Northern Thailand
From Vietnam to northern Thailand, how did you manage that without flying? Sadly I didn’t. I caved on my no flying intention to accompany Rosaline to Northern Thailand before she headed back to London, with her not having enough time to cross through Laos. It took me a bit of back and forth to make the decision but ultimately I wanted to spend as much time with Rosaline as possible since she’d come all this way, and I wanted to experience northern Thailand with her. It also made my onwards route a bit easier! And so we took a quick one hour flight from Hanoi to Chiang Mai. Stepping back into Thailand I had that familiar feeling of returning to a place I really enjoyed, from a place I enjoyed slightly less. I’d had it strongly once before on this trip: returning to Georgia from Armenia. It was clear to me then, I preferred Thailand to Vietnam. Not the way round I’d have predicted!
Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai was an interesting city, fully taken over by expats. The centre was a perfect square, surrounded by a moat and ruins of city walls. Within the moat, and especially along the first road inside, were lovely cafes after lovely cafes. Luckily there were also lots of little Thai restaurants and street food stalls. The perfect mix of Thai culture and western comforts. We appreciated the Thai side by visiting lots of gorgeous temples, chatting about our thoughts on Buddhism and mindfulness and the meaning of life whilst sitting in the calm oases of their gardens. Matching necklaces were bought at the ethnic Mong village which was a strange place, filled with corrugated iron lean-to structures housing souvenirs for tourists and a National Trust-esque flower garden. We ate a lot of excellent street food at the night market. We found our possible favourite dish of the trip: Khao Soi, a coconut milk-based curry with noodles rather than rice. We did another cooking class which ended up being a private lesson for just the two of us! Rosaline went to an elephant sanctuary and I got fined for riding a scooter without an international licence on my way to a free yoga class, which turned out to be a chi quong class which I hate. Swings and roundabouts! The expat community was also enjoyable and we indulged fully in this, by going to a free yoga class in the park (this one was actually yoga), by listening to some excellent jazz at the popular jazz bar and some excellent bands at another live music night we stumbled upon. We took part in the cafe culture with some intense travel planning for me (I changed my plans for my last few weeks and I booked my flight home!) and remote working for Rosaline. We visited an ‘art village’ I’d seen on instagram of all places, which greatly exceeded our expectations, being a few little lanes of beautiful handmade craft stores draped in vines and broken up with artisan cafes. It wasn’t a beautiful city and the roads were a bit stressful to drive on, but the food and activity made it one of the most liveable cities I’ve visited in Asia.
Chiang Rai
A four hour bus journey delivered us further north to Chiang Rai, the last destination for Rosaline and I’s travel together. The bus journey was stunning (or the parts I didn’t sleep through were). More temples and stupas and giant Buddhas than you could count. Our first day was spent visiting the Blue temple, which was very blue, and the Black House, which was very black. The Black House is a contemporary art and sculpture site, comprised of lots of black houses in traditional Thai design filled with strange articles. Chairs made of bones. Animal hides. Penis sculptures. A lot of strange male energy. Our favourite was the white dome with funky acoustics, something that kept us entertained for way too long. In the evening we visited, and completed, the Saturday night market which was no easy feat considering how huge and endless it was. Our last day was spent visiting the White Temple, along with two aussies we’d met at the hostel. I found the White Temple to be really quite rubbish. Out of all the sights I’d heard of and wanted to see, none had been so devastatingly disappointing as this. I’ll concede that it is very stunning and beautiful in isolation, but the reality is that it’s in a sort of car park on a main road. It was only built in 1997 and was clearly done so as a tourist attraction. It was so disengenuine. If you think I’m overreacting let me draw your attention to the hanging superhero heads in the trees that surrounded the temple… Yep that is Pirates of the Caribbean and Captain America. Why? Your guess is as good as mine, there was no explanation. Luckily, the two aussie guys were equally disillusioned by it so we had a fun time being unimpressed together. Thinking the day couldn’t get any more strange we drove out to a park and set out on a walk, unknowingly going in the complete wrong direction. We walked through hedge-lined lanes and past buffalo, coming across three man waist deep chilling in a river. They gave us shots of whiskey from cut off tops of plastic bottles and some jerky of questionable origin (hopefully not dog!). We had to sweet talk a guard to re-enter the park (apparently we were meant to have bought tickets) and got to enjoy a little petting zoo. All in all a strange day! The afternoon was spent chatting over cold beers in a british pub and there’s nothing that can quite beat that. Except for maybe getting dressed up and driving to a fancy restaurant for a delicious meal, which is what Rosaline and I did after! Sadly it was to mark our last meal together, but what a wonderful meal it was set in a conservatory that overlooked the river. Rosaline even indulged my greatest love, the card game ‘couples’, and we played a few rounds whilst our dinner digested. It wouldn’t have been the full travelling with Meg experience without at least one game of couples! I had quite the laugh in Chiang Rai, although some of it was at Chiang Rai’s expense. Overall, would recommend!
