We left our sleepy little mountain towns and headed to the city of Chiang Rai. Renting a scooter has quickly become our favorite way of seeing the country side and with a hand written map from a sweet lady at our hostel we hit the dusty trails. We stopped to explore an overgrown temple and visited a lone monk in a cave who lived with a few Buddha statues and some cats. In a Hill Tribe village we said hello to some elephants at a camp but opted out of going for a ride. The women who drew our map explained we could cross the river over a small bamboo bridge and take a different route home, it took some back and forth but we managed to find it. It's hard to see in the picture but this bridge is in need of a little repair, not only are most planks loose but it also swings adding to the adventure. I thought it was great fun but Colin failed to share my excitment and made me get off and walk across.
After our day of sightseeing we headed to a busy local restaurant for dinner, we shared a few dishes and when we were almost done we both commented that there was a different texture in the dish than usual. I examined my spoonful more closely to see what was different. In northern Thailand many people still eat bugs and there on my spoon was a big fat juicy fried moth larvae (giant maggot). Colin and I eyed it up and figured we'd both already eaten several so why waste food and finished the rest. Protein, right?!
Our next stop was Phayao. We are fairly certain we were the only foreign tourists in town and feel the town may be unfairly over looked. The city lies on a large naturally occurring body of water. The guide books call it a swamp, the locals refer to it as a swamp and after seeing it we concur it is in fact a swamp but maybe calling it a "shallow lake" or something a little less off putting would bring more visitors as it really is quite a pretty town.
We visited a large temple and outside was a small market with women selling bags of live assorted fish. Each bag had an eel, some smaller fish and little turtles in it. We were curious and figured it was for a soup, I mean we just ate maggots would it be so strange that they have live dinner in a bag? I approached one of the ladies and pointed to th bag making an eating gesture with my hand and mouth. Her brow furrowed and she got up and came over with a look of much concern. She shook her head and made a motion that informed us you buy the baggy and release the fish into the swamp for religious purposes....not eat them. I hope we didn't horrify her too much.
After visiting the temple with the not-for-eating-purposes-fish there was little to do in town. We were told you could hire a boat to take you out onto the swamp to a sunken temple and we thought it a fun idea and headed to the water front at sunset. Expecting the usual motorized long-tail we were surprised to find paddle boats and two elderly gentlemen watching over them. We speak no Thai and they had little English and so we assumed the boat that was currently out would be returning with two youthful paddlers who would take us out. We were wrong. The two 65+ men loaded us into the boat and started paddling. On our way out the other boat passed us on it's way back with two even more elderly men! The temple was interesting but our boat ride was fabulous.
R
No comments:
Post a Comment