The World of Nickolândia

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Moto Times

Zipping through the rural mountains in northern Thailand around Chiang Mai on the back of a tiny motorcycle was one of the funnest parts of the trip through southeast asia. Luckily, Dennis was pretty good at driving the thing. His confidence grew by the hour, as so did my nervousness as my ass hung half off the back of the bike. Pretty soon he was driving like a local, zipping through cars, and using the shoulder (aka madman style). The great thing about being on a bike is that we could easily go where we wanted, making plenty of stops when just about anything caught our eye.

View of Chiang Mai during a pit stop up a nearby mountain

Temple pit stop

Pit stop to snack on some rambutans


Pulled over at this isolated roadside shack for some iced coffee.

Time to walk it.

Letting the bike cool down. The mountains were a little too much for Mr. Engine

Leaving Chiang Mai

Stopping for gas

Swerdlow showing us around on the first day

Stopping at a night market for what else, more rambutans.

Thai Buddhist Monks

Really know how to climb:

These are 'trainees'. Most Thai boys spend a period as monks when they are young.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Thai Markets

Anyone who has spent a minute or two with me while traveling knows one thing: I love markets. I'm drawn to them like a magnet. Chiang Mai and the surrounding region, in northern Thailand, has some of the best food markets I've ever been to. They are great not only for their wide variety of known and unknown foods, but they feel lively, are generally tented or partly covered (and it feels like the motorcycles are nearly part of the market), and oftentimes dingy. God knows what half of the stuff is. But mostly succulents.

The first few are of a market in central Chiang Mai:

Nuts, beans and mysterious dried fruits.

Malaysisa is the real place to get durians, but you can still get the putrid stuff in Thailand

Bok Choy?

You sure have your choice in rice type

This was a busy market a ways out of town that Dennis & I spotted while driving back on our moto. Everything was served in plastic baggies (soups included). We definitely didn't look the part here, but it was a zillion times more local than the one in central chiang mai. We picked up some soups in baggies, and spent five minutes asking around to buy some bowls and spoons (which no one had because they were all taking their food home). We found a table outside a residence a few blocks down to chow down.