.
(The red shirts are a group of people mostly from the north who disagree with the government and are pushing for a change. Most notably, on Saturday 10th April, they led a protest in which 21 people were killed and many more injured, in the streets of Bangkok)
April14th, this being our third day of celebration, we opt to make our way around the entire old city. We encounter an area in which we find several stages with live music, lots of great local food stands and virtually no westerners. We have a blast.
April 15th our final day of Songkran. Tim wants to hang out in an area we have gone every day, so we drop him off and head off walking to see what we can find. I prefer walking around rather than staying in one place, so we all have a very enjoyable day. I will let Tim say a bit about Songkran below.
~Karen~
In Chiang Mai Thailand they have the most wet and fun New Years, called Songkran. This New Year is celebrated for about 6-7 days, and your whole body is a prune by the end. Our fist day of the water fight we loaded our guns and marched out the door. We only made it about one hundred yards until we were drenched in water. Throughout the New Year celebration we almost everyday hung out at a place called the Blues Pub. It only took a day until we were friends with the owner, and the family. I had a blast during Songkran, there was a corner that I always was at pouring buckets of water on people. Later in the day when it cools off, the owner of the restaurant buys a huge block of ice. That makes the water below zero cold, and we keep on going but this time with freezing cold water. The peoples reactions are priceless, but the truck loads of people have ice water too so I get freezing cold just like everyone else. I was bummed when the celebrating was over, because then I was sweating during the day instead of having the water dumped on me. I am hoping next year or some time in the future I will come back with my parents or with some friends to celebrate and have some more fun.
-Tim-
3 Day Trek
We have decided to make a trek out of Chiang Mai and will stay in the Karen Villages. We are a group six people, ourselves and three 19 year old friends from the UK (James, Pippa & Zoë), with a guide (Abba –yes named after the band). We travel three hours by truck (yes we are targets of more water throwing) south out of Chiang Mai before we hit the trail. We hike for about three hours today up and down but mostly up before we come to a waterfall and our first nights stay. We have enjoyed our Abba for he has been very good about showing us jungle food and life. He has been collecting items for use in our dinner all day. Amazing what you can find in the jungle if you know what you are looking for. We take a nice refreshing swim and clean up before night falls and dinner. We enjoy a nice tom Yum soup cooked in a large piece of Bamboo on the fire and stir fried vegetables. After dinner we sit and play cards as a group, each teaching the other new games! Hooray we have two new games to play; Yaneve and ****head. Our cards are interrupted by Abba bearing a tray of Thai goodies.
The excitement for desert dwindles once we see it is a tray of various fried bugs. There are silk worm larvae, fried bamboo worms, fried crickets, fried grass hoppers and fried water bugs. Tim and Jeff decide this is where they seal the deal they made at the beginning of the trip that they would try some sort of bugs. Everyone has some silk worm larvae (they taste like juicy beans). Next is the bamboo worms (these are actually good and taste like crispy French fries). Tim and Jeff move on to the crickets. Very crispy and crunchy, but not too bad. Finally they get coaxed by James into eating the grass hoppers. These are much bigger and finish the boys off. James is not deterred and carries on to the water bug. Too big and gross for Jeff and Tim. Our foray into an Amazing Race challenge goes well and we pass with flying colors.
Day two on the trek is the long day and we head mostly up once again, but the trail is very good. We do lunch near an area that is currently burning, but it is okay, not like a forest fire at home. The fire here is smoldering on the jungle floor which is covered with fallen leaves, with only the already fallen trees burning. After arriving at another waterfall for a “shower” we head the last 30 minutes to the village for the night. I help Abba with some of the prepping for dinner. We have another soup and a jungle curry with chicken. Our nights are early as the sun usually down by 7pm and our only means of light are candles besides we are pretty tired from the days hike.
Up early the final morning, a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs, fruit and toast before we head off to meet our truck that takes us to the Elephants. We ride Elephants for one hour have lunch and then head to the river for bamboo rafting. The water level in the river is quite low and we discover that this is the last day of the Songkran week holiday (Sunday). The river is packed with locals out to enjoy a picnic and play in the water. It reminded me at times of a ride at Disneyland gone crazy, with boats jammed up together trying to get through one tiny rapid area that really doesn’t have enough water! It was great fun! We got totally drenched and laughed our heads off.
A truck ride back 11/2 hours and that was the end of our 3 day trek.
Cooking Class
We decided to take a cooking class here in Chiang Mai as they are well known for this. We opted for a school called Baan Thai. We each chose our own menu and then headed to the local market where they gave us a lesson on Thai ingredients and answered any questions we might have. We made Prawn Hot & Sour soup, Coconut Chicken Soup, Fried Spring Rolls, Fish Cakes, Phad Thai, Cashew Chicken, Peanang Pork Curry and Chiang Mai Noodles. Lots of yummy food and now we have more new recipes to share with our friends at home.
~Karen~
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