Flashback: Anna’s Annual Birthday Getaway, June 2023; Chiang Mai
***Note: I started writing this at the beginning of July, 2023, but due to the sheer amount of traveling we’ve done since then, some of which I didn’t even have the time to write about either, I’ve only just managed to conclude it more than six months later. As a result some of the details from June 29, 2023 onward might be a bit vague, but I’m sure the particularly juicy bits will be there, no pun intended (you’ll know when you get to it).***
We always go away annually around the time of Anna’s birthday and this year would be no different. With her current work schedule, plus a conveniently placed public holiday, She wouldn’t need to take much time off to have a five-day trip so we decided to head to Chiang Mai, Thailand. Chiang Mai was a good choice, because it is only a three-hour flight away and although we had been there before for Anna’s birthday five years prior, on that occasion it was also for a conference in a resort so we didn’t get a whole lot of time to venture out and explore much of the city. It was now time to rectify that.
Yup, that’s a pretty bad shirt, but I still love it
Monday, June 26, 2023
It was the eve of both Anna’s birthday and our trip and this is a woman that is impossible to buy for so the only option I had was to take her out for dinner. I wanted to bring her somewhere nice, but many places in Singapore don’t open on Mondays, however, I still managed to secure some seats at Luke’s Oyster Bar and Chop House so I donned a terrible shirt that Anna had chosen and we went for a fantastic meal, but we couldn’t go too crazy, we had a flight to catch at about 1:00pm the next day, plus we had to get to the airport early so Anna could get some last minute work stuff sorted in order to be able to fully relax and unwind while we were away.
Tuesday, June 27, 2023
I mentioned that Anna is impossible to buy for, but I guess that’s not entirely true. She had told me that she needed a new iPad, but the bargain hunter in her also wanted me to get her one duty free from the airport, so that’s what I set out to do. We would be departing from Changi Terminal 1 so Anna whipped out her computer and got her last bit of work done while I went to the Apple Store. I asked about the specific model she was after, but they were out of stock, however, they confirmed there was one available at the Apple Store in Terminal 4, which is a bus ride away, so I went down to where the bus departs and had to deal with two security guards that were about as useless as the white crayon in the box. They asked to see my passport and then we had a conversation that went something along the lines of this:
Security Guard: “Sir, your flight departs from this terminal, why do you want to go to Terminal 4?”
Me: “I need to visit the Apple Store, the one in this terminal doesn’t have what I need, but they said that it’s available in Terminal 4.”
Security Guard: “Sir, the Apple Store is just back there, you don’t need to go to Terminal 4.”
Me: “As I just told you, they don’t have what I’m after in stock, but it is in stock in the Terminal 4 store.”
Security Guard: “Sir, just try again at this store.”
Me, getting quite frustrated: “They. Don’t. Have. What. I’m. After.”
Security Guard: “How do you know it’s available in Terminal 4?”
Me: “Because they told me it is!”
Security Guard: “Who told you, sir?”
Me about to lose my mind: “THE WOMAN IN THE TERMINAL 1 APPLE STORE!!!”
Security Guard, now getting suspicious of why I want to go to another terminal when the same store is in this terminal: “Sir, the bus ride is quite long, you’ll miss your flight, I can’t let you go.”
At that point I went on an expletive-laden rant about the point of having a bus between terminals if they don’t let people on it and stormed off. There is also a light-rail to Terminal 3 and I could see if anything was available there, but by the time I walked across the terminal to it, waited for the train, caught it, walked around the other terminal in order to find a place that may have it, waited again, and then caught the train back, there definitely wouldn’t be enough time thanks to these guys holding me up so instead I just went back to join Anna and before long we were on our unnecessarily freezing cold flight.
Chiang Mai is an hour behind Singapore so it was only 3:00pm when we landed, plus our hotel, the Akyra Manor in the Nimman district, was only about a 15-minute drive from the airport so we checked in and dumped our luggage.
