Chiang Mai

I haven’t posted since December 11th!   We’ve been having way too much fun. Our morning begins with birdsong, and pigeons gathering on the roof above our third story room.  Ron found a sweet young woman just up the Soi (little street) who has a tiny stall with a very sophisticated coffee set up. She grinds fresh beans for each cup and steams the milk and make us two “take away” cuppacchino in her Italian machine. Cost 25 Baht - 72 cents.  It’s so nice to sit on our balcony early every morning before the noise begins and sip our hot brew.  There are a number of very charming cafes for breakfast. We like Nice Cafe.  The owner has a very gentle manner and makes the best fruit bowl of ten different fruits with fresh yogurt, granola and chia seeds. It’s too much for one person so we share. I usually can’t restrain from buying an extra container of fresh yogurt as well. Then we walk, and walk.  Getting to see newer areas and street art, wandering down the small Soi rather than the main noisy streets.  Street markets selling colorful fruits and veggies.  Mango,papaya, jackfruit, pealed and packaged palmelo segments, pineapple, dramatic magenta dragon fruit, and about six kinds of bananas.  Always another small cool coffee place. Ironic to remember how all you could get here up until about a dozen years ago was Nescafé… now there’s an amazing coffee culture.  And now there are almost as many tattoo shops and Marijuana Dispensaries.  It’s legal now!  Wonderful glass jars line the counter of these colorful shops with great names for the bud: Wedding Party, Gemini, Durban Poison, Purple Haze, Dragon's Blood.  So many!  You are invited to open the jar and smell the product. If you buy some they will grind it up and make you an absolutely beautifully rolled joint with a filter for free. In a few years Chiang Mai will be the new Amsterdam, or so I read in a recent article. The afternoon temperature is around 83 now with evenings balmy and comfortable.  Eating in gardens mostly, enjoying ice cold beer, such delicious Thai food…I won’t wax on about the food.  Maybe a few more photos…

New digs - BB Mantra

Temples

Street art

Riding the Tuk Tuk

Coffee "take away"