Not a lot to report recently as we have not booked any organized activities for the weekend in preparation for the Saturday and Sunday night street markets.  There will be  fair amount of walking ahead and we don’t want to be out adventuring all day at the expense of being too tired to shopt later!

The Saturday market is just outside the old city wall and runs down a street that they block off for about 8-10 blocks.  They close the street to cars and motorbikes in the afternoon while the people set up their ‘shops’ and the activity starts around 5pm.  For the entire distance of the market the street is lined on both sides (and sometimes down the center) with people selling food, shirts, pants, and various trinkets.  In some places the market spills into the side streets and at intersections they use the extra space to sometimes put out a few chairs for people to sit and eat.  Mrs Columbus and the teenagers are doing their best to jump start a Thai stimulus package and are soon carrying several bags of local goods.  We stopped at a few places along the way for some street food but unfortunately we are all full by the time we find the fried insect vendor so I guess that will have to wait for another time.

We had a little discussion about planning something and Russ wanted to do some mountain biking, but given the amount of mountain biking I already do at home I figured that I was on vacation and should take a break!  Mrs Columbus quickly agreed and we let Russ book something on his own for Sunday morning/afternoon while the rest of us decided that we would hold down the fort while he was gone.

We have discovered a media room here at the hotel that contains some rather comfortable oversized bean-bag chairs, so holding down the fort mostly consists of us catching up on emails and what is going on back home, while making sure that the bean-bags do not sprout legs and try to escape – needless to say we are very diligent about our responsibility and not a single one is able to make it’s escape.

After Russ returns we make our way over to Sopa’s for a massage to shake off the days hard work and to prepare ourselves for the market.  During our massage it decides to start raining but we will not be deterred from our goal of visiting the Sunday market so the troops decide to pop into the 7-11 and see what they have for rain gear:

I decide that I am better off either searching for an umbrella or just getting wet, so me and the Teletubbies head out for the market. The Sunday market is the big brother of the Saturday market and while similar in that it runs down a closed street, it is easily twice the size and according to people we have talked to is constantly growing farther and farther down the side streets all the time.

The market is a Chiang Mai highlight and is popular with both the locals and tourists and when the weather co-operates it is just a sea of people moving slowly up and down the streets looking at the stuff being offered for sale.  Because of the rain though the place is only about 1/2 as busy as we have seen it during previous trips so that is a mixed blessing – we have to contend with a bit of rain, but it is easier to move around.  After getting mostly damp, but not soaked I manage to find a lady selling umbrella’s for a paltry $3 and can now use my camera again, and also keep the rain off my noggin.

After a bit more street food and some more wandering through the market, I decide that I have seen enough wooden frogs, keychains, and t-shirts and decide to trek back to the hotel, leaving Mrs Columbus and the rest of the crew in charge of the search for some treasure that we did not spot at one of the first 500 vendors’ stalls.

We are in full on vacation mode now – with most of the must see things crossed off our list already (or completed on previous visits) there is no rush to try and complete 100 activities in 10 days 🙂

Now that we have moved to a hotel that has beds that were made after the stone age and contain actual springs and padding in the mattress vs the sheet of 3/4″ plywood that I think we were sleeping on at the last place, we are able to get a decent sleep, and given no fixed schedule are able to sleep in a bit in the morning while catching up with the world back home a bit.

Our days are usually a standard routine of walking around some part of the city for a while, followed by dinner and a massage – altho not always in that order, because you like to mix it up a bit!

Yesterday we walked down along the river for a bit, and then circled back through the Warorot market – this is one of the local markets in the city (likely the biggest) and is where the local people would come to buy clothing, fresh food items, etc.  It is gigantic, but all packed into a few square city blocks, so little shops and market stalls a couple of meters wide packed together.  Basically complete chaos if you ask me, but in the Thai fashion it seems to work very efficiently.

