Flowers, Food, and Biting Vermin (Part 2)

The adventure continues. Sunday, Summer and I went into Chiang Mai to see the flower festival that is held annually on the first weekend of February. The festival goes Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It is amazing! The inner part of the city (called the Old City) is surrounded by a moat and remnants of the old city wall, and in the southwest corner is where the flower festival is held. It is kind of like a fair and the Rose Parade in Pasadena or Portland combined. Large floats are decorated solely with flowers and other plants/organic material, and they parade down the street. They are beautiful! There are stalls all over with plants that are entered into a judged contest, much like a county fair... only with plants instead of animals. Everything is decorated so beautifully. It is quite impressive. Yet another example of Thai creativity/culture combined with their pursuit of excellence. They also have stalls all over that sell food... all kinds of food from fruit to noodles to octopus (squid, maybe?) on a stick. We even got some cotton candy, it was great!

The street that the festival is on is just inside the moat and partial wall. Just inside of the street is a nice public park that a lot of people rested in when they were tired of walking the street. It was relly neat, because we went into it to eat our mango sticky rice that we bought from one of the vendors, and after we were done we walked around a bit until we saw these three people performing. They looked like gypsies... two guys and one girl. One of them was playing a clarinet, and the other two were walking on a slackline (just rope) between two trees, doing things like juggling and lying down to "sleep" and acting out little funny skits. They were really good. I was impressed! Things like that festival are attended by all kinds of tourists, and it is amazing how culturally diverse they are. You see people from America, Europe, Australia, and other parts of Asia quite a bit. Lots of interesting people come out of the woodworks.

After the festival, a couple who are living here from America, took us to a restaurant that they have been going to almost daily since they got here. It is an amazing restaurant! It is outdoors and kind of tucked away where people who don't know it's there would not be likely to find it. It is totally vegetarian and they get their ingredients from an organic farm, so it is more healthy. They have a wide selection of foods and the cost... dirt cheap!!! Six of us ate full meals there that night for 485 Baht (Approximately $14.70). That's $2.45 for a full meal. Summer and I got some mushroom cakes for an appetizer that came with some kind of sauce that was delicious. Then we shared an amazing salad with a pumpkin sauce for dressing. I should tell you that not only does the food taste good... it looks good too. The chef either used to work in the palace as a chef for the king or his brother worked in the palace and he learned from his brother the recipes they used-- I'm not quite straight on the story. Then Summer and I each ordered a different kind of curry. Sum got the Masaman, and I got the Indian curry. We each got smoothies too. They were the only thing that I was disappointed in. I think it's because there was no sugar in them. Anyway, it was amazing, and we are definitely going to go there again. I hear the flower salad is really good and it looks beautiful too. Apparently, it is made with flowers that are edible. Cool! Well, that's about all I have the energy for. Altogether, it was a great weekend.

~M