shain

Lots of green! It's nam pla prik of sorts - fish sauce and chili. Those are some crisp candy thingies, not sure really, but seem to be very common on sweet sticky rice dishes.

First morning in Chiang Mai. I wish we had 3 times the stomach volume. A quick breakfast. Iced coffee with condensed milk and boba. Transportation (6 usd per day). Wat Pha Lat

Chiang Mai

Flower market. Mostly intended as offerings as part of Buddhist worship and ceremonies. Off to Chiang Mai.

Bangkok First market photos out of many. Morning markets, night markets, fruit markets, flower markets, flea markets, huge modern malls, less modern but still huge and chaotic markets, random vendors on the street. One may think the Thai people do nothing but shop (or perhaps it's just our own attention bias ). Note the prepared packages of what I assume are curry ingredients. And the beautiful clutter - a photographers dream. More aromatics. Grilled sausages. I recall those smelled good. Lots of ginger. No idea what's this. Beautiful produce all around.

Thanks! 😁 Though we liked the urbock even better.

Some meals from before our vacation. A casserole with potatoes, eggplant, swiss chard, feta, spiced bechamel (turmeric, chili, garlic, fenugreek, nutmeg, can't really remember). Pantry cleanup bread with mixed seeds and some odds and ends of flours. Salad with seeds, persimmon and orange vignette. Cheesed and wine.

Northern Italian style beetroot and ricotta dumplings with rosemary and lemon butter, parmesan, peas. Schlenkerla smoked weizen.

They did, those huge wooden and sometime stone morters are everywhere.

Lunch! An awesome restaurant with Isan specialty. Isan food seems quite popular in Thailand, with many specialized restaurants. Epic kitchen. Papaya som tam with salted eggs, dried shrimp, peanuts. Corn salad with the same dried shrimp and peanuts, but a slightly different sauce. Prawns in "curry powder". A very rich sauce with profile somewhat similar to the common yellow curry paste. Sticky rice and noodles. Officer knows where to grab lunch.

Slowly, it does. The more modern/boutique farmer markets, restaurants, hotels tend to pride themselves with using less plastics, using organic products etc. Larg supermarkets also charge for bags.

Matcha powder might work as well, I'm not sure what they use for the regular green tea stuff, but I enjoy it better than matcha. Condensed milk is also often included. I'd wish they use less plastic, or anything Bio degradable. But drinks are served in plastic cups, with plastic straws, held within palstic bags. Everything is provided with plastic bags. Trying to ask for the bag to be skipped will often lead to some miscommunication, after which you will have both a confused vendor infront and a palstic bag at hand. I saw a few people with drinks directly in a bag, but I have no clue where they got it from, because I saw no vendor selling those.

A cold drink can be seemingly found behind every street corner in Thailand. Roughly in order of how often we had each: iced Thai tea (strong tea, flavored with spices and other ingredients, with condensed milk) - ideally with some tapioca pearls, iced coffee - with or without condensed milk, green tea slushy (perhaps my personal favorite), fresh coconut water, fruit juices (incl longan, lemongrass), various other bubble/jelly teas. We also had some beer, mostly with meals, as we prefer. But we gave up on it quite quickly - beer is not Thailand's forte. We also had some fruit shakes, and quite a few cold light dessert - Chinese style shaved ice with toppings, bingsu, semi frozen ginger juice with things, etc.

We had to quarantine for a night in Bangkok. Had a short time in the city before flying to Chiang Mai. It's the cold & dry season, and yet Bangkok is quite unpleasantly humid and hot from around 10am and until 4-5pm. Quite chaotic too Those are photos from a riverside pier. There's a haphazardly built dining beside it, with three vendors selling various foods.

Back home, and no longer jetlagged, I'll post some over here:

Hi all, We are back from the vacation, and I'll try and share some photos and notes. I'm afraid I won't have the capacity of posting a full on travel blog. And to be honest, the web is full of those

I appreciate that, thank you. I'm only worried about inconveniences at this point. We and all those we care for are vaccinated with a booster and are not particularly at risk. While the infarction rate is raising, it seems most cases are mild. We obviously take great care keeping the chances to the minimum.

