The Bo Sang Umbrella Festival

Jim had read in one of our guide books, and I had read in our in flight  magazine that the Bo Sang Umbrella Festival would be happening the same weekend we would be in Chaing Mai. The festival  was about a 9 km songthaeu ride out of town, and we decided to take our chances. We were not dissapointed. 

Bo Sang is where all the painted paper and silk umbrellas  come from, and the festival is an opportunity  to put that on display in full vibrant color. 

Behind us, you can see several examples in all colors and sizes

The best part of our visit was by far the parade. It had a marching band, with this young drum majorette  at the head 

And floats with children dressed in traditional costume. I managed to capture  a pretty excellent  nose picker in this shot 

And no parade  would be complete without floats

That were so tall, each float had a guy with a tall stick to push those pesky power lines out of the way

The theme  of this year's  festival was we are one Asean. As such, there was one float for every Asean country,

Accompanied  by adults  also in traditional dress of that country

Thailand was the last country  float, and they brought out the white elephant for the occasion.

Here I am posing with the more traditional style paper umbrella

Both the opening and closing of the festival  was led by these ladies on bicycles. Each representing the Asean countries, these ladies would go on over the weekend to compete for the title of Miss Bo Sang.

Arrrr!

My bag inadvertently makes my t-shirt a very happy pirate.

Thai Cooking

Thai food is delicious so one of the things we really wanted to do while here was take a cooking class.  There are a ton to choose from so we just picked the one our guidebook recommended that also happened to have an office a block from our hostel which was convenient.  Chiang Mai has so many classes, tours, and treks into the mountains and the water that you could spend weeks here doing different things every day, but I'm digressing again.

First, we went to the market and learned about the different kinds of rice (there are a lot) among other things.  Then we drove out to the farm where the class was to take place and learned some about what they grow.  This class seemed somewhat unique in that they take you out of the city to do the cooking which was nice,  After our lessons in rice and herbs and vegetables, it was time to get down to business.

And of course the first order of business is cooking rice.  However, as our teacher explained, it is 2015, and we use a rice cooker.  She did explain how to do it on the stove as well for good measure.

Next it was time for curry paste.  Mince your ingredients...

And then smash the crap out of them with a mortar and pestle until they are paste like.

Setting the curry paste aside we made some tom yum soup which is a classic Thai soup made with lemongrass, kaffir lime, chilis, a bunch of herbs and (the secret ingredient as we found out) a tamarind, chili, shrimp paste.   We have no pictures of the process here, but enjoy Chrissy's finished product.  It was really good.  There are a lot of ingredients in it so it might be a pain to recreate exactly, but if we could get our hands on some of that tamarind chili paste we could get some good use out of it back home.

Here is Chrissy at her station ready to start on her curry.

And, lo and behold, here is her yellow curry...

And my red curry.  These were really good but we could have added more chilis for more spice.  The same goes for the tom yum as well.  When you are not used to how spicy a certain number of chilis are going to be it is hard to guage.  Still, they turned out well.  Making curries from scratch is way too labor intensive though and not something I see us doing at home.

Our stír fries on the other hand were good and would be easy to recreate back home I think.  I made chicken with basil and chilis and Chrissy made chicken with vegetables and cashew nuts.

After we devoured our curries and stir fries, it was time for dessert.  This is mango and sticky rice, a popular dessert you can get at most of the markets.  It is green  because it has been flavored with pandan leaves.  Those are mung bean seeds on top of the rice.  A good dessert, but very sweet.

After dessert it was time for one more dish to bring home for later.  Here I am learning how to fold spring rolls.  The spring roll recipe was actually surprisingly easy and they came out really well.

Here's Chrissy hard at work making pad thai which has way to many ingredients for us to not just order it from our local Thai place when we are back home.

Behold our final dishes.  We left with a nice recipe book and (as it turned out) dinner for that night.

Wat a surprise!

Chaing Mai is the cultural capital of the north and former capital of the Lanna kingdom, before it merged with Siam to become the Thailand  we know today (a simplification of history). It is also one of the few Thai cities with its original moat and city gates relatively  intact, and it boasts a large number of well preserved and function in Wats, or temples.Our first temple visit  was Wat Chedi Luang,  the oldest in the city walls.

