My first week in Thailand went by so fast, from landing in Bangkok to heading north to celebrate the Yee Peng Lantern Festival in Chiang Mai.
I somehow got super lucky with my flight from Turkey to Thailand. When booking my flight back in September I bought a ticket with two flights and a three-hour layover in Bahrain. Two weeks after booking I got an email that my flights were pushed back a day; no problem I had a flexible schedule. Then two weeks before I was supposed to fly out, I got another email about my flight. This time I saw that the flight times were different and when I looked up my flight online, I saw that I was now flying on a sister airline with a direct flight from Istanbul to Bangkok. It was a nice surprise being switched to the direct flight; it made my travel day a lot shorter even if I was in one plane seat for over ten hours. After landing in Bangkok on a Saturday morning I made my way to my hostel and once there I took a nap. I tend not to have too much of a problem with jet lag, however something about that flight took it all out of me and I could barely stay awake.
After resting for a while in my hostel, I met two other women in my room. One had just arrived in Thailand earlier that day as well and the other had been in Bangkok for two days already. The three of us then went down to the river and got on a boat to head down the river to Wat Arun Temple for sunset. After sunset the three of us headed to Khao San Road, a super popular street in Bangkok with street food vendors, night clubs, and so much more. The three places made for a good first night in Thailand. I had planned to spend two days in Bangkok, however I was not intending to do a lot of sightseeing those days and instead was going to use that time to get over jet lag and get some laptop work done. On Sunday, my first full day in Bangkok, I was able to see some of the area I was staying in while walking to find a SIM card. The rest of the day was uneventful and spent working on my laptop. Monday afternoon I went to the Wat Mahathat Yuwaratrangsarit Temple. I got there not long before closing and was one of only three people there; it was very quiet and serene. At the Wat Mahathat Temple the outer wall is lined with golden buddha statues; it was a beautiful sight. After the temple I went to a park near the river because it had tents and other activities set up for the full moon party that was starting the next day.
Tuesday morning I had to get up early to get to the bus station as I was taking a ten-hour bus ride to the northern city of Chiang Mai to meet up with Cynthia, whom I had met in Pamukkale, Turkey. Back in Turkey when I first met Cynthia she told me about the full moon lantern festival in Chiang Mai and so plans were made to meet up in Thailand and that’s what we did. Since the bus ride took all day, I didn’t arrive in Chiang Mai and my hostel until after 7:00 in the evening. So, after checking into my hostel, I quickly dropped my bags and left to meet up with Cynthia at the festival. By the time I got out the festival was in full swing with a bunch of food vendors and flower river lantern stalls. It was fun meeting up with Cynthia and I was able to meet a bunch of other people that she had met at her hostel. The main activities for the festival were along the river. At the river’s edge people were setting off fireworks and putting lanterns into the river. The fireworks and firecrackers were chaotic and at some points terrifying as people set them off in crowded areas and right behind where we were sitting. Before arriving in Chiang Mai, I had googled Yee Peng Lantern Festival and all the photos that came up were of floating lanterns in the night sky. Unfortunately, when I was there, I learned that they were no longer able to be set off within city limits and upon researching where to see them the only place I could find was an expensive paid event which I chose not to splurge on. Even though I couldn’t see the lanterns that I had seen in photos it was still fun to experience the celebrations that were within the city.
On my second day in Chiang Mai, Thursday, I met Cynthia and the others from the night before for lunch at one of the markets in Chiang Mai. After lunch we wandered around the markets for a while seeing everything being sold. Since it gets so hot in the middle of the day the others left to rest and Cynthia and I continued to walk around the market and found a fruit market. While there we saw that dragon fruit was super cheap and so we decided to buy both a white and red one to do a taste test. We also bought some cut up pineapple. After buying the fruit we wandered for a little while longer before going back to Cynthia’s hostel to try the different fruits and sit for a while before going out to dinner. For dinner the group and I went to a Japanese restaurant since it was one of the girl’s birthdays and that’s what she wanted to do. We then wandered for a while and went out for drinks and had a fun evening celebrating her birthday.
