Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2016 18:27:11 GMT 7
I’ve lived in India all my life, eaten everywhere from Leh to Cochin, tasted extraordinary dishes by the humblest chaat-wala and the fanciest chef, but nowhere in my land, not in Delhi, Mumbai, Goa, Hyderabad or Kolkata, have I eaten so well, so cheaply, so grandly and with so much joy as in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai.
Even without the food, it’s a kind of paradise: close to the Myanmar border, modern yet resolutely traditional, spotlessly clean while never sterile; easily navigable but filled with a thousand hidden treasures, urban and chic (in part thanks to the large student population from the university) but surrounded by hills and jungle.
And my god, the food! The moment we stepped off the train from Bangkok you could smell it, that glorious barbecue aroma: the mu ping (pork skewers) you can pick up for three baht (6p) on any street, the sai ua (spiced lemongrass sausages) – a Chiang Mai signature dish – you can gobble for 30p. Food was everywhere; everyone was eating – even while driving along on their motorbikes.
It was the Cowgirl who really did it for me: that was when everything about the city came together. There we were, riding past the Chang Phuak Gate not long after arriving, when we saw the queue, and at the end of the queue the cart, and behind the cart the Cowgirl, immaculately made-up beneath a Stetson hat, wielding a cleaver above a mountain of pork, a ridiculous grin on her face.
www.theguardian.com/travel/2016/feb/24/thai-street-food-chiang-mai-tour-thailand
Even without the food, it’s a kind of paradise: close to the Myanmar border, modern yet resolutely traditional, spotlessly clean while never sterile; easily navigable but filled with a thousand hidden treasures, urban and chic (in part thanks to the large student population from the university) but surrounded by hills and jungle.
And my god, the food! The moment we stepped off the train from Bangkok you could smell it, that glorious barbecue aroma: the mu ping (pork skewers) you can pick up for three baht (6p) on any street, the sai ua (spiced lemongrass sausages) – a Chiang Mai signature dish – you can gobble for 30p. Food was everywhere; everyone was eating – even while driving along on their motorbikes.
It was the Cowgirl who really did it for me: that was when everything about the city came together. There we were, riding past the Chang Phuak Gate not long after arriving, when we saw the queue, and at the end of the queue the cart, and behind the cart the Cowgirl, immaculately made-up beneath a Stetson hat, wielding a cleaver above a mountain of pork, a ridiculous grin on her face.
www.theguardian.com/travel/2016/feb/24/thai-street-food-chiang-mai-tour-thailand