We will be going to the Saturday and Sunday night markets this weekend which are basically where they close off sections of the old city for blocks and blocks and let merchants set up little ‘stalls’ to sell their goods.  Much of the stuff is handmade and it attracts locals and tourists so it is mostly not the typical ‘tourist’ junk that is for sale, but actual things you might buy and keep.  Along with the goods there is of course a great variety of street food so I think our dinner plans for the next few days are set 🙂

We have been in Chiang Mai for 3 days now – or is it 4 – well who knows, and at this point we are barely keeping track of time 🙂

Yesterday we went back up to Maetang Elephant park for the elephant / ox cart / bamboo raft tour – we have done this before, but it is one of those things Russ was not with us for, and it was enjoyable enough for us to do it again.  There has been a fair amount of development up in the valley where the elephant park is, and there are a couple of new resorts that look like they would be very peaceful to just lose yourself for a few days – we have made a mental note for next time 🙂

We round out the afternoon with a trip up to Doi Suthep to see the temple and take in the view over the valley and the city below.

Brooklyn and Russ went to cooking school this morning, and between the two of them I am looking forward to them both being able to put together a very tasty dinner when we get home 🙂

Aside from that, not much to report.  We have just been walking around the old city and enjoying the slower pace we have set in Chiang Mai and are becoming a fairly regular fixture at Ginny Cafe, our go-to place for casual meals now.

Tonight we are going to take in a Khantoke Dinner, which will feature traditional Thai dancing, and a buffet of Thai dished from various regions around the country.  It will certainly be a little ‘touristy’ but Mrs Columbus has been wanting to see some traditional dancing for a while now, and I of course like to see food……

We arrived back in Chiang Mai and have scaled the pace of the trip back from 11 to a leisurely 4. We have more time here so are not as rushed, and Mrs Columbus and I have been here a couple of times before so we have a reasonable feel for things that are worth seeing and stuff that we can take a pass on.

We have reacquainted ourselves with our friend Sopa who owns the massage place and are happy to see a familiar face (and of course the massage is good too).  We spend a little time chatting about things that have changed since we were here last year and then Brooklyn opts for a haircut while the rest of us get a foot massage.

We spent today walking around the old city and hanging out in the hotel pool – basically just doing a bunch of relaxing, after all that’s what vacations are for 🙂  It is nice to see that the city seems a little more active than last year – there were many businesses that closed last year due to the extra slow tourist season they had in 2010.

We did make one great find today – while out walking around we saw a restaurant and guesthouse that I recognized from some of my reading on the internet.  The guesthouse (Ginny Place) is owned by an American originally from the Seattle area, and his Thai wife – they recently took over some additional space and added a restaurant (Ginny Cafe) serving a mix of American and Thai foods.  ‘Captain Bob’ has been very helpful a few times providing information and answers to questions about Thailand and the Chiang Mai area, so I figured it would be great to pop in and say hi, and also to try out the new restaurant.  In our past couple of visits we had some ok food, but we had not yet found a real ‘go-to’ place for great, well priced food in Chiang Mai – I think that search is over!!  We had lunch at Ginny Cafe and the food was fantastic!  We decided fairly quickly that we would come back for dinner and try out a few other dishes to see if we had just made some good choices, or if all the food was as good.  Well dinner lived up to all of our expectations so I am sure we will make several more visits during our stay here.

Tomorrow we are going to meet up with Riam who has been our tour guide of excellence the last couple of trips, and discuss some different things that we might do while we are here.

And that is a wrap for another day in paradise…..

We have decided that it is going to be time to move on tomorrow, so for our last full day in Kanchanaburi we have decided to hire our driver from yesterday again and go to visit the Erawan Falls.  The falls are inside the Erawan National Park and about a 90 minute drive from the city.  The national park is quite large and there is a youth hostel there and all sorts of hiking trials and things to see, but the falls get all the attention.

The falls cascade down the mountain over a vertical drop of about 400 feet, but are spread out over 7 ‘tiers’ that we can get to.  Some of the tiers are a single drop, but others are a series of small drops over a short distance sort of like steps for the water 🙂  Each of the falls ends in a pool of varying size, some that are deep enough to swim in.  The first 2 tiers are quite easy to get to and there is a paved path that you can bicycle down if you like. It seems like a fair number of local people come here with their families and a picnic meal to have lunch or an early dinner at one of the 1st 2 pools.