Friday, my third day in Chiang Mai, was very uneventful. In the morning I had made an appointment to go to a travel clinic to get new malaria medicine for future locations I will travel to. I had gotten malaria medication before I left, but unfortunately the travel clinic back home prescribed me the wrong medication. After my appointment I relaxed for a while before meeting up with the group at a night market.
On Saturday I had to wake up early for a Thai cooking class. In the morning I was picked up to be taken outside of the city for the class. On the way to the cooking school, the truck stopped at a market and we were given time to wander around and take photos of anything we had questions about. Once at the cooking school we had time to show photos of what we saw and the market and have our questions answered. Afterwards, we were taken on a tour of their garden and told about the vegetables they grow and some of their uses in Thai dishes. It was interesting learning more about the different plants. Next, we started cooking the dishes. Before the class I was sent a paper to choose five different dishes I wanted to make. I was able to choose one dish from each section with the choices being a curry paste and curry, stir-fried dish, appetizer, soup, and dessert. Of the large variety of choices for my curry selection I chose Khao Soi, for stir fried I had to go with Pad Thai because I love it, for the appetizer I chose spring rolls, for the soup I went with Thai Noodle Soup, and finally for dessert I went with Mango Sticky Rice.
Khao Soi is a northern Thai dish that is made with red curry paste, that is similar to but not the same as Massaman curry paste, and both boiled and fried egg noodles. When making the paste you can decide how spicy you want it based on how many chill peppers and how much of the curry paste is added into the dish. Pad Thai is a fried noodle dish that is delicious and is made with rice noodles, tofu, eggs, bean sprouts, and more. It is quickly assembled in a wok and topped with peanuts. Spring Rolls are filled with glass noodles, bean sprouts, soy sauce, cabbage, egg, carrots, and more. Once filled they are fried and served with sweet chili sauce. Thai Noodle Soup is a clear soup that is made with glass noodles, carrots, white cabbage, celery, seasonings, tofu, and meat if you want to add it. Finally, there was Mango Sticky Rice which is a sweet dessert made with sticky rice, coconut milk, coconut cream, sugar, salt, and topped with crispy mung beans.
Since we all got to choose our own dishes we were able to learn about the ingredients and process for all the dishes. The first dish we made was soup. Since we made our dish selections in advance, we were given the mise en place ingredients for each of our dishes. There was minimal chopping needed and most of the cooking was assembly and just adding prepared ingredients and cooking. When we finished preparing our soups, we were able to sit and eat them while hot before continuing to the next dish. After the soup, we moved on to making the curry paste using a mortar and pestle. Once the paste was prepared we moved on to cooking the curry and once done we made our stir-fried dishes. The cooking of the stir-fried dish was fast since you had to be careful to not burn the stir-fry. When the stir-fried dishes were done we went to the dining area to eat both the soup and stir-fried dish. The first three dishes were very filling so it was a concern that there were still two more left however, as a group we persevered. After finishing the first three dishes the final two went much quicker as all that was left was the appetizer and dessert. The next dish I made was spring rolls and since a lot of us chose that dish it went much faster. We were all able to roll our own spring roll and fry it; spring rolls are delicious. The final food was dessert, which I chose to make Mango Sticky Rice. As with the spring rolls, a lot of people chose this dish so assembly went fast. Before making it, we were able to learn more about the different types of rice and how the sticky rice used for the dish was soaked overnight and they already had it cooked for us. All that was left to do was make the coconut mixture that is mixed into the rice and the sauce for the top. All the dishes were delicious and the class was a lot of fun. In total it ended up being around a six-hour class and the time went by so fast.
On my final day in Chiang Mai I spent the whole day wandering around within the old town square. I was able to see four different temples and three pagodas. It was a lot of fun walking around the old town and the temples were all beautiful. Going to multiple temples in one day was fun because I was able to see some of the differences between them, with some being more colorful and ornate and others being more simple. My time in Chiang Mai went by fast and I enjoyed getting to meet multiple new people and hang out with them. It is a fun city and one that I really enjoyed being in.
“A mind that is stretched by new experience can never go back to
its old dimensions.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
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