Thailand Day 12: Chiang Mai Cooking Class, Muay Thai

I've been debating on whether I want to put my physical issues related to travel abroad on the blog because sharing photos of my current foot situation might result in this entire blog getting reported and shut down. I'll give a written summary and y'all can let me know if you want me to post the carnage photos. I'll say this, I'd rather have the leeches than what I am presently experiencing.

In short, many of us experienced a higher-number-than-is-typical amount of bug bites while we stayed in Ban Nam Hom--waaaaait a minute!

As I'm writing this post. I feel LIKE A COMPLETE IDIOT because I was about to write, "these bites remind me a lot of chigger bites," so I did a quick query to see if chiggers (actual name: Trombiculid mites) exist in Thailand, and boy, oh boy, did I learn some useful information.

In 2016, 99 species of Trombiculid mites were confirmed and recorded in the revised checklist of chigger mites in Thailand. Recently, the number of chigger species recorded as currently being present in Thailand has increased to 156. 

(Source: Chaisiri, Kittipong & Stekolnikov, Alexandr & Makepeace, Benjamin & Morand, Serge. (2016). A Revised Checklist of Chigger Mites (Acari: Trombiculidae) From Thailand, with the Description of Three New Species. Journal of Medical Entomology. 53. 321–342. 10.1093/jme/tjv244)

These bites remind me a lot of chigger bites because THEY ARE VERY OBVIOUSLY CHIGGER BITES. GERBERS, YOU FOOL.

Dropping this resource on the blog for future reference, but I'm gonna walk us through some signs/symptoms and the do's and don'ts for chigger bites:

Chigger Bites (Nemours Kids Health)

• How Do Chigger Bites Happen?
• After hatching, baby chiggers wait on plants for people or animals to pass by. When they do, the chigger attaches to them using tiny claws. Once attached, it pierces their skin and injects its saliva (spit). The spit contains digestive juices that dissolve skin cells. The chigger then eats the dissolved cells, which provide the protein it needs to grow into an adult. After a couple of days the chigger falls off, leaving a red bump on the skin
• What Are the Signs of Chigger Bites?
• Chigger bites are itchy red bumps that can look like pimples, blisters, or small hives. They are usually found around the waist, ankles, or in warm skin folds. They get bigger and itchier over several days, and often appear in groups.

Sorry, you're getting the carnage photos--as a learning tool! These are TEXTBOOK chigger bites.

Blisters, pimples, and small hives...CHECK

  Found around the ankles and get bigger and iticher over the folliwng days...CHECK

• How are chigger bites treated?
• Unlike mosquitoes and ticks, chiggers don't carry disease. So they are not harmful, only annoying. You can usually treat chigger bites at home.
• Scrub chigger bites well with soap and water to help remove any chiggers that are still attached to the skin <--should have done this more purposefully much sooner.
• Holding a cool washcloth over the bites can be soothing.
• Calamine lotion or anti-itch creams can help with the itching.
• Antihistamines (allergy medicine) taken by mouth can sometimes help with itching (this is why I was on diphenhydramine the other day

• Do not:
• Scratch at the bites because this can lead to:impetigo, a bacterial infection of the skin, with pus and crusts around the bites
• Yeah, I epically failed at this.
• a larger area of increasing redness, swelling, pain, and warmth, called cellulitis
• Yeah, I think we're probably at this stage...

• When Should I Call the Doctor?
• Call your doctor's office if:
• Over-the-counter creams or lotions don't help the itching. CHECK
• A bite looks infected (watch for warmth, redness, swelling, tenderness, or pus). CHECK

I have a telehealth appointment at 5:30AM to address this issue :)

To summarize: Hey students, we all have chigger bites. Scrub your feet, legs, arms with soap and water, get some hydrocortisone cream, do your best to avoid scratching, and for the love of all things sacred, consider wearing closed-toe shoes and long pants if we anticipate being outdoors around long grasses and plants. And if your feet look as bad as mine, let me help you get set up with our institutionally-provided international telehealth insurance so we can get you treated!

