Chiang Mai: Farang City

We spotted them in Bangkok on occasion. Tall, long-limbed and mostly white, they walk around wide-eyed in Nike sneakers and toting Lonely Planet books. One can usually find them at the places their type is told to flock — museums, monuments and temples.  Farang is what they are called in Thai. And though we like to think we blend in, we do not. We are one of them.  As the bus drew near to the old city of Chiang Mai, we spotted them in herds at burger joints, bars, motorbike rental shops and street side vendors. And so Chiang Mai, our next stop in travel and the second largest city in Thailand, we aptly dubbed Farang City.

We arrived in Farang City in early afternoon at a guesthouse we booked late the night before. It clearly catered to backpackers who sat for hours in the internet rooms and woke us up in the middle of the night in their drunken stupor. After dropping our bags, we walked past the dozens of English-style pubs and smoothie & sandwich shops to a stall looking to be frequented by locals and feasted on our now beloved 30 baht ($1) bowl of noodles in broth with sketchy-looking but edible meatballs.  After some time scouring the internet for our plan for the next day, we ventured out again to the Sunday night market, a collection of streets loaded with stalls selling hot food, art and trinkets. As we wandered, we ducked into the many temples that dot the old city of Chiang Mai. They were a quiet and beautiful respite from the bustling city.

It began to rain heavily so we ducked into an open-air massage parlor set up for the day in a building next to the temple.  We sat as the rain poured and got cheap foot massages next to an American ex-pat who crudely told us his brother advised him not to touch the street food and women in Thailand, a warning he happily ignored.  He did mention a storm in Vietnam would mean rain for several days. And so far, he’s been right.

The rain persisted that evening until the street vendors were nearly knee-deep in dirty street water that overwhelmed the drainage system. Yet even while soaked, we managed to eat several courses of food throughout the street market, each at a different vendor. First, noodle wrapped spring rolls and dumplings, fried banana, a strange looking fried fish sausage, peanut and coconut wrapped balls on a stick and fried Quail eggs with soy sauce.

The next day we awoke early to be picked up by Boom, the young owner of Chiang Mai’s Basil Cooking school. Our day-long class included just four students: the two of us and another American couple now living in Singapore. We first stopped at the morning market to pick up and learn about the ingredients we would use in the dishes for the day: fried spring rolls, fresh papaya salad, drunken noodles, pad thai, chicken basil stir-fry, cashew chicken stir-fry, coconut chicken soup, sweet and sour prawn soup, green and penang curries and black sticky rice and fried bananas.  Then we spent the day cooking and eating. It was our best meal in Thailand yet.

In the late afternoon, we took a cab up the mountain to Doi Suthep temple, where we could view the entire city. The temple complex was beautiful.  But there was someone trying to make a sale at every corner — 20 baht to have a monk tie your wrist with a ceremonial string, 20 baht more to light a candle, or 150 baht to buy a plastic Buddha statue.  Sure there’s mass tourism at every corner of the world, from the fake crown of thorns sold in Jerusalem to the Gladiators haggling you to take a picture with them outside of the Colosseum, but for some reason this just struck me as more distasteful and upsetting. Perhaps because it seems to be done at the cost of preservation, restoration and respect for custom.  Or maybe because there is such a difference in economic class between those touring Thailand and those living there. I am still sorting my feelings about all of this.  In the meantime, enjoy these shots of the temple.