Punk Rock is alive in Chiang Mai

After Day Four of my cooking course I arrange to meet Nat off my course to 'do' the Sunday Walking Market. This is the same set-up as the Saturday market except closer to my guest house and MUCH bigger.

When Nat arrives to meet me a plaque of mayflies has just engulfed the guesthouse, and most of the street. On our walk down I need to use a cash point (which is housed in a plastic booth) and I get attacked as I withdraw my money. I find flies inside my clothes later when I get home. Eugh!

Diana meets us in the market and the three of us bargain our way down one side of the market before wandering into a temple where all the food stalls are laid out. And, yet again, here is a list of the food I sampled:

- Thai fishcakes
- Chicken in Pandanus Leaves (same dish I made on Day 1 of my course)
- Miang Kam (again) - twice. One of these was super hot and all the stall holders were laughing at the tears in my eyes.
- Fried Squid
- A Thai sweet (wrapped in leaves) which was black, hard jelly with a coconut taste
- A Chinese Pork Bun

I bought some lovely Mango wood bowls for soups / noodles and then we headed off to find a bar to have a drink in.

After wandering down a couple of streets to find nothing open we began to despair, until we heard a band playing and got excited. As we got closer we found a make-shift bar with corrugated iron walls and roof and a heap of young punks hanging around outside. It would appear that there is quite an established punk rock scene in Chiang Mai! All the bar seemed to sell was beer ... so I had a beer.

The kids had all the punk gear and were trying to act really tough and drunk, however when one boy stumbled out the bar and fell into a bin, knocking beer bottles all over the road, he very meekly picked up the bin and all the bottles.

We got chatting to an American guy whose girlfriend (Sophie) used to live here, running a tattoo parlour. She's apparently credited with kicking off the whole punk rock revival. I'd spotted her on the street the day before and she reminded me of Colette. Her boyfriend, Jay, was quite drunk and told us how they'd met. He'd been married for 15 years before and had vowed never to marry again. In fact he was going to get NO tattooed on his left ring finger. However he then found Sophie at the end of a rainbow!! He explained that he was heading to a party in New Mexico, which happened to be at the end of this rainbow, and as soon as he arrived he met her. Love at first sight and all that. I loved the fact that these super cool, hard rock guys were so soppy and romantic. Jay and Sophie are pictured about.