Here you can see us making an offering to Buddha, incense, fresh flowers, and a birthday candle for the days of our birth. These offerings are supposed to bring luck.

It was a windy day, so the candle didn't stay lit particularly long, I don't know what that says about our luck prospects.

The temple is quite large, with the traditional  red lacquer ceiling, decorated with gold and zodiac symbols. The banners hanging overhead are also zodiac offerings to the Buddha. It is important to note, when visiting a Wat, shoulders and knees must be covered, no shoes allowed, and you must never show your feet to the Buddha  who always resides at the front of the temple.

And though you pay admission, it's nominal, so a donation  is welcome. Sometimes fun kitsch is an incentive to do so. These monks are actually coin accepting banks. Except that one on the left, what's he doing there?

Most Wats are also guarded by some pretty epic creatures, usually dragons, or nagas, as you can see here.

And lastly, a Wat visiting tip. Above you can see the ruins of the actual Chedi Luang that is the oldest in the city,  ringed by elephants and guard by nagas. I know, you're  thinking  what are all those pictures I just looked at then? They're the front temple complex, this is actually around back. Jim and I actually thought we had seen the whole thing before we saw this, and left the compound to go to the Chaing Mai Arts and Cultural museum, where they had pictures like the one above that let us on to then fact that we hadn't  actually  seen the whole  thing.  So we went back. Moral of the story,  to see the whole Wat, be sure to do a thorough lap. You never know what surprises await.

Welcome to Chiang Mai

After our beach potato  session, Jim and I headed north to check out the backpackers haven that is Chiang Mai. We spent a week there and easily could have spent longer given all the things  you can get up to. Here's  a brief taste to get started.

We arrived later in the evening after a harrowing minibus, ferry, minibus, flight, taxi adventure from Koh Chang,  and we were starving. Our hostel recommended we eat at the night market. We ate here often  enough I started to refer to it as  "our" market.

Here you can see one of our first tastes of the north, pork with rice (and hard boiled egg, egg with everything here in Thailand )

For 40 baht, or about 1USD, that tasty plate came from this street stall, where a woman in a stylish cowboy hat spends the whole night clevering  pig for our tastebud's enjoyment.

Waterfalls and Elephants and More Beach Potato

There are several waterfalls in Koh Chang as the whole middle of the island is jungle so we decided to venture to Klong Phu with the last couple hours of our scooter rental.

Yes, I am sporting a sweet lederhosen bathing suit I picked up back in Germany.

You can swim right around the waterfall which is awesome.  The water here is a bit colder because it doesn't get as much sun in the valley, but it was very refreshing and a fun dip.  Taking a selfie while swimming to keep your head above water is not the easiest thing.

Chrissy in front of the sign.  It's a nice half a kilometer walk through the jungle to the waterfall.

Chang actually means elephant in Thai and we did ride an elephant through the jungle while we were in Koh Chang.  Chang is also the name of the best local beer (though Singha is probably more well known) that, surprise, has elephants in its logo.  We went to what is the most well regarded camp on the island and the elephants seemed to be happy and treated well.  It was quite the experience and Chrissy even got to sit outside the harness.  Our elephant had a good amount of coarse hair on her head, which is not something you immediately think of but it's hard to miss close up.

We also go to feed the elephants whole bananas that they grabbed very strongly with their trunks and instantly brought to their mouths.

Then it was time to swim with the elephants which was a crazy experience.  Seeing their eyeballs wide open right next to yours is a little bizarre as they look almost exactly like big human eyes.  Also, there is no graceful way to swim around or perch yourself on an elephant in the water...

...as this picture shows.

Here I am with my bag of Thai iced tea and kindle in my lap.  Thai iced tea is a delicious tea with sweetened and condensed milk.  It's always bright orange.  A lot of places use the more conventional cup, but here they put the iced tea in a plastic bag they close with a rubber band, put that in a paper bag, and put that in another plastic bag with handles (that you can use to carry or hang from the handlebar of your scooter if you so desire).  You poke a straw through your plastic bag to drink.  The town of Brookline would not be pleased with the use of plastic in Thailand.

I like to think of this picture as "the full beach potato" which will probably have to make a reappearance in one of our upcoming destinations.

Hakuna Matata