On May 29th, with sleep still in my eyes, I waved off Rosaline for a second time on this trip. There was no big transition period to travelling alone again, I slipped right back into it. I had a mission that day, to visit Myanmar, so I immediately got to work on achieving this (read the Myanmar blog post to hear about that!). And so I entered the final chapter of my journey.
Thai food
I thought I knew Thai food fairly well. Pad thai, soy sauce, pork, all of that stuff. I wasn’t wrong. But wow I’d underestimated it. I think the part I love the most about Thai food is the way you eat it. You never have your own dish, it’s always food for the table shared with everyone. I’m a big advocate for sharing food, mostly because I want to try as much as possible, but also because sharing the experience of a dish makes me happy. This way of eating with Thai food is brilliant as it allows you to appreciate the variety and how well different components come together. Here’s a taste of the food (pun intended):
- Salads. Papaya salad is my favourite. Shredded unripe papaya, tossed with fish sauce and chilli, other veggies added and peanuts heaped on top. It can do no wrong. The other salads are all equally fresh, spicy and tasty.
- Stir-fried noodle dishes. Whipped up in a flash in giant woks over high flames appearing from street food carts. We’re talking Pad Thai (less peanutty than ones I’ve had in the UK), Pad Ce-aw (soy sauce based), and other variations. Can’t go wrong with one of these.
- Stir-fried veg dishes. Same as above but the main component is a green like morning glory (interesting name I know) or pak choy. Drenched in a sticky soy sauce. Often with pork thrown through. There are other varieties with fun stuff like mini aubergines and catfish too. Again, can’t go wrong.
- Minced meat dishes. Holy basil chicken or pork. Larb. A heavily fragranced minced meat mixture, served with rice and a fried egg. Still can’t go wrong.
- Saucey dishes. Sweet and sour. Cashew chicken. You know the sort. Delicious every time, although I found the sweet and sour to always be a little too sweet for my taste.
- Curries. Green curry, red curry, yellow curry, panang curry. As a peanut lover, panang was my favourite but I never had a bad curry!
- Meat and rice. Crispy pork and rice. Duck and rice. Stewed pork and rice. Red pork and rice. A little on the plain side, apart from the stewed pork which was tasty as hell. But still so good and would really hit the spot after a day of sweating out all of the salt from my body. Served with rice, a soft boiled egg, some saucey greens. Yum.
- Noodle soups. The one I had was boat noodles which just blew all of the phos in Vietnam out of the water. So rich in flavour (that comes from the literal pig’s blood in the broth…) and filled with good chunks of meat.
- Soups. Tom Yum, one of my favourite dishes of all time before I’d even been to Thailand. It was a whole new flavour explosion for little Meg the first time I tried it, sat in the Brixton food market in London. The one in Thailand lived up to memory. As did the version with coconut milk.
- Barbecue dishes. When my family member took me out for dinner on my first night in Bangkok the table was filled with barbecued chicken wings, chicken breast, shrimps and skewers. We ate it with sticky rice. I didn’t even know this was a part of Thai food, but it’s a welcomed addition if not particularly unique.
- Northern specialties: Khao Soi and Guaeng Huang Lay. The Khao Soi was so good I’ve already mentioned it, but to reiterate it’s a coconut milk-based curry with noodles, topped with crispy fried noodles. It’s not mind-blowing in its flavour, being pretty mellow, but god it’s good. The ultimate cozy food. I don’t know why it’s not bigger outside of Thailand. Curry with noodles? New to me but groundbreaking. Guaeng Huang Lay is a thicker curry compared to other Thai curries, influenced by Burmese cuisine and therefore more Indian-like. Good but forgettable.
- Desserts. I had heard of mango sticky rice and thought it sounded like a pretty weak dessert. How wrong I was. I don’t know why mango sticky rice is as delectable as it is, or who gave it the right to be, but oh lord it’s wonderful. I think it’s the saltiness of the coconut milk that you drip over the perfectly ripe and super tasty mango (so much better than the ones in the UK) and the sticky rice, contrasted with the sweetness of that mango, and the comforting texture of that sticky rice. I don’t know. It’s just brain-alteringly good. I need to nail cooking sticky rice so I can make platefuls of it at home. Also, it feels like it could be an equally good breakfast food??? (Yes I have already eaten it for breakfast several times and this is just me trying to justify that.) In case you needed other dessert options (you don’t) there are also the Thai roti (square, extra crispy pancakes), fried bananas, and a whole selection of coconut based products from fresh ice cream to strange-textured balls.
Some other bits I love about Thai food is that the portions from street venders are on the smaller side, so you can get a few plates between two and enjoy even more dishes! Also the price is so low it’s silly. One dish would set you back between 40 - 60 baht (90p - £1.40), mango sticky rice is 30 - 50 baht (70p - £1.15).
Just in case it’s not completely clear at this point: I really really really enjoyed eating in Thailand. Thai food is so good and so varied. I never once wanted to eat a different cuisine and I think I could live my whole life eating just Thai food and not get bored. And I wouldn’t say that about any other cuisine…