Today was our second and last full day in Chiang Mai. It was a fun day!
We started out at the university’s farm. We learned more about how the Royal Project has helped local communities learn to farm their land most effectively. Then we actually got to go out into the field and plant rice ourselves! It was really fun but I wouldn’t say we were great at it. I never had any idea how rice was grown before yesterday. The farmers flood the field and then just stick the plants into the wet soil, no digging or anything. We were told that the rice we planted would be ready in about 90 days. I wish we could stick around to eat it!
After the rice farms we had lunch then headed to Sunsweet Farms production facility. It’s a place where sweet corn is produced. There are 1,400 workers at the plant and they’re all Thai. It was really interesting to learn about how the corn is processed for consumption. At the facility they make three types: frozen, canned, and sealed. For canned and sealed it takes an hour and a half from when it arrives to when it’s ready to ship out, for frozen it’s only an hour. When we arrived I thought it would be a somewhat lame company visit because I don’t even really like corn, but I got special attention from the tour guide so I was able to ask a lot of questions and I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot about it. I actually love production facilities so it was fun to go; it was like watching How It’s Made in real time.
Next the bus took us to the mall but some friends and I organized a trip to the temple for ourselves. We went to Phra Borommathat Doi Suthep temple. Try saying that five times fast! We had a blast and the temple was beautiful. There was a lot of gold that actually reminded me a bit of Kyiv-Perchersk Lavra. It was probably my favorite thing I did in Chiang Mai.
When we left the temple, we went to a food market and walking street. The food market was delicious! I had dumplings, mango sticky rice, and poached quail eggs. I’m bummed that I was so full because I would’ve loved to eat more. It was fun to go to a night food market because I’ve been looking for that all trip and had yet to find one. I loved it and hope to visit another in Bangkok!
Then we crossed the street and walked around the walking street. It was crazy crowded but there was a lot of cool stuff. It was very different from the walking street in Pattaya because it was basically a market. I liked checking it out but liked last night’s bazaar better.
Afterwards, we went home and I went to bed at 9 pm. It was an exhausting couple of days in Chiang Mai, but I had a lot of fun nonetheless. Tomorrow we have a cooking class and travel to Bangkok!
Allison Around the World 