Better run for the border

Before returning to Thailand back in January, I promised Lian that I would arrive in time for us to meet up in her hometown of Nasan, where she was caring for her mother, the flasher. I also promised that I would still be here for her birthday in early April. Consequently, this puts me one week over my 60-day visa limit. To avoid a steep fine at departure and possible banishment from the country, I make my very first visa run.

It's a simple thing, really, and a whole industry is built up around it: a van or coach takes me up to the border town of Mae Sai, where I step across into Myanmar, immediately return to Thailand and collect a new visa stamp, good for 15 days. (Arriving by air, the limit is 30 days, don't ask me why.)

So I buy van passage at the nearby Riverside guest house, where everyone knows "Mr. William." Thursday morning I am the second pickup as the silver 10-passenger van makes its rounds of nearby backpacker hotels to collect the day's runners. The driver turns out to be yet another maniac who cannot abide the presence of any vehicle in front of him. So for the next five hours we are passing on blind curves, passing with oncoming vehicles barreling down on us, and getting passed by even crazier drivers. Why everybody in this country doesn't die in a head-on collision every single day is beyond me.

Cucumbers on their way to market.

On the highway I watch farm produce go by. Cukes are a big deal over here. Most every plate of food, especially spicy dishes, includes a generous garnish of raw cucumber slices to quench the fire. Lian and I go through about 10 cukes a week ourselves. So it's a very popular crop for northern farmers.

After a harrowing four hours over mountainous terrain we arrive in Mae Sai, where our driver lets us off at a crossing station. "One hour!" he shouts, and that's about how long it takes to exit Thailand, pay our 500-baht entry fee into Myanmar, and then fight our way back through the filthy, despicable little beggar-boys who tug at our clothing and plead loudly for coins to distract us as their accomplices behind probe for our wallets. Rotten little bastards.

The Marlboro Monk.

Passport freshly stamped, I make my way back to the van and settle into my seat for the trip back. Glancing over to the door of a nearby 7-Eleven, I see something I have never seen before in all my trips to Thailand: a Buddhist monk pulling out a pack of cigarettes and lighting up. Those guys have rules about that sort of behavior!

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Here's what $89,000 buys you in a gated community outside Chiang Mai.

The owner is an acquaintance of Lian's who wants to move back to her hometown in the south. So just for fun we go have a look. "Only looking!" I caution.

We take a Red Car down to the suburb of Hang Dong. (Snicker, snort.)  After some difficulty we track down the correct address in a maze of identical-looking houses.  We tour the place and I will admit, it looks very clean and comfortable. But Lian instantly loves the place and wants to move in this minute. "Maybe we can ask for discount, you think?" she whispers eagerly in my ear.

I patiently explain that the short answer is: no. And that the long answer is also no.

Ghost town

Tourists? What tourists?

At the tail-end of high season, Chiang Mai is strangely quiet. Streets that should be packed with tourists are only sparsely populated even in late afternoon. Often I see shopkeepers resting their head on a countertop, as if it were nap time in preschool. Street vendors and tuk-tuk drivers laze in the shade reading newspapers. And some days Lian's phone never rings -- not a single spa customer. "I talk to my friends and everywhere quiet. Have a few work," she reports.

Smoky day, not a soul around.

It doesn't help that the city is blanketed in orange-gray smoke from slash burning in the mountains near Myanmar, so eye-wateringly thick that no one cares to venture outdoors. So, on this Sunday morning we hunker down in the room with a mindless Dwayne Johnson action/revenge movie, online Sudoku, and only one of us doing anything that could remotely be called "productive."

My exotic life in Thailand.

'Ghin khao ti-nai?'

Here's how uncomplicated my life has become: answering the above question -- literally, "eat food where?" -- is usually the hardest decision I face all day.

Except for breakfast (typically PBJ toast, cold cereal and coffee), we prepare meals at home only occasionally and on the sly. Lian's single-burner propane stove is a huge no-no for the apartment owner, who busted her once already when he caught her smuggling in a fresh tank. And anyway our dinky little kitchenette is too cramped for any serious culinary action. So most of the time we eat out or bring back takeaway.

Here in no particular order are a few of our favorite chomping grounds:

Busy lunch hour at Ghuttiokamwan

'That place where we always eat lunch'
Actual name: Ghuttiokamwan
Frequency: 2-3 times a week
Attraction: Clean, fast, tasty
Must-have: Spicy and sour fruit salad

Crispy catfish

An easy five-minute walk from home, Ghuttiokamwan (Thai for "noodle soup") does a bustling noontime trade yet manages to serve up beautiful, freshly prepared dishes with the speed of a NASCAR pit crew. It will be the first place we take any American visitors to Chiang Mai. The storefront sign and menu are in Thai and no one who works there speaks English.

