Day 2 - Bangkok & Chiang Mai

Hi everyone!  Today we left Bangkok (after a healthy hotel buffet breakfast, of course) and landed in Chiang Mai.  This is a very cool city; not as metropolitan as Bangkok, but with the same underlying feeling that they're onto a much bigger and better food scene than the US.

We landed in Chiang Mai about 11:15 a.m. and were greeted by a friendly hotel staff member, who escorted us to the car for the ride to the hotel.  He asked if we wanted to stop at 7-11 for anything (apparently 7-11s are HUGE here) and we said no, but secretly wondered if there was a reason he was asking...  About 5 minutes later we pulled into a 7-11.  The driver got out and we thought maybe he was stopping for something personal, but he rounded the front of the van and opened our door to let us out.  Hmm.  We told him we didn't need to stop and he seemed a little confused, but closed the door and jumped back in the driver's seat.  Again we wondered if we had made a mistake not stopping for sundries.

Upon arrival at our hotel, Aruntara, we were greeted by friendly staff and a lovely red welcome drink (none of us could pin point the taste).  We were escorted to one of our rooms (the other was still being made up) and decided to head to old town for lunch.  Andrew found a place with yummy grilled whole chickens with rave reviews, so off we headed, via red taxi, to old town Chiang Mai.  I still have no idea what the restaurant was called, but here are some photos:

Street sign for the restaurant

Yummy grilled whole chicken

Menu

Chicken.  With cilantro this time.

These are the tuk tuks we've been catching rides from.  They're small but surprisingly powerful

We stopped at a cool temple with a small market on the side.  The vendors had these beautiful red umbrellas displayed.

After lunch and a nice walk we went back to the hotel and checked into the second (our) room:

This is the lobby of Aruntara.  They celebrate Christmas here - complete with Christmas music 24 hours a day.  My favorite.

Before heading out for dinner, we grabbed a drink at the hotel's bar

On Sundays in Chiang Mai, there is an amazing walking street market, which we decided to visit before dinner.  The crowds were insane:

And the stalls were even crazier!:

Black...um...jelly?  Anyone?

Fruit stand!

Sylvie grabbed a cute eyeglasses case, but other than that, the walking street market was just a bit too crowded to elbow through.  We felt like salmon; no matter what side of the street you were on, you were swimming upstream.

We all built up quite a hunger at the market, so headed to dinner at Huen Phem, a little place known for - what else? - chicken!:

This is a pork and vegetable appetizer.  Yummy!

Crispy fried pork ribs

Last, but not least, I couldn't help but take an art shot of the beer :)

That was it for the night.  We grabbed tuk tuks back to the hotel and were completely wiped.  We plan to sleep in tomorrow morning and do some shopping.  Cheers!