After the excitement over renewing our passports, and the admiration at how smoothly the exercise went, our renewed passports arrived in the last week of March 2019. Now, all we had to do is figure out where to travel to make use of them. We were re-thinking about Vietnam and Cambodia for which we had already done a fair amount of research – before abandoning it because our passports were reaching expiry. Then there was Turkey & Greece, a visit we had always wanted to make but had not been able to. In the midst of all this, Nira suggested Thailand, where she would anyway be going for her course in early June, but would have a fortnight between her school closure here and the Bangkok School session starting. The idea seemed quite appealing, more so because Nira readily agreed to make all the arrangements for our visas through her school travel agent and for Hotels there through her many friends in Thailand. We loved the idea. Nira had made a very elaborate plan which included Chiang Mai, Bangkok and Phuket, but we found the itinerary too long and Tiny was reluctant to be away from India for too long a stretch, so we restricted our visit to just Chiang Mai and Bangkok and while Nira proceeded to Phuket from Bangkok, we came back to Delhi.
We flew Air India from Delhi to Bangkok, and we decided to first head straight to Chiang Mai, where we would spend 4 days. So from Suvarnabhoomi Airport, we transferred to Don Mueang Airport for our Air Nok flight to Chiang Mai. The flight being a handbags only flight, we ended up traveling quite light to Chaing Mai, because having known the baggage restrictions we had planned it that way and had booked our remaining luggage in the Baggage Room at the Don Mueang Airport. At THB 75 per day per bag, it was fine. Our Air Nok Aircraft was painted like an Angry Bird, which was quite amusing.
We were booked at the Furama Hotel, a two bedroom suite for which we had already paid in Indian Rupees and which was extremely comfortable. Not very new, but still well equipped, providing adequate privacy to the two of us and to Nira. A restful afternoon and we were all set to go for dinner with Nira’s friend Chris(tine) and her Thai husband Baw . After an early dinner at a homely Thai restaurant, we were set to go to the Weekend Market which opens only at night, and Baw drove us through the city to drop us there. But this turned out be a dull place, not what we had read about, so we discovered via Google that the actual weekend night market that we were looking for was at a different location. Baw had not taken us there thinking we might be overwhelmed by the weekend crowd, not realising that that was what we actually wanted. So we tuk tukked our way there and that’s where all the action was.
This is Chiang Mai’s walking street and it functions only on Sunday, which today happened to be. We started off by having the traditional Thai sweet of Mango and Sticky Rice from a street hawker just before we entered the walking street, and then began our slow stroll through the market. We spent close to two hours just to cross from one end of the street to the other, a distance of maybe a kilometer or slightly more, stopping every few meters, admiring the shops and stalls, the temples, the street singers and the artists as well as those who had come just to have a drink and soak in the ambience. The place was thronging with tourists and the vendors were making the best of it. It was wonderful. At 10:30pm loudspeakers along the street began announcing that in accordance with the permissions granted to the market, the street stalls were now obliged to close. The market disbanded itself soon after that and we too took a tuk-tuk (driven by a chatty Thai woman) back to our hotel.
As somebody from Delhi told us upon our return, What’s so great about a street market, you can experience the same thing in Karol Bagh here. Take a look at the pictures below and note for yourself the difference between Ajmal Khan Road and Chiang Mai’s Walking Street