I'd considered doing a post on traveler's diarrhea (what causes it, how to treat it), but I'm like...pretty tapped out on the gnarly health stuff for the evening so we'll save that one for later.

Let's talk about how much fun we had at the Best Thai Cooking Course!

I did a very thorough post about this experience in 2023. It was an optional activity in that program, and about half the students joined Han and me--we had such a good time in 2023 that we decided to make it mandatory fun for everyone this year :) and I think the students would agree that it's a great inclusion on the itinerary.

I will refer you to the 2023 post for what we learned during our market tour, but I will share our menu, some photos, and a sincere appreciation to Chef Perm and his staff for facilitating such a fun and valuable experience for our group.

Schedule:

1. Start with local market tour; learn about local produce and how to differentiate good items from bad (e.g. eggs onions, etc.)
2. Learned how coconut water / cream, and milk is harvested
1. Water - from a green coconut (young)
2. Cream - squeezed directly from a mature coconut (brown)
3. Milk - cut with water; typically 50/50
1. low-fat (80 water / 20 cream)
2. high-fat (20 water / 80 cream)
3. Travel to cooking site
4. Walking tour of garden to pick Thai chilis, Butterfly Pea flower, various basils
5. Cook and eat!

Menu:

• Soup (choose 1):
• Tom Yum Kung - a common and popular Thai soup served with many meals. Features Thai chilis, mushrooms, chicken and/or prawns, and other herbs and vegetables
• Tom Kha - coconut soup that is creamy and mildly sweet
• Vegetarian Pad Thaicontains rice noodles, bean sprouts, chives, egg, and a peanut sauce
• Main (choose 1)
• Gai Pad Med Mamuang - Stir-fried Chicken with Cashew Nuts
• Pad Kra Pao - pork and holy basil stir fried
• Curry (choose 1)
• Green curry (my favorite Thai dish)
• Panang curry
• Mango Sticky Rice

Lots of photos:

The group at the end of our cooking class

Chef Perm providing an overview of the market

Explaining different types of local produce

Helping us differentiate good from bad 

Aiden smelling a century egg

Learning about coconuts

Garden tour. Photo credit: Noi

Butterfly pea flower (for tea and for coloring)

Jack looking dapper in his apron and hat

 Cooking demonstration

Cooking demonstration

These flames were on purpose. Photo credit: Han

 Mango sticky rice

Pad Kra Pao

 Green curry

Pad Thai

Tom Yum soup

The group at the end of our lesson with the staff

After completing the cooking course and thanking Perm and his staff, we went back to the hotel for some free time. I spent my time out on my balcony doing homework (completing review of student's reflection journals) and catching up on yesterday's blog post. I eventually relocated to Roast8ry Lab, a hip artisanal coffee shop where every cup is a work of art:

Satan Latte

I realized that I was three days into a trip to Chiang Mai and hadn't eaten Khao Soi yet, a quintessential part of northern Thai cuisine, so I did some quick research to find a good Khao Soi place for dinner and sent an invitation out to the group. It ended up just being me and Han, and we had a great time debriefing the trip thus far, discussing ideas for future itineraries, and enjoying delicious Khao Soi.

For future reference, this is the place: "Muay Khao Soi" 36 Soi12, Nimmanahaeminda Road, Muang, Chiang Mai 50200

Khao soy. Yum.

After dinner, it was time to wrangle the students for our trip to Thapae Boxing Stadium for an evening of Muay Thai. This is an optional activity for students, recognizing that not all students may be interested in attending a Muay Thai event. I do a very thorough job covering some of the really cool and unique aspects of Muay Thai in this previous post, so I''ll leave it to you to learn more.

Here are a few photos:

It was a nice evening out and I'm glad the students had a good time. I should probably get to bed since my telehealth appointment for my **chigger bites** is in 4 hours...off to Chiang Dao tomorrow!

