Body clocks are quite amazing. No matter whether you are on a work day, weekend or holidays, when wake up time arrives you wake up. Maybe not fully, but enough to know what the time is and then make a decision whether you want to be awake yet or not. It seems that our consecutive timezone changes over the last few days have not impacted my body clock…I was awake at 4:30am this morning…
Perhaps it is karma kicking in…I said so many times that ‘I will continue to exercise in the mornings’ that my body actually believes me….good thing really, as getting up and heading out for a walk, even though it was still very dark outside meant that we got to see the neighbourhood come to life. We walked towards a bridge that crosses over the Ping River, Chang Mai’s main river. There aren’t any actual footpaths around here, so luckily the traffic wasn’t too heavy at that hour. There were some people starting to head out to work, so we had plenty of opportunity to practice our greetings! Sawasdee kha!
By the time we reached the bridge the light was growing strong enough to see clearly. We decided to cross over and continue along on the other side until we reached the next bridge. A little way along this street, a water main had burst and the water was rushing across the road, heading for the river, unfortunately that route took it straightthrough someone’s home…
As we approached the second bridge, a moment of concern passed through me, this bridge was a motorway, traffic was much heavier and we had no idea if there was a footpath up there. Fortunately David spotted the top of a head bobbing up and down above the edge, moving at a fair pace…we figured there was a path…or else someone was playing chicken with the oncoming traffic…then I got distracted by the roses being grown on the block beside us…
There was a path…and our journey over the bridge gave us a great view of the rising sun…you could be forgiven for thinking we were in Japan…below the bridge were a number of new looking shops and a wine bar (mental note for another time)…
as we followed the road back towards home, we came across the local morning market. Now, either I am getting to be a more seasoned traveller or perhaps my senses were a little on the blink, but it was noticeable that this market did not reak…there were vegetables, fruits, meat, fresh fish and dried fish, flowers and hot food for sale. The smells were all quite distinct, but not offensive at all…we were wanting to buy some lemons for our morning drink, but there were none fresh, so we bought a bottle of lemon juice after a small miscommunication which almost had us buying lemon scented dishwashing liquid! It is bigger than we needed, but for 15 bhat (60 cents) we thought it was worth it…
On our flight here, I had read an article in the inflight magazine about the monks in Chang Mai. We saw 2 waiting with their alms bowls outside the market. Not wanting to do the wrong thing, we didn’t approach them, however I plan to check with Jarm to find out the correct etiquette and give an offering before we leave.
We did however buy a little snack…didn’t really know what they were, but they were freshly cooked and popular, so we thought it was worth a chance. They looked like Danish pancakes ‘proferjettes’ (spelling?)…5 for 10 bhat (40 cents). They were very very hot, I burnt my tongue…but so tasty!
and yes…that is sugar…I know, I know…they were ‘aroi mak mak’, so much so that I ate a second one before it had cooled enough too!
We eventually made it back, about 2.5 hours for a 7km walk…and helped ourselves to breakfast, I had muesli and yoghurt followed by an omelette with onion, ham, tomato and cheese.