Thailand - Chiang Mai - Condo and Mall

After shorter stays of a week or two each in Bali, Singapore, Cambodia and Laos, we decided to park ourselves for two months in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This will give us a chance to catch up with editing photos, blogging, and working on some projects: music for Deborah, art and architecture for me. There will still be plenty of time to see what Chiang Mai has to offer, which is plenty. The city proper has a population of 170,000 but the metropolitan area has about a million. It has dozens of Buddhist temples, museums, a historic center surrounded by a moat, a multitude of markets, great food, cheap massages, and it’s surrounded by mountains and lush countryside. And elephants!

Chiang Mai is in the mountainous north of Thailand, and its higher elevation means cooler temperatures, particularly this time of year – mid-October to mid-February is known as the cool/dry season. We’re still talking highs of at least 27 ᵒC (80 ᵒF) with palpable but not oppressive humidity, but for Southeast Asia that is pretty comfortable.

We spent our first few days here just looking for long term accommodations – preferably something with a kitchen since the food here, as cheap and delicious as it is, is often not vegetarian-friendly, and besides, sometimes it’s just nice to eat in. We also were looking for a bigger space than a typical hotel room and one with comfortable furniture, which is surprisingly difficult to find in this part of the world. And we wanted a two-month lease (many places that fit the rest of our criteria want six). We did finally find a modern, comfortable one-bedroom condo unit on AirBnB that fit our budget ($26/day), had reasonably comfortable furniture, good internet, a kitchen, a gym, a swimming pool, and a washing machine. It’s not in the most exciting or most central location, but it’s close enough to the old city that we can get a Uber or Grab to take us in for about $2. Grocery stores and restaurants are within walking distance, as is the Central Festival Mall.

Now, we aren’t particularly fans of shopping malls, but this one is impressive. It’s absolutely huge with six floors of retail including many international brands, countless restaurants, three sets of escalators, a cinema, a nice supermarket, event space – all spotlessly clean, sleek, modern and world class. We went to the cinema once to see “Coco,” the latest Pixar movie. It was a 4DX presentation, meaning not only do you get the unfashionable 3-D glasses, you also sit in a chair that rocks and rolls and tilts and jerks to coordinate with the motion in the movie. Add to that little gusts of wind and sprays of water that lash you in concert with what’s happening on the screen. I think this immersive experience is meant to include scents as well but thankfully I have a poor sense of smell so any whiffs of street dogs or legions of dead people were lost on me. It was all very bizarre and, although it was an interesting experience, we don’t think we would repeat it.

It was also at Central Festival Mall that we arranged to meet a friend from Spain who happened to be visiting Chiang Mai while we were here. We first met Nuttee, who is originally from Thailand, and her Belgian husband Franz, when we rented an apartment from them in Nerja on the southern coast of Spain about seven years ago. We kept in touch over the years thanks to Deborah’s facebook page, and were very happy to reconnect here in Chiang Mai. We went to one of the food courts (“food parks” they call them here) and Nuttee introduced us to some strange but tasty Thai treats. It was so great to see her again; who knew it would happen halfway around the world. A similar thing happened when we were in Singapore and reconnected over dinner with Rachel, whom we picked up as a hitchhiker when we still lived in Hawaii and were exploring down in the Puna district of the Big Island. Rachel is from the Philippines originally but lives and works in Singapore. She was visiting Hawaii when we met her with her thumb extended last year. Encounters like these make the world seem small.

Our apartment building - 6th floor to the right.
(photo by Deborah)


Not the colors we would choose but, hey, it's a rental.
(photo by Deborah)



(photo by Deborah)


Central Festival Mall


Inside the mall, done up for Christmas. Thais are overwhelmingly Buddhists, but enjoy a good holiday whatever the origin. They like Valentine's Day too. So a secular version of Christmas (without all the Jesus stuff) is celebrated - at least at the shopping malls.





Motorscooter parking lot at the mall.


Deborah in a very large strawberry chair.


Menu in the mall, in case you are in the mood for "Deep Fried Duck Mouth."
This is why we need a kitchen.



Deborah with protective face mask getting her hair done at the mall by two stylists (the one on the right is a "Lady Boy").
(photo by Deborah)



The finished product.
(photo by Deborah)



Us with Nuttee.

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