Happy Chinese New Year!

To ring in the Chinese New Year, we took advantage of Andy's days off and got out of town with a trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand.  Originally, we were thinking of going to Bangkok, but a few wise friends advised that we go to Chiang Mai because it's more laid back and has more outdoorsy things to do.  Having done quite a bit of travelling lately (and having more trips to take in upcoming months), we decided to take it easy and just enjoy the city.  As you may know, Thai massages are amazing and amazingly cheap in Thailand....so our trip involved some sightseeing, a few massages, lots of shopping, and some learning.

We arrived Friday night and checked into our guest house - the Pak Chiang Mai.  It was right on the edge of the southern side of the Old City.  

Night time tea Pak left in our room.  This one was called Butterfly Pea Flower, and when I brewed it, it was blue colored but tasted like chamomile.  A bit interesting drinking blue tea.

Our room

The lobby


Our favorite spot to relax and read in the lobby.  This place was awesome!


Breakfast was included with our room - delicious fresh fruit juice and Thai tea every morning!

Each morning we ate a wonderful breakfast before heading out to see the sights.  We'd sit out in the lobby, enjoy a hot cup of coffee or Thai tea and plan for the day ahead.  Energized  by breakfast, we set out to explore the city.  

Thailand is predominately Buddhist.  In the Old City area, there is literally a Wat (Buddhist Temple) on every corner.  I wondered why Buddhists would need so many temples in a city for one religion, and Andy pointed out that this was probably equatable to TX where there's a church on every corner.

Monks walking by the ancient city pillar of Wat Chedi Luang

Wat Chedi Luang

This was one of the statues at Wat Chedi Luang,
you must read the story behind it below, it's pretty funny

We did a bit of shopping and checked out a store selling handmade papers.  The most interesting was definitely this one:

Further down the street, we came across this shop:

The majority of Asians are stick thin, so a shop like this is quite a find!

While waiting for the bus, some students who were studying English approached us (well really Andy only) and asked if they could ask some questions for a homework project.  Basically, they just grilled Andy and I sat on the side taking pictures.  Guess I'm not American-looking enough.

Andy and the students

This happened twice with two different groups of students! Afterwards, they presented Andy with a holographic picture of the royal family.  They also presented me with a holographic picture of the King of Thailand so I wouldn't feel left out.

We visited a few wats and saw many Buddha statues.  The pictures below are from Wat Phrathat, which was up on a mountain called Doi Suthep just outside of Chiang Mai.

One of the many Buddhas at Wat Phrathat    


Thai dancers at Wat Phrathat

       
Happy kid and Happy Buddha


In front of one of the buildings at Wat Phrathat

At the wat, here was a wall of donation boxes.  There was a box for every kind of donation imaginable.  There was Donation for Building Temples, Donation for Students, Donation for Foundation, Donation for President, and my favorite, Donation for Oldster.

Now, I must take a moment to highlight how we got around to see all the sights (and a few other types of transportation we saw around town).

Exhibit 1 - Songthaew (Local Bus).  To ride, just flag down any driver and tell him where you want to go.  If it fits in his route, he'll take you, otherwise, try another one.

Exhibit 2: Rickshaw - I need to rig my bike up with an umbrella to keep me in the shade!

Exhibit 3:  Tuk Tuk - which is basically a Taxi

Exhibit 4: Segway - yes, they offer Segway rentals to tour the city....

Exhibit 5: 3 Wheeler - do you notice something funny about this one?

Somehow, they rigged the controls for the motorcycle so the person in the side pocket is steering the vehicle. So, I guess, people actually sitting on the motorcyle are just passenger....weird.

Exhibit 6:  Good old fashioned bikes - our guesthouse provided free bikes for us to borrow and we spent a day riding around town.  I tried to convince Andy to take the pink one, but he wouldn't budge.

Now, for the best part, the glorious food!  Andy and I took an all-day Thai cooking course.  The morning started off with a tour of the market

Suthim, our instructor, educating us on Thai produce

Our cooking class

Chef Andy

Gearing up for my cooking show, Jen can cook! Back in college, my roommate and I would pretend we had a cooking show - Jen can cook, Jo can clean.  Boy, I miss those days!

Here are some pics of the dishes we cooked:

       
Stir fried Holy Basil Chicken and Red Curry with Eggplant


Glass Noodle Salad

       
Ingredients for Tom Yum Soup and the finished product


Best. Pad. Thai. Ever. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Another fun episode in the Adventures of Jennie & Andy!  If you want to check out other pics - you can view this album.  Oh, and one more wonderful thing I forgot:

Thai Iced Tea!

Ho Chi Minh City

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) on New Year's Eve, just in time to ring in 2012......asleep in our room.  But more on that excitement later.

We got to our hotel safely, only to find that the room we booked was barely larger than our queen sized bed.  Not to best room we stayed in, but at least it was clean.  After getting unpacked, we headed out to check out the city.

