Chiang Mai

            

Khao soi, one of my favorite northern dishes

Chiang Mai is like home. When we arrived here from Hanoi, the tension lowered and we fell into a relaxing and easy routine -- thus no blog posts! 

The first wonderful thing was our hotel room - Baan Orapin, second time back, and they had no little rooms so we got the two-room suite. After sharing single rooms for 4.5 weeks, it was time. I can't say enough about the beauty and comfort of the hotel and its grounds and the benevolent indifference of its owner. I will go back every year if I can afford it.

Of course this was way over budget, but not terrible at $40/night each. I didn't think to take photos of the room, but here is the breakfast area. And oh, I used the pool daily. As the temperature inched up toward 100, the pool remained cool and refreshing.

Oh and the breakfasts were fantastic. You could even order a Northern Thai breakfast that contained 1000 calories I think -- this is what you eat when you're planting rice all day. Delicious though!

Next door to our hotel is Tanita's, a small restaurant that serves amazing drinks. Below is Barbara's daily mango smoothly and my Thai iced tea. I think I may have gained a few drinking these, although I discovered you can ask for no sugar, which means NO ADDED SUGAR, so you only have to contend with the condensed milk.

Mango smoothie and Thai iced tea at Tanita's -- those are orchids on the tray!

My original intention, given that we had ten days, was to take a foot massage class. We also had plans to go to Pei. Hmmm, all of those intentions were held captive by the urge to relax! So relax we did, which means eating, shopping, a little sightseeing, and for me, pool time.

The Saturday walking street is a relatively small (by Thai standards) street market with food vendors and "homemade" craft items -- some of which were definitely made in Thailand. I got a tip from another hotel guest to visit the silver temple and here it is in it's glory. The entire temple is encrusted in silver...I wonder if they have to polish it? There is also a fair amount of gold, not sure if it's solid or plate, but either way there is the issue of polish. The hundreds of temples here are beautifully maintained by the monks, so I imagine it is several people's jobs to make sure it looks good.

Wat Sri Suphan

            

Orchids from the flower market

Barbara lounging with G&T in her custom Jammie's on our lovely hotel porch.

Bundles of herbs, Talat Thanin, a gorgeous and spotless market near University 

Our Songthae had a cat on board. Songthae is inexpensive transportation around Chiang Mai, safer and cheaper than yuk yuk.

Talat Thanin, dig those neatly arranged vegetables!

Near Talat Thanin these steamed punk in buns were for sale. We walked by on day 1. Day 2, I noticed Andy Ricker posted this on this Instagram site, so we went back and tried one. Subsequently, I've seen these for sale both in Chiang Mai and Bangkok. We relied a lot on Andy Ricker posts for dining ideas, which worked out pretty well -- not 100% though.

Flowers from Wararot flower market. I think these are temple arrangements, see them everywhere, so complicated!

Meal at Shan restaurant recommended by Andy Ricker (again). Address: 16/10 Kutao Soi 3 T.Sripoom Muang Chiangmai Thailand. Had Laap, plus two other dishes. They provide plates of vegetables and herbs similar to Vietnam.

Orchids from Talat Wararot flower market, so beautiful.

Next year I spend a month in Chiang Mai and take the foot massage course! I hope someone will join me for all or part of it. 

Hanoi --redux

This coffee is so amazing, it tastes like hot ice cream! To get into the shop, Giang Cafe, is entered via a long hallway from the street. I had to plow through a group of tourists to get into the place....

There are two things on the menu: hot and iced egg coffee. Also you can order sunflower seeds in the shell..ubiquitous here. egg coddle is made by swiping eggs and sugar together in some magical way and then blending with Vietnamese coffee. There are now many copycats in Hanoi, but Giang is the original. The shop is on two floors and again, everyone sits on tiny stools. The waiter heaves and hoes great trays of coffee up and down the stairs and likewise clears the dishes. 

P

Think hot coffee ice cream --- Vietnamese egg coffee

Barbara came down with tourists on the bus from Sapa to Hanoi. She was down for the count and I ended up getting my own room...hers was germ infested and noisy with all the trips to the bathroom!

I got electrolytes for her and gave her the Zithromax---her doc had given her Cipro  which is no good in se Asia. After that I was alone to explore Hanoi which was very fun. I walked to the market which is a true working market so the prices were fair and the products plentiful. I bought candied ginger for half the price I'd been paying ...in case of nausea--and a pack of 10 face masks for $4.00.

I am becoming a woman of the world so I sought out the food court which happened to be in a narrow alleyway. Just like that I sat down on a tiny stool and ordered, ate, and paid for my noodles. Delicious! My favorite meals have all been street food and the least expensive, ranging from $1.00 to $4.00.

My noodles at street stall

Our last day in Hanoi, Barbara was feeling better so we booked a car and driver and saw the temple of literature, an ancient university dating from 10th/11th century.

