Chiangmai Trip, Jul 7 - 9 2012

Many teased me why would I bought a 3D2N return ticket to this 1st ever exploring place, wouldn't it be too rush for a trip? Oh yes indeed, especially when AirAsia rescheduled its boarding time 2 hours later from original time, we boarded the plane only at 230pm that afternoon, basically 1/2 day had gone.

Nevertheless, a trip without expectation usually turns out great. I didn't do any homework, fully relied on my partner. What I had in mind was just food, night market and massage.

I did browse for information through a printout during my boarding wait. Found that Chiangmai or northern Thailand has been famous for their coffee bean, and there are many cafe along their streets. Hooray! Since I have been exploring with coffee making lately, I got excited with that.

First surprise - Chatime onboard on AirAsia!

RM8 Chatime

We got out 3D2N accommodation deal from Groupon for RM299 at Empress Hotel. Didn't had much expectation too, though it is a 4 star hotel. Experience wise, I wouldn't rate them well with their service attitude. Not responsive at the front desk, plus an annoying incident we had with their poor ownership of their concierge service, where the night shift attendant including the manager didn't want to coordinate a misunderstanding we had with the motorcycle rental person, a call to their arranged rental service company need to cost us 71baht/min! Of course we didn't pay. Lessons learned here is, pay more attention in communication with the locals, as they are not well verse in English, unlike the city locals in Bangkok. Our experience was basically collecting out deposit and return of the rental bike, supposingly 9pm but they understood it as 9am the next day, while we have a 9am flight to catch that evening, 2000Baht of deposit was a huge amount, ok!

Empress Hotel lobby

Overall, the hotel was alright. It's famous among the Westerners, and it's quite occupied. And, free buffet breakfast was good. Served with peeled fruits on the table.

Buffet breakfast

Pancake + Bacon combination

With some quick help from our meet and greet driver, we hit to the nearest night market after checking in, that itself needs 15min walk, not too bd. a tuk-tuk ride will cost 60Baht.

Anusarn Night market, seems to be a local night market, less foreigner. Understand the place is famous for cabaret show, saw some of them around the corner when we about to hit out from the place.

Souvenirs are generally unique compare to Bangkok, and price wise is cheaper too. Managed to grab myself some here, lucky enough as this place is much cheaper compared to other weekend commercial night markets.

Anusarn Night Market

Local food - Dinner

We had our dinner here, at the local stalls. Served nice pork fried rice (khao pad), which I am glad I ordered that. My partner order tom yum and it was terribly spicy! Northern spicy level is greater than the Southerns, mind you if you have less spicy tolerance.

Intended to hit to another Saturday Night Market at Walai Street. Somewhat the tuk-tuk driver heard wrongly, instead brought us back to another commercial place nearby Anusarn below Le Meridien Hotel. We took another tuk-tuk to Walai.

Saturday Nite Market @ Walai St.

Saturday Nite Market

Coconut Ice cream potong

Worship the cow

Supper

After a simple supper at nearby stall, we ended the half day adventure in Chiang Mai town center. Getting ready for a full day adventure the next day!

Earlier at Anusarn market, we bumped into a Penang couple. They'd been offering many tips around, including renting a motorbike for tour, which is super worthwhile, they rented for 150Baht (RM15)/day. Instead, we paid slight premium of 250Baht/day. We need to fill up the tank. 100Baht of petrol is just too much for a day tour around the town.

Rented bike

Local petrol station

While my partner busy getting use to the bike, touring round and round the city, I was busy hunting for nice cafe to stop by. Other reasons for me to stop by cafe, was for free WiFi! My hand been itchy for the past 1/2 day without internet.

Spotted this nice decent coffee house opposite Petronas petrol station. Siam in Frame, located below a hotel. I was earlier attracted by its English style setup. The internal design was filled with lots of Siamese miniature in frame. I ordered Doi Chaang coffee, did my search on the spot and found its pure local Northern Thailand coffee, mainly found in Chiang Rai. Price wise, it is consider much attractive than Malaysia cafe's price. First of all, we don't have many of such cafe around, secondly, a glass of iced coffee like this will easily cost >RM10.

Siamese Miniature in Frame

Doi Chaang Iced coffee

Iced Latte

Price list

Before this coffee break, we try to hunt for a couple of attraction from the map, but failed. The Warorot market, we went round and round the city but couldn't find any proper dry market place to shop. Instead, we passed by wet market, those stingy places as well as this flower and mainly roses stalls.

Roses stalls

China town

We then hunt for another tourist spot, the Handicraft market. But failed. This time was towards the airport road. We gave up, then headed to a nearby shopping mall instead. Had our lunch, that's where I managed to taste the local egg noodle curry, khao soy. Like it to the max, especially with some crispy crisp on the noodle. We tasted the local duck egg noodle soup too, not bad. A combination of lunch with beer served in the food court, nice.

Khao soy - Local curry noodle

Egg noodle soup

After lunch, we hit to grocery shopping! Yay.. I like local grocery shopping, that's where we could get local stuffs for souvenir, at a cheaper cost of course. Tops Supermarket was located in Central Khad Suen Khew mall.

Soaps

Cooking paste, local taste

In fact we bought a lot of groceries from Tops, hence we just can't continue other shopping. We were forced to drop our stuffs back in the hotel and we then went for massage! 1 hour Thai body massage + 1 hour foot massage.

After the cheap and nice massage, we head for afternoon coffee once again. Saw this BON coffee shop few blocks from our hotel, seems good. Hence, we made ourself filled with caffeine again. To my surprise, this BON coffee and its beans are all local Thailand made. They even have their cafe academy behind the cafe. Nice setup. Check out BON Cafe Thailand website, they have tonned of good stuffs in there, even with downloadable magazines. If you wish to take up Barista course, suggest to go Thailand, they have many courses to choose. Even able to help you, if you wish to own a coffee shop.

BONcafe shop

Sandwich set + coffee

Pancake set + latte

Coffee bean pack, less than 190Baht

On our way to the next destination. Some public transports photo were captured by me.

On the bike

Tuk-Tuk

Seong Teow

There goes our final mission of the day. Ops, it wasn't final yet but we were to hit to the longest Sunday market, they called it Sunday Walking Street. This particular night market is extremely long, the longest of all. All within the walk, you may see a few temples (Wat). I only captured 2 below.

Market in the temple

Golden Wat

Along the market, we could not find many  proper eating place. Hence, without much choice we need to munch something before our dinner time. Found this Siam fried bihun with lard. It was good. 20Baht for one small bowl, sounds kinda pricy.

Siam Fried Bihun

Upon the last market lane corner, we found a decent place to eat. Mainly cater for tourist, the Westerner. Ambience was good, but the food wasn't that great. The curry noodle and green curry wasn't spicy at all. Only good was the beer and mango sticky rice. Oh well, the price was good, it merely cost us 400Baht for all the food we had.

The last stop we had for the night, was in fact another Thai body massage near our hotel. Hihi.. massage after massage in the day? That must be crazy. Nevertheless, it was a great trip with all good walk, good sleep, good food and good massage.

Chiang Mai is rather a place with slow pace, as compared to Bangkok. It is rather a quiet and low density place, no wonder retiree likes here. Good place to visit, if you are a nature's lover. Some Yogi would fly here on purpose, just to attend Yoga retreat course.