Chiang Mai Part 2 - The Festival of Lights

The Festival of Lights, also called Yi Peng is an exciting celebration in northern Thailand that occurs on the full moon of the 12th month of the Lanna Calendar. People of the Buddhist faith gather together for a ceremony of meditation, reading of holy scriptures, and singing all conducted by the monks. The ceremony ends with families lighting a lantern and releasing it into the air sometimes even attaching a piece of hair or a nail clipping to a sky getting rid of their bad luck for the next year. Another celebration very similar to Yi Peng is Loi Krathong. Instead of lighting sky lanterns, people release floating lanterns on the water. They are very similar festivals occurring an the same time period but very different in meaning.

We left Chiang Mai extremely early for the sky lantern ceremony on a moto bike and headed to Mae Sae University located 20 Km out of the city. Thank goodness we left early because there was SO much traffic. Being on a moto bike was really convenient because we stayed in a moto bike only lane which moved 3 times faster than all the cars on the highway. The area was packed! It was full of vendors selling all sorts of lanterns, food and drinks all the way down to the entrance.

It reminded us of going to see fireworks for the 4th of July at home only this was Thailand's version. We bought 2 lanterns, got to the entance and learned that you couldn't bring your own inside. You had to buy them there. So we scooted off to the side with the people who also brought their own lanterns and released them into the night sky.

We headed into the University grounds and bought our new lantern. There were so many people! Thais and tourists. We got a quick glance of the stage of meditating monks and the golden Buddha statue before we were pushed by the crowd to a field of grass.

 We sat and waited with our lantern, listening to the chanting monks and readings on the loud speaker, some of which were in English. The translator kept saying to be still your mind, be in the moment and in peace. It was wonderful. Finally, we were instructed to light our lanterns and then release after the signal that was a huge firework in the sky. All together 10,000 lanterns floated so gracefully in the air to the sky. 

It was absolutely magical. Probably the coolest thing we have ever seen!

Chiang Mai was a blast! We had such a great time exploring the area and experiencing the Thai culture. We are so thankful that we got to be apart of it! The memories we made, we will be talking about forever!

Chiang Mai - Part 1

Usually not booking a room a head of time had worked well for us. That is until we found out that this week of the Festival of Lights is the busiest week of the year and that almost every hotel had been booked! We had to search though the city for a while till we got lucky and found a wonderful place called Safe Court House inside the "old town" of Chiang Mai.

 We were both exhausted from all the traveling in the past two days and Siobhan was feeling a little homesick so we decided to have a relaxing day where we ordered American food at a pub (a big juicy burger and chicken pot pie) and watched movies all day in our air conditioned room. You wouldn't believe us, but traveling takes a lot out of you and sometimes you need a day to rest, take it all in, write some blogs and catch up with friends and family. Don't worry, by nightfall we were ready to go again!

Only a few blocks away was the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar, a street covered with hundreds of stalls selling anything from designer purses, and silk Thai Scarves to Buddhas and hand carved wooden sculptures. They had everything! Siobhan certainly felt better after getting hours of therapy, AKA shopping! It couldn't have come at a more perfect time, with Christmas around the corner. And not only is there the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar but we were fortunate enough to be in town for the Saturday night market and the Sunday walking street Market. They were even bigger.

 In addition to the knickknacks sold at the Bazaar, many locals sold their homemade crafts and jewelry which were unique. We also indulged ourselves with the variety of food stalls. We got mini ice cream cones, wonton noodle soup (which we like to call dirty noodle), local strawberry wine, fruit shakes, quail eggs, our new favorite dessert mango sticky rice.

 Roy even tried some fried silk worms and a large fried water beetle. (We think that's what it was.) He urged Siobhan to take a bite, but there was no way her lips were getting anywhere close to those things. 

We had such a great time. Even Roy got into the shopping spirit! After bags and bags of Christmas presents and a couple things for ourselves, we got a big box and shipped most of it home for a cheap price of $160 with a delivery time of one month! Haha. Cross our fingers it comes in on time for the Holidays!

Siobhan might have been missing home, but Roy was missing fishing and Chiang Mai had a cure! We found ourselves a few kilometers outside of the city at the Bosang fishing Park. This fresh water pond holds the endangered species and largest freshwater fish in the world the Mekong Giant Catfish, only found in one small area of the whole Mekong River due to over fishing. This stocked pond however is one of the few private lakes where there is a thriving population and healthy numbers due to a breeding and stocking program. Visitors can pay to catch and release these brutes for a few lazy hours, giving money back to the lake as well as the program where the fish are purchased.

We arrived and rented our gear consisting of a beat up old spinning rod with 30# monofiliament with a spiral metal cage for a bait keeper, hooks, and a bucket and bag of stale and seasoned bread.

 We got set up under a little shack with the help of a local fisherman. We dumped our bread into the bucket, added some water and made some bread balls in the spiral cage. Who would have thought that Mekong Cat fish that can grow to be as large 8 feet long could be lured in by bread?

 We casted our bread balls out and waited for a bite. One right after another Siobhan caught three fish in a row! The catfish put up such a fight and were so heavy and large. It was so much fun! 

Roy would never admit it, but he definitely got a little cranky when he didn't catch anything by then. So Siobhan stepped down from her amazing fishing skills to let Roy catch a few. Roy caught 4 big ones and was happy as a clam!

One thing we really wanted to do while we were in Chiang Mai was to take another cooking class to learn how to make our favorite Thai dishes. We are pretty sure we found the best cooking school in Chiang Mai called Tom Yum Cooking School with Chef Oun as our instructor. We learned that Chef Oun had been to a culinary school and had been an employee at another cooking class for years but decided he could build a better program himself. After only being open for 3 months he already has the best reviews on trip advisor and has pamphlets all over the city. It was great to see his new business flourish so quickly. After taking the excellent class, it was not hard to see why.

We got picked up by Chef Oun at our guesthouse and headed to the local market down the street. We were the only students taking the morning class that day so we got a lot of one on one attention. We learned about the many different kinds of produce used in Thai cooking. We were educated on everything out on display from the four species of eggplant (all different from the purple eggplant we have at home) to the 2 kinds of dragon fruit and all the many spices and herbs. It bewilders us how most of the everyday food in Thailand consists of produce we have never even heard of or seen in our lives. After the market, we made a quick stop at a coffee shop so Siobhan could get a Thai Iced coffee. She was hooked on the creamy, sugary drink. Don't tell the people in Boston, but she said she prefers it over the iced coffee at Dunks! Gasp!

Chef Oun then took us to his house where his class was held. It was a cute little place with a clean kitchen and many roommates chilling out in the living room. We got to pick 6 entrees from the menu and Chef Oun encouraged us to choose different dishes so we got to taste it all! We made so much delicious food right from scratch.

 Our favorites were the green curry, panang curry, pad Thai, green papaya salad, banana wontons, and mango sticky rice.

 Chef Oun has learned from his classes that no student ever finishes the 6 course meal with the recipes. It is just too much food! So we made smaller portions and even that was too much!

 After our bellies were extremely full we chatted with a few of the roommates who gave us a little bit of insight on the Thai language (which seemed awfully confusing because a word that sounded like "my" had five different meanings depending on the pronounciation and usage) and also helped us find information about the Festival of Lights coming up.