Main pond...there were 5. Not sure of significance of hats.

Out building

Turtle head...rub for luck...many lucky people out there.

Amazing bonsai

View from second floor

Cute Phoenix relief on building

Altar in main chapel

Street food on last day ... pork meatballs with panko crust deep fried. They were pure fat served with chilli sauce and ketchup.

Same stall as above, fresh beer, rice cake, dipping sauce.

Again a tiny stool, me alone sitting next to a group of Vietnamese who were partying down.

Sapa, batik, Bac Ha Market

T Batik in the Hmong sense is the process of painting a design in fabric with a djanting tool and beeswax and then dying the fabric in indigo and removing the wax, thus revealing the pattern. The Hmong work is very intricate from where I sit...requires much fine motor skill, attention to detail, and patience. A textile artist from California joined us...she was taking a series of courses in Laos and Vietnam from minority artists. She was able to explain a few things to us..the position of the tool in the hand, the tool design, the ubiquitous use of indigo from various plants around the world. Back home she grows her own indigo dyes.

The beeswax is melted over a fire as seen below. Because the weather was cold, the wax hardened almost instantly, thus requiring a bit of practice to get anything resembling an even flow of wax from the tool. Either is was too much and giant drops globbed onto the fabric, or too little and nothing went on the fabric.

Beeswax for batik

Corey demonstrates proper position of djanting tool

The djanting tool is different than the ones I bought on eBay and the position for working it was the opposite of what you'd expect. Holding the pen in reverse gives you more control, especially for laying out straight lines. Of course I was pretty hopeless with all of this, creating a pretty messy design. Corey, on the other hand, produced a Hmong-worthy design.

Barbara applying wax to her pattern with My (our teacher) looking on.

Although I didn't need to take the class to realize that my fine motor skills are limited, it was fun to work with the teacher and talk to Corey in more depth about her textile work. We also got to experience what it must feel like to be Hmong with tourists passing by and staring at you. Many tour groups passed us why we were working to check out what we were doing!

The food in Sapa is unremarkable. We ended up taking most of our free meals at the Hill Station restaurant..a very elegantly designed, but freezing cold restaurant with odd reservation policies. The first of the two serves traditional Hmong food. The image below is of a roasted sweet potato elevated to fine cuisine. Of course it was good, if not simple, food.

Sweet potato elevated to haute cuisine at the hill station

There was also the minced pork served in little piles of three (see the trend?). And bowls of mashed tofu. The local corn and rice hootch -- some of it flavored -- was also a highlight.

Mashed tofu

Minced pork served in fancy feast shaped piles. Corn and rice hootch in foreground.

In spite of the beautiful presentation, this was an expensive and ultra simple dining option and I preferred their second restaurant which served cheese platters and hamburgers!

The Bac Ha market is highly recommended in Lonely Planet and had been on our "must do" list for over a year. It sounds great -- the colorful Flower Hmong are major participants in the market and a good place to buy textiles. We took a long bus ride - 2.5 hours - to get to the market. The bus, although a tour bus, kept picking up passengers so that by the end we were sitting 4 across, meaning the aisles were fully occupied. This means you are trapped in your seat, even if you do have an aisle seat!

The flower Hmong were pretty, but to me, their costumes were not as lovely as the black Hmong. The textiles were repeats of what we'd seen already. The major point of interest was the animal market. Up on a ridge above the market were dozens of water buffalo, apparently for sale. Barbara refused to go there, saying they would be slaughtering them, but this was not the case. In fact, although I know they eat the buffalo, their primary use is for farming. They also sold yokes and other apparatus that goes with the buffalo. I really love the water buffalo -- they are so pretty!  I feel badly for their hard life, but then they are revered. A red Zao woman, when I told her I had two boys, told me it was better to have boys. She said, boys can own water buffalo, all girls can do is handiwork. So there you have it.

The market also had a number of chickens and ducks for sale, all alive, or almost alive. The folks seem to be able to position the animals so they can't move, so you can never be sure.

The disturbing part of the market were the dogs for sale. So you know the chickens are food (either eggs or food) and the ducks are food (same) and the water buffalo are food and beasts of burden. The dogs...they are NOT man's best friend here, they are food. So what happens? There are many stray dogs all over Vietnam, dogs and cats are never neutered so the boys have big kahunes and the girls big tits. Do folks scream gleefully when they find a litter on their property and bring them to the market as soon as they are weaned (or before!) or do they just capture stray dogs? How is this way of managing the dog population any different than our destroying and then burying surplus animals? These are things to ponder although I doubt I will ever develop a taste for dog.

Less disturbing was the bird market -- these are birds in cages apparently prized for their song. There were hundreds of them with many Vietnamese men looking on -- evaluating the song? The robustness of the little bird? I am not a birder, so sadly could not say what type of bird they had.

