A Food Festival! What Luck?! (Day 13)

We woke up the next morning and decided that we had some quick errands to run before we got our day started. We rented bikes from one of the little stands around the corner from our guesthouse that will rent you just about anything for a couple bucks a day. My sister was set on going on an "excursion" before we left, so we went and booked one that included trekking to a waterfall and mountain tribe, riding elephants and white water rafting for just under $30. Sounded like a pretty fun day, but I was a big skeptical. We then headed out to the bus station to purchase our tickets back to Bangkok before they all sold out. On the way out there we had seen this amazing looking little restaurant, so we stopped on the way back just as it stopped pouring rain. There were actually a couple of restaurants as well as stands out front. We were overwhelmed by the variety. My sister got these potato dumplings from one of the stands out front that reminded me so much of a latke. They were amazing, especially the one with the spinach type greens in it.

She also got this seafood soup that had a very nice, light broth and the seafood was cooked perfectly.

It is difficult to not overcook calamari and the other things in here, but they were about as tender as the noodles in the bowl. The broth seemed so simple, yet was so flavorful and delish. I got this combo meal of red curry pork and char siu pork.

Let me tell you, this was an amazing meal. The red curry was very rich and spicy and the pork was cooked well. I had a woman translating for me that spoke decent English, so she was able to describe the different curries that they had. The char siu pork was a little different than what I normally get, which I expected because we were in Thailand. It had some different flavors and was delicious. They covered it with this gravy that really set it off. Man, I miss Chiang Mai! I don't remember the exact trivial amount of money that this meal set us back, but it was next to nothing. It might have been something like $2-2.50.

On our way back, we stopped at a book store so that my sister could pick up a book. When we came out of the book store, the streets were blocked off and were packed. Apparently there was a parade going through the city and it looked like about half of the citizens were in it. We watched and the caught some side streets out, only to run right back into the thing on our way to the old temple. Apparently that was the final destination of this thing. They were having a street fair. Now something that translates across many cultures is the elements of a party: Music, drinking, and food. Well, there was plenty of music and food, but I didn't see much drinking going on at this religious festival.

The temple was huge and pretty amazing. It was not in the greatest shape, but hence the name.

There was all kinds of food around the temple and they closed off about three or four city blocks and had the streets lined with food and clothing vendors as well. This man was selling these quail eggs like hotcakes.

He also had about four different types of noodles that we had to try. They were delicious and he served them on these little Styrofoam plates.

Then of course there were the bugs. My mother had told me about eating chocolate covered grasshoppers in Morocco when she was about my age, so I felt like I had to try them. Well, they definitely had some variety here. Big, small, jumpers, creepers.





But I wussed out big time. I wasn't really that hungry and just didn't feel like the time was right. They also had all kinds of meats? on sticks.

Then, of course there were more bugs...and there one were pretty big.

And then just about every part of the chicken made into sates. These looked so amazing, but, again, just not hungry yet.

We decided to check out a less crowded temple, which was really nice and peaceful after all of that activiity.



We headed up to the Northern side of the city and decided to follow the channel back to our room. This looks very peaceful, but there were tuk-tuks and motorbikes wizzing by, making this pretty dangerous.



We went back to our room to chill for a minute and have another Chang beer. We then decided to look for this Saturday Night Market that we had been told about. This thing was enormous. Bigger than the temple festival. There were vendors selling everything you could imagine and all crammed together down one really, really long street. This was a million times better than the Night Bazaar. The prices were reasonable, there was food, and the items being sold were actually pretty nice and handmade. It was so delightfully frantic. I was hungry now, so I had all sorts of things. I had all different meats on sticks, some spicy pork with green beans, some great fried bananas on sticks. It all happened so fast though, I only managed to get a picture of this deluxe satay type thing.

Eventually, I started to get worn down and we had to escape. My sister and I kept getting separated and it was so difficult to find each other again. We ended up returning the bikes a little late, but it was alright. They were so worth it because they enabled us to really cover some ground and see so much of the city and its rich culture. I went out to use the internet, but was unsuccessful because of faulty equipment. We had dropped our clothes off with a sweet lady next door who agreed to wash them for a very reasonable price. The were somehow dry when we picked them up despite being hung dry on a intermittently rainy day. We then went to bed in anticipation of our excursion the following morning.