A look around around our room, including a strange Samuel L. Jackson portrait mosaic next to the bed:
Any frequent reader of this blog (both of you) would know that we love checking out flea markets when we’re overseas so we looked to see if there were any on while we were in town and the results showed there were a few, most only open on Tuesdays, so that was our night planned. One of these was the NGFM Flea Market, a night market housed in the courtyard of a cool, old, multi-storey building that happened to be just around the corner from our hotel so we set out on our way. As soon as we arrived we were at an entry that led through a food hall and we were a bit peckish, plus the market was still setting up, so why not grab a bite to eat? Naturally we had to get some Thai sausages and a great plate of noodles and then ventured through the market, the majority of stalls selling something I love to find — retro, secondhand t-shirts and jackets. We walked around for a while, exploring all of the stalls in the courtyard, as well as some in the building itself and, although I couldn’t find anything that fit me, one thing soon became abundantly clear; Anna was going to have to purchase a second suitcase if she were to continue buying dresses at this rate!
Once done we dropped all of the dresses and snacks we had bought back at the hotel and caught an Uber to another flea market and spent about 20 minutes driving around trying to find it, but to no avail. That turned out to be because it was the exact same one we had come from, it had just somehow relocated to a different location on the ever-unreliable Google Maps so we completed a full loop in our Uber back to where we had initially caught it. By now there were live bands playing at NGFM and we had another quick browse through some of the stalls that had opened while we were gone, but it was mostly the same stuff so we had some dinner and then settled into Beerlab and tried to put a hole in their rather extensive menu.
Some scenes from that afternoon and evening:
Wednesday, June 28, 2023
I usually have a lot of trouble sleeping because of my medication, but on this occasion that wasn’t a problem and in fact I ended up making up for lost sleep somehow, because it was after 1:00pm when Anna woke me up! She had been for the first of many massages and along the way had found a place she wanted to try for lunch that sold khao soi, a noodle dish from Laos and northern Thailand so why not have it in the right place? One other thing we discovered last time we were in Chiang Mai is that the coffee is top notch and there were cafes all around where we were staying so that was the first plan of attack. We downed our drinks along the way and soon were at the stall she had found where we both ordered the Khao Soi Super Bowl, containing pork, prawns, squid, and a chicken drumstick and it was as good as we could possibly hope for.
Our plan for this trip was to eat a lot, thus we’d need to walk lunch off so we explored a few other areas around our hotel, finding more coffee along the way. The only problem was that, because we had started the day so late, it was only a couple of hours before the shops began to close so before long we had to walk back to shower and see the rooftop bar and pool at our hotel for a bit. It only took a little bit of googling and soon Anna had found yet another place, this time for dinner, so when we were feeling a little less full we were out again, on our way to a restaurant that had an entire page on their menu dedicated to red ant eggs. Dinner was small, just tom yum soup, some veggies, and a red ant egg omelette, obviously made with other eggs too, otherwise it would be tiny.
Dinner was done and now we wanted a nightspot. When we were being driven to a mythical, non-existent flea market the previous night we had passed what had looked like a fun coffee and beer garden, the only problem was that we didn’t know the exact name of the place, only that it had a sign that said something like “Hops and Beans”. I googled every possible combination of ingredients for coffee and beer, but came up with nothing, however, we knew it was close to the hotel so when we were back we began to walk what we believed was the route the Uber had taken us and we hit gold, it turned out it was called New Town and I had been mixing up two signs in the place, one saying ‘Yeast & Hops’, the other ‘Roast & Grind’. The guard at the gate checked our IDs and stamped our wrists like we were teenagers again and we settled in for the night for some beer, wine, and great music. Once it was midnight it was time for the place to close, but we were still awake so I bought some takeaway beers, Anna still had some of her bottle of wine, and we went back to the hotel for a couple more drinks and an epic game of Jenga before hitting the hay.
