Asia Day 32: Chiang Mai (Zumba in Thailand – BBQ chicken – CAMP Co-Working space – Ping River boat cruise)

Photo of the day: the smoky BBQ chicken @ ไก่ย่างวิเชียรบุรี. Photo credit: Aaron.

I finally found a convenient place and time to take a Zumba class! It was Fitness Thailand, just a 15 minute walk away. It was a decent-sized gym in a shopping complex. The gym pass was 200 THB/day (~$8). There was a large change room with sauna and showers. There was a yoga room as well as an aerobics room. The class consisted of a good mix of locals and foreigners. I love how Zumba is pretty universally standardized, so it was nice to hear familiar tunes played as well as similar choreographies. This was definitely an excellent way to start the day!

After doing some laundry, we headed to get some lunch. We have walked by this restaurant multiple times since it was just down the block from us. Every time, we were tempted by the barbecue lined with whole chicken, but we would already had another restaurant in mind. Today will be the day. Again, there was no English menu (always a good sign), so I just said, “Can we have one chicken?” He nodded then came back to 2 plate full of chicken. We figured we needed something to accompany our chicken so we ordered some rice and Som Tam (papaya salad). Aaron feels like it was probably one of his favourite meals in Thailand! The chicken was perfectly seasoned and cooked. It wasn’t a huge chicken so we ended up ordering another half chicken. The Som Tam was probably the best I’ve ever had. There was the perfect combination of spicy, sweet and salty and the papaya was perfectly ripe. They also were super generous with peanuts, which made the dish that much better. We would definitely give this place a 10/10. We overheard another customer worrying that he will smell of BBQ afterwards, since the place was just covered with smoke, but another customer was like “it wouldn’t even matter”. And it doesn’t. I definitely was not thinking about how my hair smelled after this meal.



After lunch, we were hoping to mail back some spices and sauces we bought the other day at the market, so we wouldn’t have to bring it along with us. It turns out it costs ~$60 CND to ship it back! I couldn’t justify spending that much to ship back a few things worth ~$10 CND, so into our suitcase they go. 

There was a very cool co-working space at MAYA Lifestyle Shopping Center, so we went back there. It was such a neat set-up. There were normal desks, some cubby hole-like seats, meeting rooms, “tree house” spots, a terrace looking at Doi Suthep and a multi-level seating area. You would order your drinks and food and then your number will appear on the monitor when it was ready. I don’t know if it was because of the Zumba class this morning, but I got hungry again while we were there, so I ordered their garlic pork with rice, which was not bad. Their honey lemon frappe is also not a bad alternative to the usually honey lemon drink I would get at a Hong Kong style cafe. We spend quite some time here just catching up on work.

Today was our wedding anniversary, so Aaron made reservations at the Riverside Restaurant. Apparently they were the only restaurant who did dinner boat cruises. We were first seated on the boat parked just in front of the restaurant, ordered our drinks and food, then after all the food and drinks arrived on the boat for everyone, we set sail! It was nice that we were the only boat on the river, compared to the party boats we saw in Bangkok. During the cruise we saw quite a few other waterfront restaurants. I wonder why they haven’t implemented a cruise option as well. For dinner tonight, we ordered some Chiang Mai hors d’oeuvres, Penang curry, morning glory and chicken satays, along with some nice Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon. The hors d’oeuvres were quite interesting. It consisted of different types of sausages (fermented, herb-infused, deliciously-marinated), vegetables (cabbage, cucumber, green beans), fried dough, as well as a super spicy green chilli dip. My favourite was the deliciously-marinated sausage. (Sorry I don’t know what it was called). My least favourite was the fermented sausage. The Penang curry was quite tasty, even for the Aaron, who is from Malaysia. The morning glory of course was delicious as always. The satay was found on the “international menu” and it made a lot of sense when it arrived. It did not look too authentic. It does not compare with the ones we got on the streets of Bangkok but it will do for now. It also came with cut-up roti, which we found interesting. Overall, it was a nice way to spend our anniversary. The food quality was in general not bad, but I wouldn’t order from the international menu. I was surprised not more people elected to eat on the boat since it was only 150 THB (~$6) extra per person compared to eating at the restaurant.