#yellowbar

Missing the Yellow a bit today

May 20,2017 my aunt @sheh_aluan 35th post bday celebration at the Yellow Bar..it was really a blast.. #gf #2017 #singlebutnotavailable #photooftheday#yellowbar#friends#postbirthdayparty#instapic#instagood#rome#italy (at The Yellow Bar)

So happy to be back in one of my fave places in #italy 😄 for #lunch in #florence we had fresh homemade #pasta from #yellowbar 🍝 #noregrets #contiki #contikieurope #ultimateeuropean #contikidylan #contikipedro #ultimateeurope #europetrip #eurotrip #exploreitaly #summer #gelato #exploreflorence #exploretuscany #tuscany #firenze #adventure (at Yellow Bar)

MONDAY DECEMBER 9 - FRIDAY DECEMBER 13 We left Sukhothai well rested and refreshed, so we couldn't wait to get to our hostel in Chiang Mai, Dee Jai Backpackers - we had heard nothing but great things about it. After about a five hour bus ride, we arrived at the bus station. The taxi drivers there try to rip you off because they know that people don't know how far their destination is from where they get dropped off. The first tuk-tuk driver quoted us at 80 baht each, but I knew our hostel was only about 2km away - we managed to find another driver and barter him down to 30 baht each. It was an interesting start to the ride - we took a truck that has benches in the box. However, the lady told us at first we weren't allowed to sit there because it was for Thai people only. She then told us that we would have to stand on the back bumper. This seemed a little bit sketchy, especially since loads of other travellers were cramming into this truck. But, thankfully, us and our bags managed to squeeze into a seat. When we arrived at the hostel, we were a bit put off at first. Not because of the atmosphere, but because of our horrible roommates. We walked into the room and said "Hello" and they basically looked at us silently and closed their eyes to have a nap. This was a bit strange, but we ended up going to the hostel's garden down the street and met a bunch of very cool and social travellers. The garden was really amazing. It had a pool, picnic tables, pool table, fire pit, and a two-floor tree house fitted with all of the perfect accessories (hammocks, cushions, and a Canadian flag). There was a free BBQ there that night, so we indulged in some free chicken and salad while we sipped on some large Changs before the bar. The standard bar that backpackers go to in Chiang Mai is called Zoe's (sometimes Yellow Bar, as we would soon find out). It's actually a collection of bars situated around this main square, but the best bar with the most potent buckets is definitely Zoe's. This is basically where we spent the majority of our time in Chiang Mai, and why we spent the majority of our mornings in bed and downstairs in the common room with our friends laughing at the random happenings of the night. On Tuesday, we woke up feeling very exhausted from the night. We were especially tired because an employee banged on our door at 8am asking who was checking out. Apparently our rude silent roommates enjoyed staying silent so I had to speak for them. They said they were hoping to extend their stay but we were praying that we would get new roommates who would at the very least pretend they wanted to be a social backpacker. We didn't have anything planned for the day so we decided to rent a scooter to go around to the waterfalls. Our original plan was to ride them to Pai on Saturday for a reggae festival, so we thought this would be a great time to practice our motor skills. This was the biggest fail of our lives. I tried to ride the bike down the street and wobbled around like a wacky-waving-inflatable-arm-flailing-tube-man at a pace of 3 km/hour. Kayla then attempted and had an anxiety attack while she crashed into a bush... The same one, twice. We quickly gave up on this idea and went to our hostel's pool instead. When we got back to our room, we were pleasantly surprised to meet our new roommate, Tim, a cheerful Kiwi who has lived in London for the past eight years and spent two years in Vancouver attending UBC. Kayla and I later gave him the nickname "Tim Tam the Bucket Man" for our shared love of the English/Aussie biscuit and of course our large metal tins of Sangsom/cola/Red Bull. We also saw that another person had moved in who we assumed was a guy, but no one had met him yet. We checked out the night market that night and got some dinner - Khao Soi noodle soup, which is Chiang Mai's signature dish. Then we went back to the hostel garden and drank with our new friends. Tim showed up to the garden saying he had found the face to our other roommate, Mike. Kayla and I were pretty stoked that we lucked out with two cool people as roommates. Our plan for the night was to go to Zoe's again, so