It’s warm, it’s dry, no rain in sight – wonderful! We took it easy today and after a late start went into town to do some sightseeing. Not unlike Bangkok, but much less aggressive, there would be false tourist guides outside the main attractions (temples) trying to offer their services. I kept waving my LonelyPlanet guide in their faces saying that I would prefer to follow the book. Chiang Mai is a nice little (less than 200,000 people) town with a rather laid back feeling about it. People from Chiang Mai like to think of their home as the cultural capital of Thailand and there is indeed a very large number of temples and educational institutions (schools, colleges, universities, etc), especially considering the relatively small population. We followed the walk around tour described in the tour guide and visited some of the main temples located within the city limits (see photos below). We stopped for a wonderfully simple lunch from a mobile kitchen mounted on a moped with sidecar (spicy rice noodles with some sort of pork scratchings) and the equivalent mobile BBQ (spicy pork sausage, which seemed to contain more rice flour than meat, but was still very tasty!) for about 60p (30 Baht). After chilling out at the pool we didn’t feel like making another trip into town and decided to give the hotel restaurant a try. Not doing that again – the somewhat mediocre breakfast buffet should have been a warning. The hotel restaurant „Rio“ was offering what they called an International Buffet with a Brazilian BBQ. I will spare you the details but lets just say that this was anything but a Brazilian BBQ (okay, the meat was grilled on skewers and brought to your table, that’s at least two ticks in boxes) and that I would always prefer to go back to my 30 Baht lunch! Overall Thailand confirmed my previous view that you’re always better off chasing some local food than eating at the hotel.
