Post #3342: Chiang Mai, Thailand: I'm back!

Post 3342

- 13 years and 353 days since I started this blog -

Travel Journal

(written December 18-19, 2024)

Read this once (it won't change for the rest of the trip(s): 

I'll be linking this post to Facebook. If that's how you got here, here's some background: About 14 years ago I started this blog as a food journal. I had a Type-2 Diabetes diagnosis, and needed to lose weight. Initially, that's all I did here: Journal my food intake and my weight. It contributed to a loss of 20+% of my body weight in 6 months, and continuing has kept me on track since. I started adding commentary after a while, but recently it has returned to a food journal only. 

While I'm traveling, I let go of the weight-tracking and food journaling (except for food shots when I've eaten something interesting or pretty). I write about my experiences, and use it as a photo dump. And that's where we find ourselves now.

How I am able to travel like I do?

I am wealthy, very rich. Not in the sense of having a lot of money and assets (I don't), but in the simple sense of having more than I need to live on and maintain a modest lifestyle. 

I don't own a house. My rent is relatively cheap. I have no dependents. I have no debt. My income comes from Social Security and two very small pensions (from my days with IBM and the VA). That is more than enough to pay rent on my apartment and my car (I lease), buy my food, pay for my medical insurance (subsidized), and provide me with a modest entertainment budget. My music pays for itself and weed.

What I don't spend on extras and luxuries leaves enough for four months of travel, mostly to places where living is very inexpensive. Getting there is the biggest expense, but travel hacks and being able to buy far in advance keeps it manageable.

I stay in AirBnBs when I travel. That has worked out best for me, in terms of cost and comfort.

Then there's my portable lifestyle, that doesn't change when I travel. 

My goal when I arrive at my destination is just to do what I do: Play bass. Smoke weed. Eat well. And avoid pointless drama. It doesn't lend itself to extravagance. It's not too different overseas than at home, except in context. It is, in general, not transactional.

Speaking of which, when I travel, I have no agenda, open or hidden. I'm not buying or selling anything. I have no ambition, I am not seeking. What I buy, I consume. 

I am additionally enabled by the fact that I am a happy single guy, not looking to change that status, so I get to enjoy meeting other people without triggering the neurotic drama that comes (for me) with dating/romance. I am not looking for my missing piece. I sleep alone, and I'm fine with that. 

I enjoy, and need, alone time. I get to be selfish, to do what I want without consulting anyone else. 

- - - - - - - 

I've been in Chiang Mai for more than two weeks, now. For the first two weeks, my daytime activities were somewhat limited by a knee injury and the weather, which was about 10º hotter than I've previously experienced here, that, when walking, feels hotter than the upper 80s it has reached every day.

I would go out for my first meal of the day, usually around noon (I'm a twice-a-day, breakfast and dinner, eater), and come back hot, sweaty, drained. I also limited where I walked.

And fell into a kind of day-time rut that centered around air-conditioning. 

Everything has turned around the last couple of days. We had a whole day of rain (very rare here this time of year) and the heat wave broke.

The day after it rained, I walked four miles and took more photos than the previous two weeks combined.

As for the nights, it's all about music for me. Some of my best friends here are in some really great bands. And, there are a couple of new ones with both friends and musicians I didn't previously know, and the new bands are really good. 

I've had a chance to play a bit, too. A couple of days in, I was asked to play a couple of "gigs". Not real gigs, because there's no pay involved for me, as a non-Thai. Just an hour or two where I'm the bass player in the set. These gigs are at a small expat-friendly club, C.U. Corner, that I have been going to since my first visit to Chiang Mai.

On to the photos:

People Pics

The big booboo. My trip started off like a slapstick comedy: As I was going downstairs to get in my Uber to the airport at 4:15am on December 1, I remembered I'd left my hearing aids in the charger in my bedroom. By the time I'd gone back, packed them, and run downstairs, my Uber was gone. I couldn't reach the driver to get him to come back. The next Uber I called didn't get to me for 45 minutes. I got to the airport ten minutes before my flight to JFK boarded, and I still had to check a bag and go through TSA. There was a line at the counter, but I convinced a supervisor to help me cut in and get my bag checked. As she handed me my baggage claim ticket, she said, "You'd better run, you still have to get through TSA before boarding, and it's going to be close!" I grabbed the ticket and took off. I got on the escalator up to the TSA lines, and remembered I hadn't gotten my passport back from the supervisor. I got to the top of the escalator and immediately turned around and stepped on the 'Down' escalator. Which is when I saw the supervisor get on the up escalator, waving my passport over her head. I turned around and started running up the down escalator. I tripped and fell on the escalator step's teeth, hard. I got up, scrambling, and made it to the top, where a TSA agent was waiting to tell me that I wasn't aloud to go up the down escalator, that it was actually illegal. I was incredulous and said I know it is dangerous, I just hurt my knee, but please don't arrest me. Which is when the supervisor got there and handed me my passport. I was the last person to board my flight, I hadn't even finished putting my stuff in the overhead when they shut the doors. The picture is the first time I was able to assess the damage I'd done, taken in a bathroom at JFK. It got a lot uglier over the next few days, with black-and-blue, swelling, and the thickest scab I ever remember having. As I write, it has been healing well, and the pain is gone.