At the 2nd tier/pool we see people swimming in the basin formed at the bottom of the falls, and go to have a closer look.  The water looks very blue like we are used to seeing in the mountains in Canada (from the minerals in the water) and quite refreshing, but we also notice that there are quite a few fish visible in the pool.  It turns out that these are the kind of fish that will nibble on your feet like they have in some of the spas.  Being the great adventurer that she is Mrs Columbus decides that she is going to see what all the fuss is about, and her and Brooklyn take off their shoes to put their feet in the water.  The fish immediately move in for a tasty snack, and there is suddenly a lot of squealing as the little fish tickle away at their feet.  As we learn along the way the little fish are in all the pools and by the end of the day we have all had our encounters with the fish exfoliation.  It does not hurt at all, but it is a little eerie to be floating in a nice cool pool of water and suddenly feel things bumping at your feet and legs.

After the 2nd tier/pool the trail gets a little more rugged and it is really now more of a hike to get to any of the other pools.  The full trail is about 2km long, but going uphill in the jungle in the 30+ degree heat makes it feel like a lot longer.  Nevertheless we are out for an adventure and press forward, deciding that we will hike all the way to the top, and then on our way down stop at a pool or two for a swim.  The ruggedness of the trail takes a 2nd jump after about tier 4 and this is definitely not your grandmother’s trail anymore, but we shall not be defeated, and after about an hour or so make it to the top – we are all very sweaty and have given our legs a fantastic workout, but a dip in a pool is now well earned!

The cool water is very refreshing especially after the workout on the way up, and Russ and I bob about in the water at the top for 10 or 15 mins before we decide to make our way back down to stop at some of the other pools.  One of the pools has a rock formation that is kind of like a slide, and you can climb up one of the sides and then slide down about 20 feet and land into the water, so we stop here for a bit for another swim.

Along the trail we encounter a number of monkeys that are clearly very accustomed to the presence of people.  In some places we are at most a couple of steps away from them as they sit and watch the people, or run about.  There are signs posted warning to not feed the monkeys, but just like in America, some people assume the signs are only meant for others and not for them because in a few places we see the monkeys eating fruit out plastic bags, and after checking the surrounding trees we do not see any that dispense fruit in that fashion.

After about 3 and a half hours at the falls we make our way back to the parking lot and get some street food for a snack and some cold drinks before heading back to the city.  We tell our driver that we are looking for some fruit on the way back, and he is happy to stop at a couple of markets along the way as we search for a fruit called a pomelo.  The pomelo is kind of like a cross between a grapefruit and an orange, but bigger – of course our Thai is not so good and the driver is not really sure what we are looking for, but is happy to indulge us.  After several stops, where we get a variety of other tasty snacks, we are empty-handed, but finally as we get within about 5 minutes of our hotel we find some!  It turns out that in Thailand the pomelo also has a ‘common’ name of som-oh (which roughly translates to big orange – go figure) and as soon as we saw it our driver knew exactly what we were looking for 🙂

We decide that we are mostly full from all the street food, but that a massage would be a good way to round out the day so wander off down the street for a Thai massage while Mrs Columbus gets her toes done.

While we are finishing up our massage Mrs C has struck up a bit of a conversation in broken english with the shop owner discussing some food that she makes and sells on the street side. Mrs Columbus tells us it is called yum-yum and that the lady has demonstrated how she makes it but the language gap is broad enough the we do not know exactly what is in it.  There is some noodles, and a sauce that is made up of a variety of Thai spices, and a selection of ‘meat’ that you choose from.  We are not overly hungry, but figure we should give it a try so decide to order one and split it.  There are about a half dozen different ‘meats’ in the bowl we can choose from but Russ says no mussels, and Mrs Columbus decides no wieners, so we end up with a dish where the only meat we really recognize is shrimp – it turns out that this was not such a good plan as some of the things were outside even my palate.  Even now there are at least 2 or 3 ‘meats’ that were in there that I could not tell you what they were.  The dish was tasty enough, but if there is a next time I think we will go with the items we can identify even if they don’t seem like they belong together (like wieners and shrimp).

Tomorrow we are moving on to Chiang Mai, so we have arranged with the driver who brought us out from Bangkok to come back in the morning and pick us up for the return trip.  We will have a few hours in the morning to laze around a bit before we have to pack up and head out for our late afternoon flight to the north.