What Wat's What?

Adrienne proudly showing off her delicious fare
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Having slept well on the bus we were picked up by a guest house to be shown their place.  It's a great practice because we got a free ride into town and nearly booked a room.  We ended up at another place called Five Star paying B150 for a room with a bathroom - brilliant!  At breakfast Sean discovered what was to become our favourite Thai dish: Khao Soi (sometimes Chiang Mai) noodles.  Yu-u-u-uum!

Chiang Mai is a cool city.  We were located in the old city within the city walls and moat.  The old city is a maze of narrow, windy streets with a wat located on every corner (ok, so we're exaggerating).  There are a few things to do here; the easiest being wat watching.  The city has so many temples and we decided to check out a couple.  The temples glitter with gold and are festooned with Buddhist imagery.

Sean... ummmm... needs a haircut...
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Another popular pursuit is cooking classes.  Erin had recommended Baan Thai Cooking School and we hooked up a class for that evening.  It cost B700pp and there were others to choose from but we had heaps of faith in Erin's recommendation.  We were able to choose our own menu, four dishes from a list of many (in the form of a cookbook we could take with us).

Our teacher took us to the market to get our ingredients, while explaining what things were.  Adrienne actually had a sneaky snack to tide her over, but needn't have as we were given some delicious snacks on our arrival back at the school.  What surprised us with the cooking was how simple it was, but a lot of the flavour came from having fresh herbs.  We made papaya salad, holy basil and minced pork stirfry, Chiang Mai curry and all topped off with banana in coconut milk for dessert.  It was heaps of fun and we were absolutely stuffed.

Fully trained culinary masters!
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With cooking lessons ticked off, we were left with trekking or exploring the city.  We decided to leave trekking for Laos.  Instead we took the exploring option and hired a scooter (B100).  Towering behind Chiang Mai is a mountain that leads to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep.  The temple was beautiful and afforded us a great view of the city.  Similar to other temples we'd seen but with 300 steps to climb.  Sean was just proud that the scooter made it down the mountain and another 2km without being in gear.

A view of Chiang Mai
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Wat Jet Yot was a tad elusive (ok, so it's signposted on the road).  It is a 550 year old temple that exuded history.  The coolest feature was the tree whose lower branches were supported by white sticks with writing on them.  We thought that the best wat was Wat Chedi Luang.  Our guide book said that bats fly around it in the evening but we only saw birds.  Still, it was huge with an ancient feeling to it.

Chiang Mai's night market is quite large but nothing terribly original in it, a bit cheaper that Bangkok.  As per normal, we didn't buy anything, merely cruised and perused.  Heading back to the guesthouse we stuck gold with B10 pancakes.  We also passed a few bars with girls lined up outside as advertisements for themselves.

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We awoke on our last full day in Thailand with one last thing we had to see in Chiang Mai, unsurprisingly, a wat.  Rough Guide says "If you see only one temple in Chiang Mai it should be Wat Phra Singh...".  We don't agree.  We though Wat Chedi Luang was cooler, but it depends what you like.  It is beautiful, but we found it to be too similar to so many others we had seen in Thailand.  We didn't go inside because a service was in progress, but we were allowed the chance to peak in the doors.  A large Buddha statue dominated one end, and many monks were sitting behind baskets of food (meals for the day) listening to their teachings.

Inside of temple photo number 234234
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Tesco's (a British supermarket chain) has landed itself a place in a few SEA countries.  It's difficult and expensive to find some products, eg. moisturiser, that doesn't whiten your skin.  Asians want light skin so they don't look like peasants who have darker skin from working outdoors.  We ventured to the nearest Tesco's to pick up some cheap buys.

At lunchtime we jumped into a minvan (B300pp) heading to Chiang Khong on the Lao border.