about 16 of us headed down the street in search of a willing tuk-tuk driver. We found one, and this French guy told myself and the three other girls we were with to climb on in. He then said, "Take them to Yellow Bar!" The tuk-tuk sped off down the street with the twelve guys left standing in the dust. We were all quite confused, thinking that the guys didn't want us with them anymore because they sent us off in a taxi to a bar that wasn't Zoe's. Turns out, Yellow Bar is the same thing as Zoe's. The guys came shortly after and explained how sorry they were. Apparently the French guy was trying to be a gentlemen, but the other eleven guys got pretty mad because he sent the only females they knew away from them. We all had quite a good laugh about that. We spent the night dancing at Zoe's, celebrating this Dutch girl Raya's birthday, bar hopping to various reggae bars, eating from a Mexican street vendor called "Tacos Bell" and taking heaps of 209 roommate family photos. Definitely a wicked night. On Wednesday we went to a Thai cooking class that we had signed up for on Tuesday. It was really cool because we first started off in the marketplace and got to see all the different types of fresh produce, meats, spices, and curry pastes that the locals buy for cooking. Then, we went to the cooking school and got started on our first dish. There were six different categories of food that we would be making, and each category had about five different options that we had to choose from. The first thing Kayla and I made was a prawn and coconut curry soup. Then, we learnt how to make a red curry paste using a pestle and mortar. Curry pastes contain about 15 different ingredients, which makes this process very time consuming. That's why people usually just buy pre-made curry paste from the market. After, we used the curry paste to make Khao Soi noodles (the signature Chiang Mai dish) and then got taught how to make a traditional Pad Thai. We sat down for lunch and ate the two noodle dishes together. We were also given this water drink that had been boiled with this blue flower. They then cool it down with ice, and you are supposed to add a squeeze of lime to it. Interestingly enough, the drink then changes from blue to purple. After lunch we learned how to make one of our favourite things we have eaten so far in Thailand - Som Tam, or spicy green papaya salad. Then came dessert time - Kayla made deep fried banana with ice cream. I decided to try something different and made sticky black rice pudding with coconut cream sauce. Apparently, the pudding is black because the rice itself is naturally black. Because of this, it had a very smoky and almost cigar like taste to it - none of us were a fan of it. Needless to say, Kayla and I were stuffed full after a proper five-course meal consumed in a little more than three hours. That night our hostel had a wicked free family dinner in the garden. We were pretty full and tired from the day, but we decided to attend anyways. We were planning on getting a good sleep that night because we were going to be doing an elephant trek the next day. However, one Chang turned into two, and the next thing we knew, we were on our way to old faithful, Zoe's. Sure enough, it was another blast of a night. Thursday we did the elephant trek, which in and of itself deserves to be a separate blog post. When we got back to the hostel, we had a MUCH needed shower. A bunch of our friends were taking it easy that night because they were heading to Pai the next day. But we still knew that a few people were heading out, including Seth. It was super random because when Kayla and I came downstairs in the morning, we both saw Seth and were pretty shocked. This is because I had classes with him in criminology at SFU and Kayla knew him through her friend back home... Small world! We went to Zoe's and met up with our crew of Canadians that we met on our elephant trek. We also ended up meeting Kayla's friend Chris from Australia there. He is travelling south east Asia as well and wanted to come to Chiang Mai to catch up for a few days. His bus was supposed to arrive at 8pm, but didn't end up getting in until midnight. We told him where we would be, and based on very little information and very uniformed locals, Chris stumbled upon us at the bar. It was a series of fortunate events for sure. Friday we all just relaxed and prepared ourselves for the journey to Pai. We were pretty content with our decision to not motor bike there as we learnt that the drive was full of pot holes and hills. It also has 762 hairpin curves along its 140km trek. Noooo thanks! We really wanted to make it to the Reggae Festival alive. It's OK momma Leona and momma Susan, don't worry, we are capable of making responsible decisions.