Thailand Days 10 - 11: Chiang Mai / Wat Phra Doi Suthep

(This post was started yesterday and then I fell asleep :) )I wasn’t going to write a post today because it was mostly a travel day, but I feel like I owe a penance for the fever dream I posted yesterday.

Before getting into the business of today, some contributions from our team:

Anna provided me with this translated image of one of the interpretive signs at Blue Cave. Super interesting and helpful. Thanks Anna!

Text: Blue Cave History

Start opening tourism on 25-28 September 2020

Biography of the Buddhist monastery, Buddha Gaya, Blue Cave, the construction period is more than 20 years. In the past, the Blue Cave, a large forest, abundant with various kinds of trees wrapped with vines, large trunks covering the front of the cave, you can't see that this place is a cave, which is suitable for large animals, barking deer, deer, wild boars, etc. that live in the forest in this area.

Later, there were Communists of Thailand – students who rebelled against the country and came to hide in the Blue Cave, with Black Hmong, White Hmong, and Karen volunteering to be a force, gathering and receiving a salary as compensation. Later, the villagers gave them the opportunity to surrender and report the situation as usual. The forest in that area had capitalists cutting down trees, mulberry trees, etc., so there was encroachment and shifting cultivation at the same time. The forest in this area was thus completely gone.

This blue cave, many monks who wandered through and stayed during the Buddhist Lent would leave. Later, a Burmese monk who ate vegetarian food came to stay during the Buddhist Lent and restored and improved the area, poured cement, and built a reclining Buddha in the cave, a bedroom for monks in the year 1366 (Burmese B.E.). He died in this blue cave in front of the reclining Buddha. As for the large Buddha image with a Naga covering in the open air, it was built in the Burmese art style with Phra Khru Kitti Thamankhun of Wat Ket Kaew Bunyapab. Mae Ku Subdistrict, as the head monk of the Thai Sangha and the Burmese monks who restored and completed the construction.

Presented by Miss Kanyakorn Meepan, Mr. Nares Amsri, Mrs. Ampha Meepan, Mr. Prathum Meepan, Miss Chananchida Meepan

Cory (HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!) made a more whimsical Wonka robot overlord. 

Source: ChatGPT

Look how chipper and full of whimsy it is.

Isabel sent me a fantastic photo of the finished mural at Ban Nam Hom, but my phone is all the way on the other side of the bed [that I am presently lying in], and I'll need to air drop it to myself, and all of that seems like a lot of effort at the moment, especially since I just took a third of a diphenhydramine pill to curb the relentless itching of my bug-bite-ridden feet, and I am fading fast, so it's a race against the clock to get this post up before the diphenhydramine kicks in, and I either fall asleep or see the Babadook.

Image of the Babadook
Source: The Guardian

• "ChatGPT, how many independent and dependent clauses were in that single sentence?"
• Robot overlord response: "7 independent clauses, 3 dependent clauses. Let me know if you'd like a diagram or visual breakdown—it’s a sentence with fun, chaotic energy!"

Fun, chaotic energy. LOLOLOLOL.

Oh hell. In the time it took me to write all of that, I could have painted the mural myself, let alone grab the phone that is four feet away from me. Be right back.

<grabs phone, airdrops photo> Entire process took less than 45 seconds.

Mural painted by students at Ban Nam Hom featuring the favorite animals of several BNH teachers.

5/28: Mae Sot to Chiang Mai

To borrow a quote from Gold Five during the Battle of Yavin, the goal for today’s post is to “stay on target.” First student whose family member or friend correctly names that reference gets a crisp 20 baht from me.

[Editor's note: I did, in fact, not stay on target.]

We left Mae sot around 9am and drove *many hours* north to Chiang Mai, one of my favorite cities in the world. Actually, one of the only cities I actually like. Not a city gal. Cartagena and Pamplona probably round out my top 3.

(this is where I fell asleep)

[written on 5/29] Okay, picking up where I left off yesterday. We arrived in Chiang Mai around 3PM and got settled into the Eastin Tan Hotel, which is located in the Nimman district, a super hip and trendy part of the city that is also experiencing tons of growth. Lots of young professionals noodling around, fun shops and markets, and many, many places to grab food and drink. Where we are staying is also about a mile away from Chiang Mai University, which is a comprehensive research university and one of my favorite places to run while in Thailand. 

