November 8, 2025 to November 10, 2025
Why Is It So
Dear little friends,
Bruce has a followup appointment at the endodontist for a week later so we’ve decided to stay in Chiang Mai this week. We were considering doing long-ish day trips out of the city for some of those days and that could still happen but, honestly, the weather is still unsettled and rain showers occur even when the radar says everything is clear. So I’m consolidating a few days of us doing this and that around the city, not a lot of biking. So those who want biking content, come see us next week.
While Bruce was under the drill I hung out in the upstairs lobby, scrolling on my phone and glancing up when he would emerge from the room to go down to the x-ray room and back. The lobby opened up to several different rooms so there was a lot of hurry scurry. It was startling at first. When his door opened and an assistant dashed pell-mell down the hallway I thought they were calling an ambulance or something. But no, she came back with more gauze or whatever.
Afterwards we were in a celebratory mood but it seemed like maybe we should chill out for awhile. Plus it was raining. So back to the room it was, to do a little laundry and nap and read and write in the journal. Later we strolled over to the Chiang Mai Gate Food Bonanza area and had khao man gai, chicken rice. It was Walking Street night again so it was heaving with people, and the tables were all set up on WuLai Road. Same stuff as last week except there was a tee shirt Bruce wanted but there were none in his size. It was too bad, he deserved a new tee shirt.
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Back in our room, the mysterious light stick things hanging in the street had been lighted and they were all rainbow candy colored, super fun. Bruce decided to go take a gander at the Silver Temple, maybe the fare collectors had gone home, but nope. I was out on our ‘balcony’ as the first drops of rain started and lightning flashed. I did get a video of that, and of Bruce darting back into the guesthouse. It was an exciting storm.
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Sunday we had booked a different hotel. I’ve said little about the hotel we just barely managed to get a day after Loy Krathong in Chiang Mai, but let’s just say we were not happy there. I left a completely justified review on it on Google Maps. The location was great, the staff were nice, but nope. It really needs some capital improvements. We got our panniers down to the lobby at checkout time and waited for the rain to stop. And waited some more. We finally just loaded up and hightailed it to our new place. It’s a fairly new building on a very quiet down-home street. It’ll do.
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The sun came out and we rode our bikes up to Ming Maung market and had some food and bought some fruit, and then rode back home, it really wasn’t much of a day to talk about. We had some planning to do, some weather-watching to do, some napping to do. That’s how some days go on the Brownlellman snoozefest tour.
In the morning (now we’re on Monday) Bruce keyed out a temple tour for us. The forecast looked better than usual. The problem with riding or walking in Chiang Mai is that doing either of those in the quiet beautiful spiderweb of lanes is really fun, but these various webs are cut off from each other by very busy arterials, most of which have janky sidewalk infrastructure. It’s a shame because most tourists are on foot most of the time, and they have to step out into traffic all the time because the sidewalk peters out to nothing, is blocked by a light pole/electric structure/mystery object/motorcycle. You can see the stress and discomfort in every pedestrian’s face.
We not only had to take one of the busy moat streets, we also would have to get around the airport. Yes, the airport is basically IN the city, nearly walking distance. In the western neighborhoods the planes roar right over your head, ew. We visited the first temple, I hung out near the bikes trying to get a photo or video of a plane going past the golden chedi. Bruce explored inside the main temple. This is a pattern, as you see, one that I prefer. I like temples but not as much as he does.
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After he rejoined me, the enormous, ancient bodhi tree suddenly rustled every leaf and a shower of browning bodhi leaves came raining down. Yes, that was thunder we heard. Dang it.
But we soldiered onward to the next temple, which hugs the bottom edge of Doi Suthep mountain. This meant some not fun riding along a busy street and a busier highway but then we were out in the drizzle of some lanes, occasionally taking shelter, and then up to the temple itself. It’s a mossy place, with lots of trees and maybe even more roosters. I mean, more roosters than the Kauai airport. Beautiful rooster, crowing in the dusky dim of a drizzling day under many trees. There is a large moldering chedi, a psychedelic gallery of modern religious art, and a brick tunnel complex with a few chambers that prompted me to give Bruce a full Cliff Notes version of “The Cask of Amontillado”. Wheels of parmesan would have loved that place.
It was still raining. Some cloud had affixed itself to Doi Suthep and it wasn’t going to leave so we did. Back onto the main street, cheat our way across the superhighway, back to the moat, duck into a street that is special to Bruce.
On that street is the house he lived in in 1974 with his host Thai family. It looks different but he definitely found it. Then back into the center of Old Town, with slightly fewer tourists than a day or so before, to a very old Thai restaurant we’ve eaten at many times before. By the time we returned to the hotel we were done for the day, sweaty, ready for showers.
Bruce stepped on to the balcony to survey the situation on our very very quiet street and a familiar huge red motorbike pulled up to the hotel and Mickey Stotch stepped off. Wutttttttt. Mickey is a YouTuber who loves Thai food, Thai people, Thai places, and makes absolutely lovely videos about his loves. We are huge fans. He speaks Thai beautifully so you want to put the captions on when watching him so you can understand the conversations he has with folks as he’s ordering food or joking around. Of course beelined down to meet him and be obnoxious. He’s probably used to that. I took a photo of him with Bruce but he has his eyes closed because people have to blink SOMEtime.
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That was an exciting end to a fun, if damp, day. Oh, and I tipped over on my bike in the silliest kind of way and scraped my calves a little. I’m fine though. A Thai man rushed over off of his motorbike to help me up. I love this country.
Today's ride: 17 miles (27 km)
Total: 73 miles (117 km)
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2 months ago
2 months ago
"dusky dim of a drizzling day"
Don't ever wonder if some of us catch your alliterations and other Easter eggs you drop in here and there.
2 months ago
1 month ago
1 month ago