Lady Boy Show at the Night Bazaar in Chiang Mai, Thailand

We met a bunch of the girls we met during our cooking course after their yoga class at Nema Yoga Studio on Lane 4 (near Soi 5 Rd in the east part of the old city). I would have loved to do a yoga class, but we decided a long nap was a better idea ;) 

We loaf massaman curry

We went to the night bazaar on the east side of the moat and split up to get dinner. It was hard to believe that we were even hungry after everything we ate during the day. 

It was so cool since we now understood how to prepare the food we ordered (I got a coconut milk soup and Cyn got massaman curry) and what ingredients were in it. It's funny to think that only 2 weeks ago, I had no idea what the mysterious things were in the soup - turns out they are mushrooms and not some sort of seafood as I initially thought. 

After a delish din, we met back with the group at the Chiang Mai cabaret in the night bazaar. Aka lady boy show. 

Omigosh. You guys, it was SO GOOD! I couldn't believe it was a free show. The costumes were amazingly flamboyant and dayum, can those guys dance! 

There were points when the performers would go out into the audience and pretty much attack random men. 

They loved the boyf of the girl's we came with  - I guess that's what we get for sitting in the front row ;) 

There was one performance that was actually really moving. A lady boy came on stage all decked out and then slowly transformed back to a man to the song 'I did it my way'. 

Truly performance art at its best. 

We ended up seeing one of our friends from Monkey Club the night before and we all got pulled onstage for a dance party  at the end of the show. Too much fun. 

We decided to take it easy and head back to our hostel since we had a full day of hanging out with elephant the next day(!!). 

...not before getting a rotee, obvi. Like a deep-fried crepe with egg an cheese inside, covered in condensed milk. Obsessed. 

Thai Cuisine Cooking Course with Smart Cook in Chiang Mai, Thailand

[Momster & Popster - earmuffs for a paragraph] 

So, turns out going out til all hours of the morning isn't the best decision before going on a full day cooking course. 

Despite getting very few hours of sleep and feeling crazy nauseous, we stuck it out and had the most amazing day of all time. 

We got picked up at our hostel (turns out the driver had to come a couple of times since he came earlier than he said he would...oops!) and we joined the group at a nearby market to see the types of ingredients we would be cooking with. 

We were then brought to the train station and went to a nearby village. There was a designated spot for monks to sit. I'd like to learn more about monks in Thailand, their customs, how and why someone becomes a monk, for how long, etc. there are 'monk talks' at a lot of the temples, def going to have to hit that up at some point!

Once we arrived at the village, we got bikes and had an awesome bike ride through the village and along canals and fields. I forgot how awesome it is to bike - can't wait to rent a bike again soon! 

The location that we did our cooking course was really nice - spacious, clean, organized, and the staff was amazingly friendly and spoke really good English. 

We had a bunch of different options of plates to make, and I chose: chicken and coconut milk soup, pad thai (obvi), massaman curry (my fave!), green papaya salad, and mango sticky rice. 

I don't have that many pics from the day, my iPhone ran out of space so I had to revert back to the ol' point-n-shoot, but I set up a drop box last night so now I'm good to go ;) 

Thai dumplings *drool*

I feel like our days here kind of revolve around good - when we're going to eat, where we're going to eat, if we're going to take a chance and try something new...food, food, food. 

Today was not an exception: we literally spent all day looking, talking about, preparing, and eating delicious Thai food. 

Tom Kha soup 

We were with an awesome group of girls - all of us were around the same age and alllll female haha - so there was a lot of sharing (sharing IS caring, after all) and chatting. 

Our instructor, Kiki, was hilarious and very informative. He also made super inappropriate jokes throughout the day (the size of the bananas, the speed we pounded the curry spices, etc). Too funny. The other group that was there with us was a bit faster, and by the end he said that we needed to rush back to catch the train. 

Green papaya salad with wilted cabbage leaves 

I have never biked so fast haha. We literally dropped our bikes off and ran down the road and across the tracks so that we weren't hit by the train. A hilarious ending to a great day!

Temple Tour in Chiang Mai, Thailand

We decided to take it easy on our first day in Chiang Mai and get some stuff organized for the next couple of days here. We wanted to make sure that the elephant training school we booked with had humane practices and were legit, and we wanted to see what other activities there were in the area. 

We 'slept in' and naturally woke up at 8am, had breaky, booked our activities (we settled on a cooking course excursion and Eddy's elephant training school) and then headed out to do our own little guided tour of the temples in the old city in Chiang Mai from a map we found in the Lonely Planet (essentially every backpackers bible - you can see people pouring over then everywhere). 

As per usual, we got lost almost instantly. I'm usually good with maps, but all the street names are so similar here...I know - excuses, excuses. We ended up passing by an institute for blind masseuses and decided what the heck - lets get another massage. 

It was the first time that we were asked to wear robes, and our masseuses were lead to our mats. It was actually really enjoyable. My lady was a bit gentler than usual, loved it! 

