As luck would have it, my former yoga guru, Bela Lipat, was also in Chiang Mai this afternoon. So, while Nicolas took a nap at the hotel, I met up with her at the Sunday market for some major catching up before she had to take a bus to Udon Thani. We were both hungry so she ate fruit and som tam while I had a big-ass banana roll and a strawberry-passion fruit juice.
The som tam vendor and Bela.
Mixing in fish sauce with the som tam.
My sweet tooth seems to be back with a vengeance. I lost it when I was smoking heavily and was more into salty food, but now I can’t seem to get enough of sweets.
Waiting for my banana roll.
Check out the size of that monster! After she sliced it, she drizzled it with chocolate sauce then topped it with chopped peanuts.
Anyway, later on in the evening, when I finally got Nicolas to join me at the market, we both had a litle bit of this and a little bit of that but it was so damned hot and humid that I really couldn’t eat anything heavy. And the mango sticky rice stall that used to be near the Tapae Gate wasn’t there. I finally foundone stall but they were out of sticky rice and I couldn’t very well just have MANGO. I come from the Philippines, for godsake! Watsdapoint???
I went back to the hotel feeling dejected. While in the shower, I thought to myself, “That couldn’t have been it.” I yelled to Nicolas out in the bedroom that I was hungry. He entreated for me to be reasonable. Easy for him to say. He gets to resume a normal life after detox. I’m turning Paleo. I stepped out of the shower and, dripping all over the bathroom floor, ordered room service.
Tom Kha Kai, fried fish with coriander, jasmine rice and Thai iced tea. (The room service menu had a very limited selection, plus it might have been difficult to explain a spaghetti carbonara on the side seeing as it didn’t go with anything else I had ordered.) When it arrived, the servings were good for two and Nicolas watched wide-eyed as I finished it all.
Of course, I didn’t take a picture of the food. I was hungry! (Doh!)
Then I rang room service again for dessert but the kitchen was already closed. Damned boutique hotel. I really would like an ice cream right now. Or a doughnut. Please?
Of course, as I write this, I’ve just developed a bad reaction to the iced tea. You’d think I was coming down with the flu. (This will last all of ten minutes.) It’s the milk. I’m severely lactose intolerant, it seems, but I only figured that out a few years ago and am so used to the discomfort and feeling ill after a meal that – so what? Pleasure wins over pain any day.
I am also about to smoke my last cigarette.
Sigh…
6 AM pick-up tomorrow and we have instructions to head straight to the detox center for our first detox drink.
Why am I doing this again?