The Legendary Taco Bells are a trio I have loved since they got together three years ago. The bass player, David, is my best friend in Thailand, and Oo, on drums, has been one of my musical friends from my very first visit to Chiang Mai, back in 2017. At the Simple Man Bar.

Drunken fun. This happy Dutch lady insisted on a selfie. Fifteen minutes later, she was passed out on her boyfriends lap. Fun!

Troubadour is one of my favorite music bars, a great place to listen to and/or play music. Sebastian (above on guitar and vocals) is an old jamming friend of mine, who opened Troubadour after the pandemic. The bass player and drummer are old friends, too. The horn players are new friends. This is (most of) the Troubadour Band, and they are excellent!

Great, fun lunch! Three bass players and a drummer walk into a burger joint (in this case, Arno's) in Chiang Mai. Lots of laughs. That's Dwight on the left, a great bass player and 'way hip. He has turned me on to some great stuff, including my current GOAT bass cab.

Wanderings

A Buddhist temple is called a 'wot'. Chiang Mai has over 200, ranging from humble to magnificent. I find them so interesting, with their intricate carvings, and jewel-like details. I have photographed this wot on previous visits, but I happened by just before they closed the gate, and I had never seen it without  a crowd around it, and had to take a photo of this once in six months occurrence

Kat's Kitchen is a very popular Thai food restaurant that is typical of restaurants in Chiang Mai, in that it is open in front, with an exended open-air dining area. The majority of restaurants I eat at, of all types, are like this.

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Tha Phae Gate

Looking through the 600-year-old Tha Phae Gate to the beautifully lit Tha Phae Road. The Tha Phae Gate is like Chiang Mai's Times Square, including that it is the center of the city's New Year's celebration, among many others.

Tha Phae Road from Tha Phae Square, outside the gate. They're going to start putting up the Christmas/New Year's lights that transform the square into a electric playground light show. When it's happening, there will be pictures, for certain.  

Sunday Night Walking Street Market

Every Sunday in the late afternoon, the street that runs through the Tha Phae Gate is closed off and hundreds of vendors set up popup stalls along a half-mile of it. Every kind of craft, product, food is sold. It is a Chiang Mai tradition that attracts the entire population, resident and visitor alike. So, it is crowded. It is fun. I love it. A shot of the parasol seller on the corner of the cross-street I'm staying at.

A regular stop and fixture of the Sunday Night Walking Street Market, I make a stop to appreciate this group of Thai folk musicians and instrument makers every time I get there. They play from 5pm-11pm. I have never encountered them 'on a break'. Continuous music for six hours. And, it's good!

There are two large Buddhist temples on the Walking Street, and their courtyards are filled with crafts stalls and food vendors, in fact, a labyrinthine food court is where I choose to eat on Sunday nights.

No, I didn't, and won't. I have eaten insects here, and in Mexico, but nothing could get me to touch a scorpion. Not ever.

Giant framed icky's for sale. I think I take this picture every time I go past this display.

Food Comment

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Octopus and prawns flambée from Chez Marco, the first new restaurant of the trip. Amazing French restaurant, one of the biggest restaurant bargains in Chiang Mai. When they lit this up at the table, I was too slow, and somewhat taken aback, to get a shot of the flames. Maybe next time.

Baked eggs and cheese toast from Kati, the second new restaurant of the trip, and a big hit.

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Smoked salmon and eggs, and a mixed fruit smoothy from the Tikky Café, the longest-tenured of my favorite restaurants in Chiang Mai.

Green shakshuka from Hummus Chiang Mai. This is added to my list of favorite breakfasts. Wow, what a treat, what a discovery for me. I'm a shakshuka fan, and had never seen a green one (it's usually eggs poached in a thick spicy tomato sauce, also sometimes called 'Eggs in Hell' on some menus here). This new version blew me away.

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