Same same but different 

Only $5 for an hour massage. I can deal with that ;) 

After loosening up a bit, we got ourselves oriented and saw Wat Phra Singh and Wat Chedi Luang temples. I honestly felt a bit wat-ed out, but I am always amazed as soon as we go inside. 

Temple attire 

They are amazingly ornate, stunning to see. 

Wat Chedi Luang had an older section that was half crumbling, with huge golden Buddhas at the top. So gorgeous! 

It was getting pretty late in the afternoon, so we grabbed a red truck taxi - the cheapest option here, tuktuks are a total ripoff - to go to Wat Doi Suthep. They kept asking for 500 baht (around $17) for two people and I didn't believe them. Once we heard it about 20 times, we gave in. 

Turns out the temple is situated quite far outside of the old city and on the top of a mountain. I get why it's that price now ;) 

It was such a lovely drive up the mountain with lush jungle on either side. It smelled amazingly fresh too. Reminded me of the forests at home in a strange and beautiful way :) 

Wat Doi Suthep was truly magnificent. You pass by vendors at the entrance (obvi) and then walk up around 300 steps to the Wat. The inside is gorgeous as well, with a huge golden stupa in the middle. 

The views of the old city from the lookout is also pretty cool. Chiang Mai is quite a forested city. 

After watching the sunset, we got dropped off on Nimmahaeman Rd on the west side of the moat of the old city, which is supposedly the trendy area for college kids to hang out and go clubbing. 

A real-life Momster 

There were tons of cool shops and restaurants packed with university students. We ended up going to another Burmese restaurant and got chicken curry and pennywort salad - so delicious!! There was a Thai soap opera playing and we were entranced - it is amazing how you can understand those shows without even knowing the language. So good. 

We then checked out Monkey Club, which was supposed to be a fun hang out place and dance club. There was a band playing, which always started off their songs upbeat but then turned them into slow songs. We were going to leave since it was kind of putting us to sleep but then we started chatting with some other tourists and noticed the other side of the bar was rocking with a dj so we decided to go start a dance party. 

We were having fun when all of. Sudden the same band got on stage. We thought the fun times would soon end, but they played super upbeat rock and pop songs, so good!! We got some of the Thai people to start dancing and it turned out to be a fun night. We all clambered into tuktuks as the club was closing and snuck into our hostel. Gotta love dorm living ;)

Sunday Night Market in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Hi friends! 

I have another couple of blog posts comin' at you today, we have been so busy during our days in Chiang Mai that I haven't had a chance to catch up yet! So, here you go :)

Our flight from Krabi to Chiang Mai went smoothly, and our bags arrived successfully - BOOYAH! 

We were pretty ravenous by the time we arrived, however, since Air Asia le sucks and not only made us pay extra for checked luggage (grumble) but they didn't even feed us on the plane - even snacks were extra (and clearly we have become to cheap to buy airplane food...we're trying to stay on some sort of budget, man). Fail Air Asia, mega fail. 

Anywho, we met two Canadian girls and grabbed a taxi to the old city. The taxi driver was hilarious and kept pointing at tourists and yelling 'phalong!'  We assumed he was saying 'stupid white person' haha and he was pretty on-point with most of them - people randomly crossing the street, not paying attention to where they were going...

It was the first time that we had arrived somewhere and didn't have any accommodation booked in advance. I know, pretty bad ass. Or irresponsible, depending how you look at it...

We were starving at this point, so we stopped at the Burmese Cuisine Restaurant on the other side of the moat on the north east corner of the old city. 

Side note: the old city of Chiang Mai is surrounded by a moat. So cool. It has extra large stone entrances at different intervals. Loves it! 

There are a lot of Burmese restaurants here since we are close to the border. It was nice I have a bit of a change from our regular noodle/spicy soup/curry/fried rice dishes. We got fried fish in 'Burmese sauce' (aka tomato sauce) and amazing young coconut smoothies. So yummy! 

We ended up getting bunks at Rose Guest House, a nice little hostel with really friendly staff. I met a girl who was teaching English in Thailand for the past 4 months (she said the kids were pretty 'out of control' haha) and we all headed to the Sunday night market. 

There is a market every night, during the week it is on the east side outside the moat, on Saturdays it is south of the moat, and Sunday is the only day it is inside the old city. 

I have to say, it was the best night market we have been to yet: there were TONS of vendors, with new things we hadn't seen yet. There were a lot of blind people walking around with portable karaoke machines, and even a jam circle with didgeridoos and bongos (Australian influence in full swing). 

Spicy mystery noodles 

Hard boiled quail eggs

Fresh young coconuts 

We walked around, ate new things, bought some goodies until the vendors closed up shop at around midnight. 

Pork balls

Momster, you would lurve these shoes(!!)

I would def suggest checking it out if you are in the area on a Sunday!