After some very long and hard days in BNH, our visit to Chiang Mai is deliberately less programmed. We tend to have 1-2 structured activities a day and then offer free time so students can explore on their own. During these free time periods, Han and I will often together or separately offer various things we like to do. and students can choose to join us (always welcome!). Han took a group of students on a short walking tour of the Nimman area. 

View of the intersection where our hotel is located. Source: nomadnotes

One Nimman plaza. Source: nomadnotes

I started with the tour and then decided that baking in the sun was not my jam, so I invited any interested students to join me at the Artist Spa, my favorite place in all of Thailand to get a Thai message. I had planned on booking an appointment for later in the afternoon, but when Lily and Isabel joined me, we decided to be spontaneous and get the massage right then and there. And they served us post-massage watermelon, tea, and cookies! Treat yo'self.

We left the salon only to discover that it was monsooning outside, so we raced back to the hotel to get our rain gear before venturing out to dinner. I'd put an open invitation out to the entire group to join me at Tong Tem Toh, a restaurant that I have featured many, many times on this blog:

• May 20 2022: The restaurant that I found, Tong Tem Toh, served what was hands-down the best meal I've had on the trip so far
• May 27 2022: I was able to convince Kathryn and Han to join me for a return trip to Tong Tem Toh, the restaurant that still holds the #1 slot for best meal in Thailand for me on this trip.
• May 18, 2023: Free time now. Tonight, we are headed to my favorite restaurant of the trip (Tong Tem Toh) and the night bazaar in the historic district.
• May 19, 2023: The students and I had dinner at Tong Tem Toh, my favorite restaurant of the trip that features northern Thai cuisine (Burmese influence) before visiting the night bazaar.
• May 27, 2023: Afterward, the students suggested eating lunch at Tong Tem Toh (my favorite), so I didn't argue with that!

So...to be clear...Tong Tem Toh is my favorite.

Some sort of delicious minced pork dish, Northern Thai style pork in curry, stir fry chicken, pork in curry (second order), and I think we had morning glory in oyster sauce floating around somewhere as well.

In my happy place doing what Soda refers to as "the sunflower pose"

**not pictured** is the FAT RAT that scurried behind our table, it's inside/outside seating and it had rained all day so it was an understandable rat. 

After dinner, I said goodbye to the twins and went to do some homework (yes, students, we do actually read your journals :) ) while listening to live music in the Nimman plaza. At this time, most of the students had joined Han at Chiang Mai's famous Night Bazaar in the old city. 

After reviewing all of my old posts to see if I'd given any background info on the night bazaar, I apparently have not, but after looking at available resources already published on the internet, Catmotors.net does a much better job explaining the night bazaar than I ever could, so check it out.

Students, if you have pictures from the night bazaar, please send me a few so I can post them.

To close the evening, Han and I met up and made our annual pilgrimage to our nightly debriefing spot in Chiang Mai. We were elated to find out that our friend James was still working there--we met him in 2022 and he remembers us every year! The timing was perfect as his last day is Saturday. He will be missed, but we are excited to visit him at his new professional digs.

5/29: Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

I started off the morning with the first portion of my half Chiang Maiathon, which is exactly what it sounds like. Bianca joined me for the first three miles, and we ran to Chiang Mai University. Read about it here. I gotta pick up the pace because it's after 1AM our time, the diphenhydramine is kicking in, and I'm worried the Babadook is on its way.

View while running on campus 

Fountain in the center of campus

Reservoir on campus with a nice trail encircling it

Nope, throwing in the towel because the next topic is our visit to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep and I really want to do it justice. I'll cover today tomorrow, although today is now technically yesterday, so I'll cover yesterday and today (which was tomorrow) today. Oh hey there, Babadook...

(Written on 5/30) 

Okay, I got all of my chorin' done (Chris, did you get that reference?) so it's time to get caught up.

