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10 - Orono Weekly Times, Wednesday, April 11, 2001 ) Thai Times #6 Chiang Mai By: Koren and Aubrey Kassirer Over the past three weeks we have been in and out of Chiang Mai. While Ban Mo village is our home, Chiang Mai is where we spend part of every weekend. Chiang Mai was given advance billing as Thailand's most livable city. We concur. A small city of 160,000, it has excellent food, hundreds of ornate Buddhist temples, lovely crumbling old city walls with a surrounding moat, numerous courses geared to travellers, an excellent excellent local market, friendly people, lovely room temperature temperature evenings, and a lot less smog than Bangkok. We arrived from Cambodia just before the Flower Festival. We were able to get our bearings, sample sample several excellent versions of pad thai, and visit the night bazaar before attending the parade. The night bazaar was extremely disappointing.- We were overwhelmed by the number of stalls and the aggressive vendors. Watches and t-shirts overpowered local handicrafts which mostly mostly focus on the northern hill tribes. Only the vendors were Thai. We later discovered that many of the handicrafts are produced in and around our village. Many of the teachers have side businesses making crafts. The next day we missed the start of the parade, so we chased the marching bands, groups of unknown walkers, and glorious floats around the old city moat. Small colourful flowers entirely covered the floats, with the exception of some greenery, sculpted sand, and waving, traditionally- dressed Thai women. The parade broke up at a small park, where every inch of shade was occupied by Thai festival-goers. Festival booths lined the scorching roads surrounding the park. We sampled several Thai sweet pickles, a sweet noodle drink, fresh tangerine juice (no oranges here), and really wide-noodle pad thai. We enjoyed the handmade clothing clothing booths and the flower exhibits. The feel of this market market was great, relaxed, and completely the opposite from that of the night bazaar. While wandering the streets after dinner, we stumbled stumbled upon a pad thai cart claiming to be the best in the city. We stopped to ask one of the diners if he agreed (he did) and the couple next to him jumped in: "We come here twice a week!" Despite being relatively full, we joined them for a meal. The food was good (everything tastes good in Chiang Mai), but the real find was the Goodfields. They are retired and wintering in Chiang Mai, away from their home in Toronto. They are warm people who have great insights into the city. After our disappointment with the night bazaar, they showed us around the large Wararot Market where the locals shop for everything from food to clothes to kitchen or art supplies. We bought fabric and designed some clothes to be made by local dressmaker. We went out for dinner together whenever whenever we were in town, once venturing along the river to a wonderful restaurant with Thai folk singing and a beautiful beautiful northern Thai singing performance by the owner. They also joined us at the Hilltribe Museum. We had decided not to go hilltribe trekking, which amounts to hilltribe viewing by tourists, so we hoped to learn about these nine groups of people at the research museum. The King has done a lot to advocate advocate for the use of alternate crops to the popular and profitable profitable opium, such as hybrid peaches (more profitable but not as addictive), and changes from the slash and bum agriculture agriculture which would destroy the countryside eventually. He also advocates maintaining maintaining the local ways of life. Certainly the handicraft industry, which uses woven fabrics and embroidery from the different people, helps to maintain traditional craft- making skills. We enjoyed the museum but spent longer getting there than actually in the museum itself. Since the city lost its bus system several years ago, public transport mostly consists consists of covered pick-up tmcks with a bench along either side (songthaew). We suppose locals don't frequent the museum. Twice we were stranded by drivers who finally admitted they did not know where the museum was. That day we had bad songthaew karma. Our luck changed later, on our way back to Ban Mo from a two-day Thai cooking course in the city. There are many cooking schools in Chiang Mai (as well as massage and yoga), but we connected with this course after reading an article the Goodfields had clipped from a Toronto paper. The by Tim Rypstra V This week I was unable to make it to a fishing spot. Instead I hopped onto my bike and headed to the Ganaraska River, a short distance distance down stream from the location I hope to fish on opening day. Darrell Kennedy and Aaron Rypstra came along with me to the creek on Saturday. It was cold and wet but the water course is run by a Thai man and his Aussie wife in his home. They work every day and employ everyone in his family. It is laid back, friendly, friendly, and extremely filling by the end of the day. We never ate dinner afterwards. During the course, we met up with two young musicians from the East Coast (of Canada). We invited them back to the village with us. (But that's another story.) So they were with us when we got off the songthaew in Sankampaeng and left our camera in the msh. Six minutes minutes later a relieved driver stopped at the side of the road on his return trip and gave us the camera. That's good songthaew karma. was clear enough to spot only two fish over a long stretch of the river. This Is a good sign because it means that the fish have not arrived yet. Making them late in the year so there will be plenty of fish for a good couple of weeks after opening day. I returned to the creek the next day to see if there were any more fish arriving. But it was so warm that the snow melted veiy quickly causing the river to swell and turn almost black. I couldn't even see 2" into the water. The only way I could possibly see a fish is if it surfaced. None of the fish surfaced at all, so I didn't catch a glimpse of a silver steelhead. The Barklay's 6th annual spring yard sale Was good, despite the fact that the weather was miserable on Saturday, but I still enjoyed the sale with my dad, Ed Rypstra. I picked up a Zara Spook, Spit'n Image and some little guppy jigs for steelhead. After the sale my dad and I stopped at Burger King for lunch. I used the, buy one get one free chicken sandwich coupon that I got at Barklay's. When scouting out some camping spots for opening season be sure to get permission permission before even scouting the creek. If you don't and 'you get caught trespassing you will get a definite "no' for camping there. I prefer to go to a private location opposed to a public where you're crossing each others lines and standing shoulder to shoulder. Have a good week and be sure not to poach because it's not worth it to lose all ycur gear and maybe some money, when you can wait three weeks and fish legally. There's going to be just as many fish anyway. ORONO MUSIC CENTRE 5551 MAIN STREET, ORONO ,oliW ® UC „ntS at Re pr ic© s TEL: 905-985-6118 We're Renovating Serve You Better ... A new Clarington-Port-Hope Operations Centre Effective April 26" 1 , our Clarington office will close for renovations. It will re-open in June as our new Clatington-Port Hope Operations Centre. The expanded scope of our operations in Clarington will enable us to more quickly respond to service calls and reports of power interruptions. Drop Box for Bill Payments Still Available The new office will not be staffed to respond to bill inquiries, or to process bill payments. However, a drop box will be maintained for bill payments. It will be located at the Operations Centre at 2849 Highway # 2. Customer Care Staff Just a Local Call Away Our Customer Care staff will continue to be just a local phone call away. Please contact them at 905-623-4451 if you have inquiries regarding your Veridian Connections account. VERIDIAN CONNECTIONS The power to make your community better