Chiang Mai, Thailand

I lucked out that there's a festival in Chiang Mai, (an annual festival, based on the lunar calendar). As part of it, there's a huge street market for 3 days and it's by far the best market I've seen ever. The quality is amazing, and it stretches for kilometres. And unlike other markets, most of the stuff is unique and non-repetitive, and there's not much mass-produced junk. Most of the people shopping at the market are Thai -- there's not too many foreigners.

Last night Darren and I ended up at a bar where they had an open mike night -- but also if you just played an instrument, you could play with the band. So after a couple beers I went up and played a few songs. That was pretty cool (for me, I don't know if the rest of the bar appreciated it, although they did clap)

Tonight we went to the local night market (a different location than the festival market), for which Chiang Mai is known for. However, it turned out to be a fairly large tourist trap -- prices were ten times (ten times!) the prices at the festival market -- and when I tried to bargain saying that the price was cheaper at the other market, they grabbed the merchandise back and told me to go to the other market! So I did.

As part of the festival, there's these mini- hot air balloons that are launched. They're a cylinder made from tissue paper, about 2 feet in diameter, and 4 feet tall, and there's a wick mounted at the bottom. At any given moment there's one or two in the air. There's something uplifting about watching these rise to the heavens. The festival ends on Friday night, and we're hoping that there'll be a lot of balloons launched that night.

Tomorrow I've signed up for an all-day cooking class. We each get to choose five dishes to make, and start at the market buying ingredients. All day eating. Mmmm.

Some more pics:

AFW. (Another wat)


Just in case anyone doubted the ubiquitousness of western culture on the rest of the world...


Me with the band. Notice that they were careful not to place any mikes near me