When looking for a few days on our way from Myanmar to Laos, Chiang Mai jumped out like the obvious choice. We love Thai cuisine and the food in Chiang Mai is supposed to be particularly good and there were lots of things to do, so we booked our direct flight from Mandalay, thinking that we might head on to Laos via the road and boat. Chiang Mai was the capital of the Lanae Kingdom until the mid 16th century in the north of Thailand, rich in heritage and diversity. Also rich in drug trade history, at the bottom of the Golden Triangle. We decide on an apartment within the old town, with the legendary Sunday walking market right around the corner.
Our first morning we head into one of the many trendy looking cafés and enjoy some delicious tropical smoothie bowls. Not very Thai, I know, but the pork heavy options on the street are a bit too intense for us.
Thailand of course has so many gorgeous fruits and vegetables, not to speak of mango sticky rice (Khao Niaow Ma Muang) which has a rightfully epic reputation, and we were all looking forward to sinking our tastebuds into all of that and more! Our first day we spend roaming around town, discovering the local flower park and playground, as well as, rather by coincidence, a hole in the wall vegan restaurant Ming Kwan that serves up absolutely delicious food and which – as we later find out during our “foodie food tour” on our last day – turns out to be the secret insider place for great quality vegetarian and vegan food. We immediately declare it our “canteen”: every day, they serve up original options and we struggle to choose: all kinds of different mushrooms as well as all kinds of different, colourful vegetables, tofu in all variations and all different levels of firmness…. pure delight! And sometimes a bit over the top on the chili…. 🔥
The next morning I booked us a fruit carving lesson because after the great success of the cooking lesson in Bagan I thought it could be fun for us to try something else. Boom arrives with her husband and a crate full of carrots, cucumbers, daikon and watermelons for us to practice on. I am definitely a little bit worried about the kids handling such sharp utensils but I have to say that they handle them really well. As such, only a few hours later, with surprisingly all digits still attached and even unscathed, there we are with a lot of beautifully crafted comestible decoration of veggies and fruits.
Every day its own program, and on day 3 that’s the Elephant Poopoo paper park ( see separate blog post) which I expect them to enjoy but I am amazed just how much so! Understandably so, the place is truly superbly well organised and set up. After that full morning I am very keen on discovering another tiny vegetarian place that I had read great things about on a blog. Pun Pun Slow Food is hidden behind one of the many Wat in town, definitely not easy to find and so popular with locals that food usually runs out before everyone can order. We manage to find it and we snag the last few dishes available which are simply delicious. Organic, fresh, vegetarian food, beautifully prepared. Even the vegetarian fried rice was novel, with lots of lemongrass and Thai basil, giving it an unusual kick. The black sesame tofu in coconut pepper cream, the mushroom “sausage”….we could have gone on and on. They also happen to have a huge selection of Ayurvedic drinks, many of which I haven’t heard of before (or at least not in the form of drinks) and, upon trying them, I know why – most of them are simply absolutely revolting! But with powerful effects, as we could attest in some cases 😆
That evening, we want to try one of the local “hot tables” and so end up at SamCook Home 16 to try his tasting menu. The concept is nice: a passionate foodie who set up his restaurant with his extended family involved as staff. The food is nice, not out of this world, but nice and it definitely deserves a special mention for gorgeous presentation as well as adorable attentive service.
A visit to Thailand obviously isn’t complete without a proper Thai massage and as it so happens, there is, right next to our Airbnb, a massage parlor with great reviews that also offers lessons. This is meant to be, and so on day 4, I have a full day crash course. Not surprisingly, posture is of essence, for yourself – there is no way you can put in so much strength for a full hour massage if you do not keep your own body posture in check -, but of course also for the person being massaged. In my case, this turned a bit sour: I guess 5 hours of giving and getting a “proper” massage is a bit much for my body: I feel fatigued after this long physical day, but nothing compared to what is still to come 48 hours later….
In the meantime, for a last day I insist on another food tour which, unfortunately, does not provide the deep local immersion we are hoping for. Instead, I am busy making sure the guide does not freak out because our kids ask too many questions about things that are not on the program 😉 Nevertheless, the market visit is still fun, the cooked foods on offer here are a real eyeful. We try many different potstickers made from brightly coloured vegetable powders, my favorite being the butterfly pea flour giving a vivid blue hue, rice cakes filled with all kinds of sweet and salty peanut mixes, sticky rice cooked in bamboo that you have to peel off to get to, and, of course, a mandatory mango sticky rice with its warm, salty sweet coconut milk, not too sweet, just right. We even discover some new fruits that we haven’t yet tried, from the locally very popular jackfruit, which looks a bit like a giant breadfruit but is nothing like it. Rough, green skin on the outside, it has pretty yellow flower-like fruits on the inside, quite delicate to the taste. It is also the beginning of mango season, and here they come all kinds of colors and sizes, each with its own unique flavour profile, there are literally at least 10 different varieties on offer. Thierry and the kids also discover another fruit which in India we call the chickoo and here they call sapodilla or zapota. It is brown on the outside AND on the inside, with a sweet, caramel-date-pear cross of a flavour and a texture that is creamy, borderline flour like. It was one of my Dad’s favourites and is also a huge hit with the Journiac clan. At this point, our guide has simply given up on us and defeatedly lends us her knife and peeling utensils as we happily taste our way through the fruit stand.
By noon, it is time to head back home – at this point I am definitely feeling squeamish, wondering if it’s something at the market that I ate, but as the feeling turns from not-quite-right to literally wobbly on my feet with a pounding headache and debilitating lower back ache, I am convinced that this has nothing to do with food, but that all that massage was just too much for me. On this note, it is time to pack up again and head back to the airport to get to our next destination: Luang Prabang. Planned for 3 weeks, little do we know that this will turn into 3 months ++.
