Wednesday, November 5 8:36 pm Thailand / 6:36 am US
(Congratulations, Barack Obama! We just found out about 2 hours ago.)
This morning was another late start (8:30 am) and we got to eat at a local restaurant. Haha, we ate fatty pork (cow yook in Cantonese; Thai style) with pickled veggies; salty egg; curry catfish; and soy sauce eggs for breakfast! The breakfast of champions!! =D Then we got to walk around the street-side local market that was filled with Chinese goods. Felt like Clement street. Chocky (aka Pocky) was a hit. Pringles but with a Mexican Mr. Chip on the front was pretty popular too. Their Asian pears are humongous, about the size of a softball. And Phong bought 2 packages of seasoned seaweed; he even haggled for it. We think he's taking us to all these markets because he likes to shop for himself!
Then we were back in the van for an hour and a half ride before lunch at... Cabbages & Condoms! What a great name for a restaurant! Yesterday we thought Phong & Samyuet were joking about a condom restaurant. Nope, it's real. The story behind it is that 20 years ago the Thai prime minister wanted to limit the number of children to 2 per household so education on birth control was started. The restaurant was started by a famous Thai doctor and, even though there no longer is a limit on children, the restaurant's proceeds go toward the rural poor. Good food by the way! We found out that ong choy (Chinese spinach) is called morning glory in English! And we had a hot (as in warm) and sour salad with seafood.
Back into the car we go for the remaining 1.5 hours back to Chiang Mai. Yeah, I slept about 75% of the way. I can't stay awake for longer than 30 minutes but Ryan was awake and he said that he saw lots of greenery! Better than I-5! =D
Once back in Chiang Mai we ventured out to the largest night market in Chiang Mai, which is only 1 block from our hotel. Yippee! What did you have for dinner, you ask? (As you can tell, we love to talk about food.) Well, we had..... SUBWAY! Haha, after a week & a day of Thai food for breakfast, lunch, & dinner, we needed a break. And boy was that Italian BMT good: wheat bread with all the fixings (lettuce, onion, tomatoes, olives, pickles, jalapenos, & carrots - yeah, the Thai put carrots in the sandwich). LOL I'm salivating just thinking about it again. We then wandered over to McDonald's just for the hell of it. They had a Double Big Mac (4 meat patties total!) and a deep-fried prawn cake burger! I love looking a foreign McDonald's menus!
At the night market, we got harassed of course since we are foreigners. Ryan got his first taste of low-balling haggling and did well. But I got my Tiger Balm which kills the itching from the mosquito bites. Samyuet had drained the one from my elbow and I put some Tiger Balm on with Lampacort and it felt sooooo much better. So now I'm going to do it on my own.
As for Ryan, he's feeling homesick and worn out from all the traveling. He misses his own bathroom (I concur); the cooler weather (I concur); clean air; and speaking English to everyone. I'm not quite homesick yet but I am tiring of Thai food and squat toilets (I'm up to 6 uses now, including having to bring my own toilet paper and use hand sanitizer).
Tomorrow's agenda: we're flying up to Mae Hong Son and will be visiting the long-necked Karen villagers (famous for the brass rings around their necks. Weird!) So we'll probably back-post our log again. Wish us luck with not getting any more mosquito bites!
