01.02 Day 17 Chiang Mai

Day 17 - Thu 1st Feb - Chiang Mai

Everyone still catching up on sleep it seems with a team personal best lie in until 8am in the comfy beds. Not much on the agenda, which will still take some getting used to - I’m not very good at doing nothing, especially in a new city. 

We’d arrived in Chiang Mai a day earlier than what we’d originally anticipated, so Home De Bear is just a stop-gap until we can access our main accommodation, Hostel One and Art Gallery, which is booked for four nights. Home De Bear was chosen in part because it's only 300 metres away from the next place so it's an easy stroll with the bags, especially because its noticeably cooler in the mornings - despite still getting to 32-34 degrees in the afternoon, it's only 16-18 degrees first thing in the morning which feels so much fresher than Bangkok. 

Whilst we wait to check in, Kate and Sienna drop off some laundry while Seb and I walk to the other side of the Old Town to try and navigate the murky waters of which of the many elephant day trips are ethical, or least unethical. Seb’s vote goes to the one where they gave him some chocolate. 

Walking through the narrow alleyways lined with wide fronted houses, many in seemingly original timber, there are plenty of hostels / homestays, small shops and cafes and a mountain of massage places. Like an intricate web, the roads wind and weave, all of them seen as shortcuts for mopeds, tuk tuks and minivans. 

We all four revisit “the kind lady cafe” for a pair of mango smoothies, where we hear two other sets of customers saying See you tomorrow or, We’ll be back this afternoon. It only has ten seats, isn’t on the main road, but seems to generate loyal patronage very quickly. We’re also now in that camp. 

Back at Hostel One and Art Gallery, after some time getting set up for school - first day of term today, for which the impact is softened for the kids as there’s plenty to do on the ipad which is appeal enough for them, plus the gamification that has been added to the learning apps, makes it a soft start to schooling. 

After this we are contacted by our Canadian counterparts who had already set up base in Chiang Mai a few days before us, also in the Old Town, just 15 minutes away and we agree to meet at the Night Market. Except there are a dozen or so night markets, so once we establish which they mean, we loop through the alleyways and out the East Gate to Kalare night market where stallholders hog the pavement surrounding an open atrium home to 30+ food and drink vendors selling everything from burgers to bugs, rice to rotis to ribs. 

We perch on small stools (with no chance to get our legs under the laughably low tables) and hoover up some egg rotis and barbecued ribs. 

We’re then introduced to roll-up ice-cream by Emmett and Hazel, where your selection of additions (think M&M’s or strawberries) are mixed and smashed and crunched with a creamy liquid atop a circular frozen surface, transforming the mixture to a flat sheet of ice-cream within moments, and then peeled off into rolls. The photo of Seb and Sienna with a full tub of ice-cream does not give an indication of the level of competitiveness that is about to emerge between the two of them consuming the sweet treat principally to stop the other having it. 

After perusing the market stalls, we amble back the way we’d come, and what was possibly the pink light district at 6pm, a few hours later is definitely now red, though all the prospective waitresses give their attention to the kids, coo-ing over them with maternal instinct as we’ve become familiar with.