Spicy and sour fruit salad, soup.

Lunch for two, including an appetizer plate of fruit salad or spring rolls: maybe five bucks.

Tab Tim Krob: the restaurant ...

'The place with the bees'
Actual name: Tab Tim Krob
Frequency: 2 or 3 times a week
Attraction: Like their sign says, "Clean food, good taste."
Must-haves: Pad thai, tab tim krob

... and the dessert.

Tab Tim Krob is the restaurant with the swarm of honeybees in the streetside cooking station that I stumbled across two years ago. Situated on the outer reaches of the tourist zone, it's an easy walk for a casual evening meal after the gym.

Happy pad thai customer.

The restaurant is named for a Thai dessert consisting of coconut milk and sweet syrup, crushed ice and all sorts of oddball elements: tapioca, kidney beans, water chestnuts, squash ... but it works. Dinner for two, including dessert, around six or seven bucks.

Khao Soi Palaa

'The khao soi place'
  Actual name: Khao Soi Palaa
  Frequency: Once a week
  Attraction: Delicious khao soi, if you can get past the grunge
  Must-have: Khao soi, duh!

Khao soi.

This was my first taste of authentic khao soi in northern Thailand, and their take on the famous curried noodle stew is still among the best. But this hole-in-the-wall restaurant itself is not for the squeamish: birds fly through the open-air space, sometimes dining on (or possibly pooping in) the open jars of crushed peanuts in the condiment trays. The occasional rat scurries across the dirty blacktop floor. And Lian still shudders at the memory of their restroom. But DAMN do they serve a mean khao soi!  Lunch for two, a little over two bucks.

VT Namnueng

'The Vietnamese place'
Actual name: VT Namnueng
Frequency: Maybe once a week
Attraction: A break from Thai
Must-have: Vietnamese wraps

Strangely, this Asian restaurant serves no rice. None. The menu is strictly vegetables and protein flavored with sweet peanut-y sauces. The wait staff seems to outnumber the patrons and food arrives at the table within seconds of ordering. We always get the assemble-it-yourself Vietnamese wraps, which ensures a slow, leisurely dinner. Everything on the menu looks gorgeous and we always order way too much. Even so, the bill at this nice sit-down restaurant never runs more than 10-15 dollars.

Just about every day we order from the Corner.

'The corner'
Actual name: Not sure it even has one
Frequency: Five times a week, minimum
Attraction: A three-minute walk from home
Must-have: Darn good tom yum soup

When the hour is late and we're lazy to cook or walk very far, the family shop on the corner is our first option. Even when we do cook in, it's super-easy to pop down for a 10-baht bag of perfectly prepared rice. The mother works the wok, her teenage children wait tables. A meal for two runs me two dollars.

Got duck?

'The duck place'
Actual name: Beats me
Frequency: every two weeks or so
Attraction: Something we don't eat every day
Must-have: Duck soup, duck with rice, anything duck

Duck soup.

This lunch-only joint is always busy, and no wonder: this is one of the few places where I seriously consider ordering seconds. The rich duck broth with meat, noodles and vegetables is that good. We always order an extra plate of roast duck over rice to go with our soups. And, Lian tells me that the owner-chef commented to her that I am so good with chopsticks. He also taught me the Thai word for "tasty," which is pronounced "ah-ROI." I use it often here.

Grungy but in a good way.

'That place in Warorot Market'
Actual name: Probably doesn't have one
Frequency: Every two weeks or so
Attraction: A hidden treasure known only to locals
Must-have: Crispy pork and vegetables over rice

After winding through the abbatoir-like meat market and past the stacks of fly-covered dried fish, Westerners who stumble across this grubby-looking kitchen in a ragtag corner of Warorot might hesitate to give it a chance. I am so glad to have a native guide who turns me on to these places. Lian always has moo grob, the crispy pork and rice dish, while I go for the noodle soup in a dark pork broth. The place could never pass a health inspection in Oregon, but eating here hasn't killed us yet.

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There are other faves as well: The som tam place for papaya salad, the Antique House for a nice "date" dinner with cocktails and live northern Thai music, the open-air place we go with the sadistic massage therapist Mr. Tong, etc. Not to mention the countless street vendors for rotee, patonko, hot soy milk, sweet sticky rice confections, and other Thai treats. And now I'm hungry again. Ghin khao ti-nai?

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Q:  What do they call corn in Chiang Mai?
A:  Thai Cob!