It's similar here with the cases raising and ooster fading... We would have canceled if we could get much our our money back Yeah, LOL, Hua Hin. We are more interested in Khao Sam Roi Yot park, but we'd probably check the beach area on the way.

@KennethT I understood that the trip you considered back then didn't came through. I hope that it's not because you had to cancel anything because of covid... Probably a bit quieter than usual, though my understanding is that things are getting lively again. I've heard a lot of good things about it - a few saying it was the highlight of their trip. We are looking for nature, villages, atmosphere. I'm a bit worried that Pai is a bot too touristy/fake, I'll check if there are tours to the local tribes from there that might seem decent. I sew a few around Chiang Mai, but it's good to have options. There's also the option of driving further towards the Burmese border, though we'd rather keep it within a day trip. Thanks! It looks great. We do plan to head this way, on our way to Hua Hin, so we'll try to time it for lunch or dinner I'll give your blog a read-through, I'm pretty sure I checked it back when we started to plan, but it looks interesting (and appetizing :P).

It's been a bumpy road. Back when we bought the tickets things seemed quite bright, with covid cases being low for a long while and most being triple-vaccinated. Then with the Omicron wave, and both Israel and Thailand changing policies every other day and blocking various countries. There were a few days where we knew Thailand will switch to stricter policies, and were worried they might suspend quarantine free travel. After a few days where I had to stop myself from rechecking news sites every few hours, it was announced that entry will be barred for those not already holding an entry permit, which we thankfully did. Then I was suffering a cold and sore throat a couple of days ago, felt fine, but was worried about the test result... Those also turned out fine. So know with all the tests, at least four digital forms, and a portfolio of documents - proofs of insurance, vaccines, booking, test appointments - we are to fly in less than 24 hours. Quite a relief 🤤 Obviously, still abit worried about the flight, and after it, though the situation in Thailand is good. --- The flighty is around 13 hours, landing in Bangkok afternoon. We will be taken straight for a PCR test and quarantine until results are received. We will have a short time in the city, before flying to Chiang Mai. We will spend a few days there, taking day trips and exploring the city, including a new years celebration. The plan is to then rent a car, drive to Pai for two nights, and get back to Doi Inthanon national park for a couple of days. Returning the car and spending a couple more night in another area of Chiang Mai with more plans for day trips and some activities. Flight to Bangkok and a few days there, including a day trip to Khao Sam Roi Yot park and Hua Hin. Two weeks total. We are still quite flexible, so more tips of any kind are welcomed.

Happy Christmas everyone, beautiful dishes all around Nothing eventful here, though we did go to see the decorations at the city. Dinner was a kimchi jjigae, making a small dimple in the huge stash of homemade slightly too salty kimchi. Clean the fridge veggies - carrot, pumpkin, sunchokes, onion, peppers, mushrooms, lots of tofu, chili paste, untraditional addition of sesame paste. Rice thingies made of rice mixed with eggs and starch and baked briefly.

Of sort. I think it actually eats more like a bread heavy panzanella.

Biryani with paneer, chickpeas, cashew, raisins, yogurt, warm spices (incl. cinnamon, cardamom, allspice, bay leaves, cumin, nutmeg, pepper). Warmish salad of stir fried cauliflower and fennel, with tomatoes, yogurt, tahini, turmeric, cashew, cardamom, anise seed, rose water, cinnamon, graham masala, chili.

Sunchoke, pumpkin and chickpeas soup. Recipe below.

Muffins. Both using the double-bake method so that they crisp up. First batch is with apples and pecans. Cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, brown sugar inside. Some maple on top. Second batch is in the spirit of Italian Pane del Pescatore cookies. With candied orange, almonds, pine nuts, fennel and anise seeds, nutmeg, vanilla, orange blossom water.