There were also a handful of ponies for sale -- I think they were ponies and not mules, but cannot be certain. One had a little wooden saddle on it with no stirrups. I saw one of the men jump on the saddle, his legs in the side saddle position, and he lead the horse around the grass. 

Later in the day we saw many water buffalo and ponies walking through town. We were unsure if they had been sold and we're off to their new homes, or if they were going back home after another market day.

Unfortunately no photos... I don't like taking pictures of people without permission...more the occasional sneaky shot and the environment of the market was a little hostile for that kind of thing, although it didn't stop the other tourists!

Trek to Villages - Slippery Slidey

Our hotel host said it was a good one-day trek with interesting village and it was downhill. I almost didn't book it, worrying that it might not be challenging enough, but that fear proved to be unfounded in spades. It started out innocently enough on a paved road, but once we started climbing down off the road onto muddy surfaces, the fun began! We had a leader (I sorry, I forget name) and a posse of Hmong women who walked with us. I thought they were somehow getting paid when one of them began helping me through the mudslides. My shoes, fabulous on rock, proved to be akin to a sled or skates in the mud -- the tread immediately filled up (as did the sides, top, and the bottom of my pants!). One of the young ones slipped down the hill first...butt covered with mud. I wanted to be graceful and get down the hill on my feet. One of the Hmong women, ZuZu was older -- 57 or 52 -- and had very strong hands indeed. She took it upon herself to help me down the trail as we went up and down, across streams, up rice paddies (they are high!) and down again. I fell once breaking my fall on my previously broken wrist. Oops! Think it's okay though. Our guide, useless, ahead of us, not helping anyone, continued to lead us through 6 miles of muck and gunk! Once we arrived at our luncheon place, a black Hmong village, it was time to pay the ZuZu. She had stood by me, she was not young, she had a firm and confident grip. I do what she says. I hope this was not exploitive, but I wanted her belt. The black Hmong costume includes several layers of indigo and embroidery and I fell in love with the belt, which is indigo and embroidery. The place I saw it required that you buy the whole ensemble...which is TINY....and I just wanted the belt. Was it exploitive to turn down the pillow covers and request her belt? She ended up unwrapping it and handing it to me for 500,000 dong, maybe $23. I also brought a money belt for less -- as a tip I guess. During this transaction I had an audience -- Zao ladies -- or were they Zha? One of them spoke great English and I kept telling her -- ZuZu my sister, she helped me climb through mud...I need to buy from her. Of course, these other two stayed with me, seeing I was a soft touch. 

ZuZu

In the end, I ended up buying from them, too, things I did not want at all! After their exorbitant asking prices, I negotiated a 50-50 deal where I got one small item from each of them for a ridiculous sum. 

Hmong weaver

Paddies, climbed them!

At the end, one of the guides explains to me that we were on the easy trail -- oh yea, tough mudder easy...if I hadn't had ZuZu I would have been crawling through the mud and would have been covered head to toe instead of below the knees. 

Close up paddies, planting begins in May

Also, met some sweet people -- a coffee trader -- kiwi -- who lives in Hanoi and is a coffee trader, two young female Korean travelers, and some very sweet Malaysians. There were also a French couple, but kind of nasty compared to the others. 

Blond water buffalo

Sa Pa

The Hill Station restaurant - a sampler of corn and rice "wine" - actually this is high-alcohol hootch served tastefully in these lovely pottery containers. Oh Lord, thank you for putting me back in a tourist area.

Banana flower salad and Hmong-style pork (three little cat-food shaped piles of pork, pretty tasty) served with excellent local rice.

Only decent photo of Barbara on trip - in hotel room drinking coffee with silk scarf.

Rice terraces --so much fog it is rare to catch a view. I had to climb up mud steps to catch this photo -- any view is hard to come by in this very foggy town.

Cat cat village - I think I go there tomorrow on a mini-trek.. We tried to go today but missed the tollbooth, there is a fee to get in -- and were unwilling to walk back to the top of the hill to buy a ticket! 

Me and my favorite animal-- water buffalo -- a herd walked past our hotel this morning

Son La -- Why I Love a Tourist Town -- Why Non-Tourist Towns Are Scary (I'm not proud of it)

I was nervous about this trip - Mai Chau to Son La. We were moving out of the standard tourist route (in spite of the "suggested" itinerary in Lonely Planet), I was worried. Our hotel owner took some time to figure it out and the directions were sketchy. In spite of all this, he did his best. There was a bus running from Mai Chau to Son La and he talked to the drive and got us a reserved seat. He also recommended a hotel in Son La and promised the bus would drop us off. In addition, he drove us to the bus stop (several kilometers out of town) and waited until the bus came. I knew immediately we were in a bit of trouble when I peeked in the bus and it was full from back to front including the aisles. They cleared two seats for us as promised in separate rows. I sat next to the "pusher/shower" and Barbara got to sit in an aisle with no one in the middle but with a 25-lb bag of rice at her feet that she was not allowed to put her feet on! 