Yesterday, we visited Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, a beautiful wat (roughly translates to "temple") situated in the foothills ("doi" means mountain or hill) overlooking Chiang Mai. I've written about this wat on both previous trips, but I'm excited to give it a fresh set of eyes.

The Cliffnotes Wikipedia quick summary of the Wat:

Founded in 1383 under King Keu Naone, the temple was built to enshrine a sacred Buddha relic—a shoulder bone believed to be from the historical Buddha. According to legend, the relic miraculously split in two, with one part brought to Chiang Mai on a white elephant that climbed Doi Suthep, trumpeted three times, and died, signifying the chosen location for the wat. Since then, it has become both a pilgrimage destination and a major cultural landmark, blending Lanna architecture, Buddhist devotion, and panoramic views.

The temple features northern Thai (Lanna) style architecture, notably in the gold chedi (stupa) and style of rooftops. It's one of the most revered wats in northern Thailand.

Examples of different Buddha positions

Climbing the stairs to the wat

Each side of the stairs (306 in total) represents a naga serpent, who symbolize protection of pilgrims along their spiritual path to enlightenment

The naga protects the Buddha from rain and danger

While not all wats have enshrined objects (relics) or pagodas, this one has both. There is a beautiful pagoda at the center of the wat that (allegedly) contains the shoulder bone. I'm not one to say whether it does or doesn't contain a shoulder bone of the Buddha, but one might consider how some Christian faiths claim to have relics of saints or the holy grail, etc. 

Naturally, I whiffed and didn't take a picture of the pagoda on this trip, but 2022 me took one: 

Pagoda at the center of the wat containing the relic of the Buddha

One way to pay respects to the Buddha is to travel clockwise around the pagoda three times while repeating this prayer, translated into English:

Prayer for the sacred relics of Doi Suthep:

Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Samma Sambuddhassa

(Chant 3 times)

The golden chedi, the hair, the matthalungkang, the dhatu of the Varanna,

the name of the Sudeva, are worshipped by all deities of the Lord. I pay homage

to the wisdom of the Asami, the candima, the waters of the Pitaka, the teaching,

the liberation, the foundation, the freedom, the liberation, the liberation of the world.

Arahant, Sakkasopanang, first, preceptor, having given alms, having given

robes, having given birth, having come to the Sangha, asked, "Hello."

(Walk around to the right 3 times)

I am *shocked* that I don't have a post that explains the differences between the different positions of the Buddha statues. I'll save that for when we're in Phetchabun, but students, don't let me forget to do it. 

I spent more time on this visit to the wat being purposeful in my reflection and paying of respects to the sacred space, particularly as I completed my three rotations around the pagoda. Many of us also received blessings from a monk. I am hoping that I can complete the monk's trail with anyone else who is interested when we return to Chiang Mai on June 5-6.

After leaving the wat, we ate lunch as a group at Boat restaurant. I had a northern Thai noodle dish:

Lunch at Boat

After lunch at Boat, Han and I and a handful of students returned to the Artist for our daily ritual, and after getting all limbered up (holy mackerel, my therapist had the strongest thumbs of any human on the planet...), I finished up my half Chiang Maiathon for a total of 13.1 miles :) and 1) I felt great! and 2) it was really good people watching around the reservoirs on campus. Fun to see so many folks out being active, taking photos, relaxing---just living life on a university campus.

We reconvened for a group dinner at Khaomao-Khaofang Restaurant ("Imaginary Jungle") and this truly might be the most beautiful restaurant I have ever eaten at. Ever.

Khaomao-Khaofang

Khaomao-Khaofang

Khaomao-Khaofang

Khaomao-Khaofang

First Kelfie of the trip

Fix up, look sharp, students!

Khaomao-Khaofang

Khaomao-Khaofang

Khaomao-Khaofang

Everyone is very happy to be eating here :)

Great dinner and great conversations. We came back to the hotel and wished folks well as we closed our our second full day in Chiang Mai.