Chiang Mai: temples, shopping, and livestock

So we planned to spend some time in Chiang Mai in part because of rave reviews from some friends, and in part because it's supposed to be one of the shopping capitals of Thailand. I don't mean designer-label shopping, I mean night markets and handmade crafty things - I'm not precisely in the market for Prada, but we saw lots of "Prado," "Leevis," and the ever popular "Dolce & Gabanna" (various spellings of this one available). Even the water bottles are knockoffs, mostly of Aquafina. We found similarly-logoed "Aquapura," "Aqua Fina," and "Aquatic" water bottles. None of them made us sick, so I guess that's OK!

We visited some old Buddhist temples - Chiang Mai apparently has almost as many as Bangkok, despite having something like a fourth or fifth the population. Our taxi driver spoke English (he had a book full of testimonials from previous tourists, so we chose him despite his incredibly ancient looking Toyota - the A/C still worked at least!) He showed us some temples, then drove us out to the handicraft district where we toured another silk shop, a gem/silver shop, and a rug/antiques shop. The gift shop at the silk place was enticing, and we could've blown the rest of our budget there, but I made the tough decision to say no to the awesome red & black silk cocktail dress. Yes, it made me look slim and almost curvy, but really...how often do I wear a cocktail dress? OK, never. We also didn't have enough time for Scott to get his custom-tailored suit (even at this pricey place, the cost of the fabric for a suit ranged from about $180-220. We asked how much for the tailoring, and got a blank look. All the sewing is free, apparently, if you buy the fabric! Poor Scott!)

Our taxi driver was at least honest about what he got out of the deal - apparently these shops give him coupons for free gasoline, as long as his customers spend a minimum of 5 minutes in the shop. So each time, he clarified that we needed to spend 5 minutes there, even if we didn't buy anything. Kind of an odd working model, but he was upfront about it, and only charged us $3 for the entire 5 hours he drove us around, so we couldn't complain.

The Sunday evening market in Chiang Mai is the climax of the weekly social scene, both for locals and tourists. The market takes up the main street all the way through town. It's packed with people to the point of claustrophobia at some points, but we had great fun. Street food up the wazoo...we only tried the normal looking stuff, I have to admit; we avoided the fried/steamed bugs (silkworms, crickets, and enormous cockroach looking things called "mackerels" were available), and we didn't partake of the black herbal jello (they grated the jello, mixed with sugar - I think it was plant-based and probably very good for you, but smelled unappealing compared to the fried bananas on a stick, dim sum on a stick, sausage on a stick, chocolate strawberries on a stick, chicken on a stick, pineapple on a stick, and grilled nameless meat on a stick that we did try. Yes, sticks are big at the market. Trash cans are not - we couldn't find one the entire night.