Thursday, November 06, 2014

Thailand Trip Itinerary 2014 - Part 4

Day 5 in Chiangmai, Thailand.
Started raining since morning and it is difficult to walk around or visit Wats in our raincoats and cameras for sightseeing. Suppose to make a trip to Lamphun on our rented motorbike but cancelled it due to poor weather conditions. Instead we went round on our bikes looking for local food in the wet market.
Ended up at Tripanet Market situated at the end corner of Chiangmai Gate and Thapae Gate [Bamrung Buri Road and Moon Muang Road.
Tripanet Morning Market Stalls
1.  Tripanet Market - This wet market is not really a big one but easy to move around with lots of local food ranging from the grilled herb meat sausages to local Thai desserts and fresh food ingredients, groceries, seafood, meats, clothings and praying items.
Night time, this place has numerous food stalls outside the market place along Bamrung Buri Road [Chiangmai Gate].
Since it is Loy Krathong festival, there are stalls selling beautifully made krathongs of various sizes, shapes with various kinds of flowers. Nice to look at, every piece looks nice and unique on its own.
Coming to the stalls selling prepared food, I wasn't gutsy enough to try some since I wasn't sure what ingredients are inside the big basins and packets of cooked food.  Moreover, my nostrils seem to shy away from the smell of it.

But I specially like the crispy fried pork pieces which is really crispy.
My hubby bought a portion of black glutinous rice Khao Ngiaw which comes with a choice of accompaniment of fried grated coconut in gula melaka or palm sugar egg custard.  He chose the later for his Khao Ngiaw which only costs 10THB.  The rice is soft and moist, quite good with the custard but I find it too sweet for my taste-buds especially in the morning.
Black and White Glutinous Rice Khao Ngiaw - 10THB
Koay Chiap - 30 THB
Pork Congee - 30 THB

Instead of the trying the local dishes, we opted for pork congee and flat rice noodles [koay chiap] at a shop just outside the wet market.  Seems that Thais called their porridge 'chok' too like the Chinese.
The congee and noodles cost 30THB per bowl.  Rather tasty but again the soup is a bit on the sweet side and you may need to add some fish sauce for savoury taste.
After breakfast, it was drizzling ocassionally.  We headed off to the old city on our bike and visiting several Wats which takes about the whole morning.
2.  Wat Phan Tao [click here to see more]
3.  Wat Chedi Luang [click here to see more]
4.  Wat Phra Singh [click here to see more]

Eventhough the weather isn't good, these places were packed with tourists from all over the global thronging Chiangmai in conjunction with Loy Krathong/Yi Peng Festival 2014 [5-7 November 2014].

Notes - you need to take off your shoes when entering all the temples and appropriately dress otherwise you may have to borrow a robe to cover up.  Also you have to pay about 2-3 THB when using the toilets at the Wats.

5.  Warorot Market 
Located at the eastern side of Old City between Chang Moi Road and Thapae Road before Ping River. 2 minutes stroll north of Night Bazaar. It's Chiangmai Chinatown area.  Opens from early morning till night.  Buy anything and everything here.  This is a favourite places for locals to shop.  Prices of food and other items are very reasonable.
Had our lunch here at the food court at the basement which sells local Thai food like Khao Soi, Khanoom Jeen, Thai Laksa, Braised Meat Rice, economy fried beehoon, Thai Chicken Rice, economy Thai rice etc.
There are stalls selling items made by tribal people and clothings. There are plenty of stalls inside and  surrounding the market selling groceries, dried food stuffs, fruits, flowers, fried chicken, clothings and shoes etc.
Moving around is quite a hassle especially when it is raining.  The place is full of activity, congested with people and traffic maybe because it is festival time.
We had the Thai local economy food.  A plate of rice with a meat dish costs 25THB and you can help yourself with an array of fresh beansprouts, shredded cabbage, pickled mustard leaves, blanched long beans and beansprouts. I specially like the kiam chye.  As usual, sugar, chilli flakes, fish sauce and pickled chillies/chilli sauce are available for you to add on.  Two plates of it only cost 50THB.  You can have green or red pork curry with the rice.
Outside at the stalls, we found fresh strawberries very cheap ranging from 130 to 180THB per 500 gm packet.  These strawberries are fresh and sweet. You can test before buying. The dried ones cost 100 to 150THB for 300 gm.  We bought one for 90THB after bargaining.  They were good, not too sweet.
Inside the market, there is a stall selling various kinds of bags.  I bought a coin bag for only 10THB and a bigger one for only 20THB.  Reasonably cheap and you have a wide choice.
Some of  Warorot Market Stalls and Food
You can also visit the 2 Chinese temples in the vicinity if you have the time but we looked up these 2 temples when we came back from Chiang Rai.
Before returning to the hotel, we had our bike filled up with petrol that costs 36THB per litre.
Since there is another float parade tonight, we went for dinner earlier around 5.30 pm at a Chu Char stall in the compound of a Teochew Assocation.  The stall is situated towards the end of Arak Road [Suan Dok Gate] and Bamrung Buri Road [Suan Prung & Chiangmai Gate].  This is the south west corner of Chiangmai Old City.
There is an assortment of seafood, vegetables and meat dishes.  Braised Pig Trotter is also available. Do you know that vegetable dishes cost more than meat dishes in Chiangmai or even Thailand.
As we have been eating too much of meat since arriving in Thailand, we ordered 3 dishes without meat yet there are some meat added to it.
We had a clear soup tomyam with clams, stir fried kailan with salted fish and stir fried fresh mushrooms in oyster sauce and rice for two.  The meal comes with  2 cups of ice cubes and a bottle of drinking water.  All the dishes tasted alright and this meal costs 228THB.
After dinner, we couldn't return to our hotel at Thapae Soi 6 cos' the road was already closed to traffic as the procession has started.  We have to take another road [Chang Moi Road] which is parallel to Thapae Road, turned right to Chang Klan Road and parked our bike outside a building.  We witnessed the procession at this place.
It's carnival time and the whole of Thapae Road from Thapae Gate to River Ping is packed with people, food stalls and beautiful floats and street performances.

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