Escape to Chiang Mai

Food in Thailand is a national passion, everywhere you go there are dozens of food carts selling all manner of things. Meat and veg on sticks which they bbq, and are very cheap….

Then there are smoothie carts, coffee carts, fruit sellers, white fluffy Chinese style buns filled with black bean paste or shredded pork or custard. People who sell deep fried spring rolls and bags of crispy things and then all the blue plastic tablecloth eateries, they all seem to make a living. People on motorbikes taking home plastic bags full of unknown liquids and styrofoam packed takeaway food. They must have a squillion chickens somewhere because there are eggs a plenty on every stall and every shop. Everybody eats all the time, why are they all so skinny? There must be 50 places in our small village to get good food. If they are not selling food they are eating it!!!! It’s so cheap, for less than a £1 you can have a sit down dinner, it’s brilliant. The aromas of food are intoxicating as you stroll around….

You can do cookery courses here. We have been on 2 so far and they are good fun but definitely don’t eat breakfast before you go. Whatever you cook you eat and that is often a soup, salad, main course and dessert. Before you start cooking they take you to a local market and explain all the different types of rice and show you a myriad of exotic fruit and veggies. We love the markets, they are so colourful and beautifully presented and the stall holders are happy to chat. The only bit I don’t like is the meat sections which just smell of blood and offal. On one stall we noticed they were selling crispy things but when we got closer they were deep fried chicken heads, no thanks. It is good that everything is eaten, every part of every animal but not always appealing to European taste buds…

After 2 weeks of eating and not much exercise, we decided we needed to do something. We had already returned to Satva yoga, Freddy and Nit, which is an excellent class and we both enjoyed but needed more. We joined Fitness Thailand a gym 5 minutes walk from our abode. After looking round and looking at class schedules we joined. We ummed and aarghed a little and both got a reduced student rate for a month of 1500 baht each (£37). They have 8 zumba classes a week and 14 yoga classes so am going to try them all. I have been to 2 zumba classes so far and have already made friends. The Thai people are very inclusive. I have had my photo taken in a group shot, the only farang there but made to feel very welcome even though I looked like a blonde sweaty tomato by that point! These 2 pictures are from Satva yoga class…

The weather here is unusually cold at the moment especially in the mornings and after 5. It still gets to the late 20’s in the middle of the day and is still better than most ‘hot’ English summer days. It’s funny to see the locals with woolly hats and jackets and complaining bitterly about the cold. The security guard Mr Bum must have 3 coats on every night. It makes it easy to sleep at least and having lived in northern England all my life it’s not really cold, a fleece over your t shirt is fine. Even the dogs have jumpers !!

We went to a local reservoir called Huay Teng Tao, only 20 minutes from town. The entrance fee was 50 baht, just over £1. It’s a beautiful space, we drove around it on the bike and found ‘The little bees cafe’. We sat in a little reeded hut overhanging the water and had a cold beer, it’s thirsty work sightseeing! The mountains are the backdrop and we just sat and watched dragonflies fighting/mating over the water and lots of little fish. Bliss. The menu was interesting. One item was hawk moth, horse blankets, I think it might have got lost in translation, I really wanted Chris to order it. Happy days.