First day in Chiangmai, and it's pretty fun!
We have our assignment already and presentation's on the 17th. The question is about differences but the objective is for us to explore Chiangmai on our own. So we're split into groups of 4 randomly. It's really different from all the overseas school trips we had in the past. This one is all about independence.

My group took a map from the reception counter and we've decided to head far East to look at the Ping River, plus all the markets there. It'll take about 40 minutes to travel there by foot but we went ahead with it and decided that we can always hop onto a Songtel halfway through.

Our Sim Lim Square

Their hospital

We were walking towards the centre of Chiangmai when our lecturer drove by. He pointed to the restaurant on our left and said that's his favourite restaurant. The chicken rice is to die for. So we went in, since we were hungry.

And we got scammed by our very own lecturer. WHERE'S THE CHICKEN RICE?!
The menu is made of salads and soups only. So we ordered a soup, papaya salad, rice and sticky rice.

The one in the little basket is the sticky rice.

I don't usually enjoy thai salads but this one is exceptionally tasty! The papaya's not even sour. It tastes like cucumber.

After our meal, we stopped by for chai yen, thailand's diabetes inducing milk tea.

Tako balls selling for 5 bahts per ball.
The food sold by roadside stalls are super cheap! Tako balls at 20cents each and 7 satays for $1!

Car with eye lashes

The Songtel that we took everywhere. They're like taxis in Singapore, except that they can pick up more than 1 group of passengers.

Anyway, we've decided to take the Songtel because we were super creeped out by some motorcyclist. My friend and I were walking in front and we noticed that man staring at us as we walked by. Then, our 2 other group members started screaming. He was wanking in broad daylights! We walked quite a distance away from him, but he followed us on his bike. He made a few detours and kept appearing beside us, staring at us. We didn't have a choice but to hop onto the nearest Songtel.

After 4 hours of walking and a few minutes in the Songtel, we found the Ping River. Not as spectacular as we had thought. It was just a wider version of Singapore River, except that it's not as urbanized. There was a homeless man living by the river. He bathes, and washes his shoes in the river. The very water that he drinks as well.

By then, all of us were tired and sweaty. We happened to see an advertisement on a tuk tuk, so we decided to go for massage.

150 baht for foot massage! That's like S$6 for an hour's of foot massage.

After the massage, we walked around again to search for the must-try thailand chicken rice.

Wet market

Once again, we failed to find it. But we ended up at the hawker above the wet market.

We had phad thai, fried rice, omelette rice and their diabetes inducing milk tea.
The food always look tasteless, but they're super yummy! I love love love the phad thai here. The noodles are super chewy.

See what the kids here do for entertainment. In Singapore, all the kids know is angry bird. How sad their childhood can be.

After our mid afternoon meal, we went back down to the wet market to look around and realized they don't just sell raw food. They have little snacks as well.

Look what I've found! Childhood biscuit, except without the biscuit. I remember how I used to bite the icing sugar off first then munch on the biscuits reluctantly. The adults here understand the kids better. They made the icing sugar WITHOUT the biscuits! If I had more bag space, I would have bought this home.

Meal worms in a box as snacks.

Us causing a jam
The drivers here are pretty patient. You don't really hear the honking at one another.
We took quite awhile bargaining with the driver and caused a jam behind but none of the drivers tried to overtake the Songtel and none honked us.

It was almost 5pm already and we had to go back to the villa for a briefing.
The briefing was quite a waste of time. It was another briefing about the project that we knew about already. And a little about the schedule for this trip. Then it was our free time again. My group and another went to the mall near our guesthouse.

There was a night market. Pretty much like our pasar malam.

Cupcakes in a box

Guy making meatballs

Skewered squid!

My favourite. And obviously I bought 1 to try.
It's the cheapest squid I ever bought! 20 baht for 1 stick. But it wasn't as tasty as it looked.

And this is my room!
Yes a little messy. It was at night already and we were done unpacking and bathing so our stuff were thrown all over the room.

Got to wake up at 5am tomorrow to visit wet markets and to look at temple processions.
Good night everyone!