First of all, before I start showing you the sights of HCMC, I'd like to show you what the streets themselves are like.  The traffic in Vietnam overall is ridiculously crazy with a lack of traffic lights and pedestrian crosswalks.  Everyone just goes all at one time.....including pedestrians.  But, in HCMC, the traffic was on a whole other level.  There seemed to be more people, more bikes, more buses, more cars.  The technique for crossing the road is basically to start walking slowly and steadily, keeping your eye on the oncoming traffic.  The motorists will simply go around you, but still, being sandwiched between a car and a big bus is never very comfortable...

Sure....just step out into this

A sea of motorists

We had to brave across a few scary streets to reach Ben Tanh market, a great place to buy everything and anything:

Ben Tanh Market - full of cheap and wonderful things to buy

Snake and scorpion wine for sale at the market...apparently only
older men should drink it as it boosts...ahem..."vitality"

This woman was making waffles and little pancakes on her little bucket-turned-grill and selling them.

Hotel De Ville - HCMC City Hall

HCMC Opera House

New Year Displays

After walking around and grabbing a light dinner (remember sensitive stomachs), we headed back to our hotel, climbed into bed, and rang the New Year in in our dreams....I know, exciting huh?   I'm almost embarrassed to admit it.  I think this brought us to new levels of lame-o-ness, who goes to bed at 10 pm on New Year's Eve????  I guess we do.  But, in our defense, we were still recovering physically and we had booked a boat tour for the next day that left at 7:30 am.  

So, after a good night's sleep, we got up and headed out to the dock to enjoy a tour of the Mekong Delta.  Some of the other tourists on the tour had stayed out to celebrate New Year's the traditional way and said it was a huge mess of people and it took them an hour just to travel a few kilometers to get home.....kinda glad we didn't get stuck in that mess.

The banks of the Saigon River around HCMC

First stop....another temple!  This one was Buddhist and they had a bucket outside full of fish that were just caught in the morning.  You can buy a fish and release it back into the river as a "good deed".  The poor fish were so crowded in the bucket and they kept jumping out.

Man, I mean Fish overboard!

Cruising further down...

River ferry - there are a lack of bridges for motorists to cross,
so they just ride their bikes onto the river ferry

Woman waiting for the ferry

Wedding party on the ferry

Next stop, a local wet market:

Baby chicks and ducklings for sale.
People raise them and then eat them or sell them for a profit

Produce

This is the street kitchen sink...which is why I was reluctant to eat street food

Small bridge - got honked at for standing in the middle of the bridge to take this pic

Happy kids waving at us from the river bank

We also visited a village farm:

Farmer picking some snacks from the lotus pond

Rice Fields

Old men cruising by.  Take note that the old man is rowing the
boat WHILE asian squatting....now that takes some skill

Here it is again - masters of the asian squat

We stopped for lunch at a Buddhist orphanage.  The tour company hired their own chef to cook food for us since it is hard to get good and clean food out in the countryside.

Chef at work in the outdoor kitchen

Spring Rolls

Fried fish

The final stop on the tour was at a Cao Dai temple.  The tour guide explained that Cao Dai was a "cocktail" religion.  They believe in the teachings of Buddha, Guanyin, Confucius, Jesus, and other prophets and gods.  It's hard for me to understand it because as a Christian, we believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven, which basically makes it impossible to align Jesus's teachings align with the teachings of Buddha and other gods all at the same time.  Seems a bit confusing and schizophrenic....

All the gods - the second one from the bottom is the Jesus

Cao Dai temple

On our way back to HCMC, we had some fruits and refreshing coconuts to drink:

Me and my fresh coconut


Andy getting ready to eat a mini banana

After a day of touring, we were pretty tired and got some massages for only $12 US each!  The massages included cucumber facials (yes, Andy had a facial too!) and a little bit of hot stone massage in the end.  Heavenly!  After our massages, we stopped for dinner and had our favorite shrimp hash dish again.

Shrimp hash fried on sugar cane skewers

We thought about ordering some Cigarettes, but thought it might ruin our appetite.  

Cigarettes section on the Menu....seriously??

On our final day in HCMC, we checked out the War Remnants museum in the morning since our flight left in the afternoon.  Actually...only one of us actually got to see the exhibits....the other (being me) ended up with a migraine and was desperately trying to sleep it off on some benches in the museum lobby.  

This is about all I saw of the War Remnants Museum

I was a little bummed about the migraine, but luckily I found a way to sleep everywhere we went - the museum lobby, then the hotel lobby while waiting for a taxi to the airport, on the taxi to the airport, at the airport, and finally on the plane.  By the time I got back to Singapore, I was in good shape so thank God that I got through it without anything ugly happening!

That just about wraps up our trip to Vietnam.  For the last section of photos from HCMC, you can view them in this album.  Whew! Took me long enough to get these posts up....and I finished just in time because we're off to Chiang Mai, Thailand for the Chinese New Year long weekend!