The fog came in immediately and we drove through the mountains with me compulsively playing solitaire (with arms hugged in, surrounded by two men who were somehow leaning into me). My fingers were one inch apart when playing! I couldn't see the scenery anyway between the fog and the hoards of people in the bus. Oh yeah, and some pretty unpleasant smells. 

We did well, I played solitaire, Barbara watched as children and adults puked from motion sickness. The guidebook blithely described the "scenery." My scenery was a bus packed to the gills and 25% of my iPad. We were eventually dropped off at the Hanoi Hotel (lonely planet again, not my first choice, but owner in Mai Chau would not let us book anywhere else). Everything according to plan. We lug our bags up the steep steps of the Hanoi Hotel (where are the porters) to the desk where yes, they do have a reservation for us, but the clerk speaks no English. 

The hotel was creepy, with very bad chi, especially compared to the small and lovely (yet inexpensive) places we have been staying. The lobby was selling jars of corn or rice wine (hootch) with snakes and scorpions inside -- okay so that's common here in the North. 

We barely found a restaurant -- Singapore Hotpot -- where we went twice.

We were nervous about taking such a bus for the next day-s 8-hour trip to Sa Pa. Barbara went down to the desk and was told that the only bus was a night sleeper, and a car and driver was $111. Yes, Mama! We later saw the Son La to Lo Cai bus ...there was a morning bus...but it was just like the one we rode in on from Son La.

Barbara awoke in a state of paranoia caused by the creepy hotel we were staying in and insisted we take photos of the taxi (car and driver!) transporting us to Sa Pa. Below is the photo with the license plate cleverly captured...sent on to Barbara's sister in the event our driver decided to throw us off a cliff (many opportunities) and steal our belongings).

It turns out our driver (on the left) was a sweetheart and a very safe white-knuckle driver. Never did we have to show him the flash card in Vietnamese "slow down!"

Proof we stayed at Hanoi Hotel, all setting up the series of photos below to reveal the license plate of our cab driver (in the unlikely event of abduction or murder).

Paranoid photo of me, driver, and porter -- note clever display of license plate

One of several dam projects flooding formal rice paddies and forcing hill tribes further up the hills.

Drive by photo of scenery

Same view as above -- no zoom

Our last 20 miles as we approached Sa Pa were foggy with 10 feet of visibility. Our driver was a champ who took required precautions and got us to our hotel safely. Hurrah Hurrah!

Thank goodness for car and driver and methinks in the future, if you haven't talked to anyone who's been to a city in a strange land, don't go there. Most likely the hotel will be Chinese mafia and there will be only one restaurant in town. In addition, you will only be able to eat sticky rice at the buffet breakfast because you are frightened of the strangeness. This is the first time on the trip I've been "off my feed" outside of a stomach virus. 

Market Day ... Valentine's Day

Today our hotel arranged an excursion to a local Hmong market. In typical Vietnamese fashion, they also threw in a hike up to a village and luncheon in a Hmong house.

The market was small, but there were a number of booths selling yarn and embroidery...cross stitch and the colorful Hmong costumes were charming. 

It was so hard not to buy it all, but of course I don't need any. I ended up buying some cross-stitch for making pillows, but I secretly wanted more!

I see now, Christmas colors! I am thinking pillows. They came in sets, we believe in order to construct clothing. Two square pieces and six of the rectangular. Love it, blew my budget.

We went on a bit of a hike through dusty and rocky land. Where the stream ran, great stands of watercress grew. I wanted to eat it, but thoughts of giardiasis and other worse ailments stopped me. 

We eventually ended up in a Hmong village where they were spinning and preparing hemp? Or bark? Unclear.

We had a delicious lunch including tea and a shot of corn hooch...love these people, can't see this ever happening back home. Highlight for me was perfect cylinders of sticky rice rolled in banana leaves and steamed over fire so it has a smokey taste.

A child's skirt, all embroidered, a belt, and 4 meters of fabric that is batik at base with ribbons appliqué. This was a huge bargain. I felt guilty buying it!

Scintillating piles of yarn for cross stitch at the market. How could I not buy?

A beautiful Hmong family in matching outfits

Love these water buffalo - my sign in Chinese astrology

Hemp thread? There was also a woman spinning, but light an issue. I bought a scarf that was made of this..I think.

Hemp batik scarf

Tea-- the villagers recently began growing tea. Our guide told us that they sell Vietnamese tea in bulk to  Japan...it is high quality and Japan doesn't produce enough. He says the Vietnamese don't know how to market their very good tea.