Our second day, one of just eating and drinking:
Thursday, June 29, 2023
Just as every day in Chiang Mai it was hot again, but it’s still a nice town to walk around and that’s also how you find the good stuff to eat, this approach leading us to discover SP Chicken so we pulled up a seat for another great lunch before continuing on into an older part of town, passing a very creepy, talkative American tourist that seemed very interested in Anna along the way. After looking around the shops we had a bit of time to kill, which we did again in a bar on another blazing afternoon, before looking for ways to spend the night. The initial plans were to go to the Muay Thai at Loi Kroh Boxing Stadium, however, despite everything appearing to be set up for an event, they don’t have matches on Thursday nights so we went to Anusarn Market where we found some old New Kids On The Block t-shirts for sale, grabbed a lobster for dinner and it was in that market that we found our Plan B; Chiang Mai Cabaret, a live ladyboy show held in the market that we had seen a sign for earlier, and before anyone gets upset at the usage of that term, “Ladyboy” is a commonly accepted term used in Southeast Asia, even among the trans community itself, particularly in Thailand.
We got tickets and the show was great, but for some reason whenever the performers came into the crowd, I was constantly targeted, whether it me being made to motorboat a different ladyboy on three separate occasions, or when a rather large one got me to pull a condom out of her mouth with my teeth, one of my friends later commenting after seeing the photo that he though it was just a ravioli. When the show concluded all the performers stuck around to chat and have photos.
Some of what we encountered that Thursday:
Friday, June 30, 2023
We were staying in a nice place so we figured that we might as well relax while we were there and that pretty much describes our Friday in Chiang Mai. We had lunch with a friend of Anna’s at the Parc Thai Eatery, part of the resort in which she was staying. Once done, we went back to the hotel, Anna for either a massage or pedicure while I just kicked back and read a book until it was time to eat again.
We looked online to see what more good food options there were, hotpot seemed like an excellent idea and Chinda Hotpot was apparently the place to go so we put on our shoes and headed out, but when we arrived, much to our dismay the queue was enormous, with rows of scooters outside and a ton people waiting to enter. I guess we should find another option and a street food market is always a good choice, this time one outside of One Nimman Mall, where there were plenty of food stalls and buskers around. There was just one problem with this place, however — The only seats remaining were tiny stools and every time Anna sees these minuscule seats she always thinks back to our trip to Hanoi, Vietnam at the beginning of 2015 when I first tried to sit on a plastic one roadside to eat some snails. On that occasion the tiny legs buckled under me, launching the stool across the street at a blistering pace and leaving me laying flat on my back on the footpath while everyone in the general vicinity just stood there, pointing and laughing at the giant klutz splayed out on the ground. The stools in this market, however, were wooden so that wasn’t going to happen again this time, but still I had to pose shamefully for a picture primarily for Anna’s amusement before tucking into some great noodles and chicken wings. Once done we closed out the Friday night in another bar in the area, just having a few drinks and playing pool on an extremely uneven table, at the same time taking solace in the fact that at least ours was more level than the one being played on next to us. Seriously, there was no way they were that bad that essentially all of the balls were pressed up against the end cushion.
A Friday spent eating and drinking (again):
Saturday, July 1, 2023
Once more the final day of another short trip was upon us and we spent it pretty low-key, just wandering around again, past some dodgy-looking “men’s spas” and weed dispensaries, but obviously Anna’s plan was to spend her final afternoon in Thailand getting either the massage or the pedicure that she hadn’t had the previous day. It was too early for dinner when she was done so we had some afternoon libations back at New Town and then when it was time, made our way to Blackitch Artisan Kitchen for a fantastic final tasting-menu dinner on our last night in Chiang Mai before heading out again for a nightcap.
The conclusion to Anna’s birthday retreat:
So this wraps up last year’s journey for Anna’s birthday, there’s only four months until the next one and that is going to be an EPIC trip!
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