Chiang Rai Living

Welcome to Chiang Rai


Peter's House

We've now been in Chiang Rai for 10 days and the pace of life is steady. We needed to orientate ourselves to begin with. We thought we would have to buy a cooker and a few domestic necessities as the house we were going to let from Mr Chian of Chian House guest house in Chiang Rai was totally unfurnished. But because we had left it late to confirm our tenancy, he had let it to a more certain tenant and offered us Peter's House instead. Peter is a Canadian who we met last year and discovered there were rentable houses associated with Chian House. He lives in one but spends a lot of his time teaching English in Chian, which he prefers because the students are more interested than in Thailand. Right at the start of thinking about living in Chiang Rai, we had one eye on renting Peter's house if he was away. The big advantage is that its fully furnished and equipped so setting up home was a lot smoother once we had the house cleaned of its two months of dust and bird shit. I'll post some photos of his house soon. Chian House is on a little island formed by a narrow, mostly dried, loop of the Mae Kok River.

The house next door is used by a family who make different meals or dishes, presumably for restaurants. We overlook the guest house where some of the employees usually hang out at night playing guiter, singing and generally providing a relaxed backdrop of people enjoying themselves.

We've settled into a Kaya-led routine of breakfast, morning by the Chian House pool or going out with Kaya while it is not too hot, lunch then the same as the morning but the other way round with going out waiting until after it has stopped being very hot, followed by Kaya's dinner, bed time for Kaya, our tea, maybe a bit of hanging out on our balcony (which is where I am now) then bed. I've some freelance consultancy work for Natural England writing audio trails and podscroll trails for Wye and Stodmarsh nature reserves in Kent so I've been working a few mornings to get the first drafts done for a 20th November deadline.

Every other evening we visit the local produce market to stock up on veg, fruit, tofu, curry paste, rice, noodles and eggs. Most things are sold in 5 baht bunches, bags, plates or blocks - even the tofu which is stored in a large vat of ice. We've been cooking green and red curries, tom yum and noodle soup so far.


Wat Phra Singh apsara

We've discovered plenty of small scale trips out that we can manage with Kaya and avoid the hot part of the day. There is a promenade on the Mae Kok River with a set of tennis, football, basketball and sepak takraw courts. Kaya loves watching as an evening stroll between dinner and bed. She's especially fond of tennis much to Georgia's delight! There is a play park and public library within easy walking distance in a municipal wooded and grassed area. Further along from this is Wat Phra Singh where Kaya undertook her first long crawl, a 12m dash for my mobile phone from one end of the temple hall to the other. There are a couple of great cafes we've discovered for tea with aircon and a cake - the more Western Doi Chaang and a more Chinese one. Both have seats big enough for Kaya to have a play. The Chinese one has a strange fish with a protruding forehead called Elvis.


Walking Market 'food court'


Walking Market

Further afield are the 'evening out' markets. Every night there is the Night Bazaar in the town centre which begins about 5pm. We've only been once to as its a bit of a trek. Each Saturday one of the main streets a bit closer to Chian House is converted into a long 'Walking Market' which is lots of fun. We've worked out how to do this with Kaya. We head down about 4pm, find a place to feed her with what we've brought, then continue along and about 7,30pm or so she'll fall asleep in the sling. Its a short walk back along quiet streets. That's what we did tonight, except she only had a little of her dinner before she got fidgety and gave up on it. Later she eyed my bean-filled rice dumpling and when offered some of the bland dumpling she became very enthusiastic and had a whole one!


Chiang Rai Youth Orchestra

Tomorrow we're planning a repeat visit to catch the Chiang Rai Youth Orchestra in Doi Chaang. They play every Sunday for an hour from 3pm in the foyer with a waterfall and pond. We met an American woman there last week who tipped us off about a pool to visit in the attractively named Rim Kok Resort on the other side of the river. We've been twice already for day visit sampling of luxury tourism. The pool is huge and Kaya has picked up on her swimming there again, as well as in the mini-sized pool at Chian House.


Evening Chiang Rai