A Fast and Furious Look around the Chiang Mai Market on Chinese New Year 2012

Dateline: January 22, 2012  Location: Chiang Mai Market  Event: Chinese New Year.

We had a few scant hours today in between shuttling children to creative art class at 10:00AM and performance Magic Class with the Amazing Jonathan Omejang of  ProStar Magic so we decided to take a look around at the Chinese New Years goings on at the local Market. 

Here is our "fast and furious" photo extravaganza for your entertainment.  I promise our regular viewers we will return to our usual in depth and riveting political reporting in the next post.

Today we enter into the Market through the old Chinese Gates and pay homage to the dragon spirits in this year of the dragon and we say a little prayer for our family and friends both with us and who have passed into the unknown and unseen.

Nice Ride.  

I bet the boys in New York City would love this.

It is strawberry season in Thailand and we have strawberries everywhere.

Yes, let's take another look at those strawberries.  Yum or Aroi as we say here.

What Year of the Dragon Chinese New Year photo 
layout would be complete without a photo of 
Dragon Fruit?

"Let's just take this little worm off while she's not looking and these will be perfect!"

Looks can be deceiving.  I actually purchased 2 kilo of these little 
Chinese oranges from this lady and she was delightful and charming.
 I caught her herewith a pensive expression. 

As Montie Python would say, "We certainly have some tasty comestibles here."
 That certainly brings to mind that wonderful old cheese shop skit.

"Beam me up, Scotty!"  I love the juxtaposition
 of the old and the new technology and the ease
with which most older folks can keep pace.

Leaving the Temple with hopes of a prosperous New Years."Sawasdee Pee Mai Krup."

Now if I was a knitting man I'd take her up a
couple of meters of this yarn. "A penny for a
spool of thread, A penny for a needle.  That's
the way the money goes, Pop! goes the weasel."

There are some great cloth merchants in this section of the market.  Everyone puts on a sale for the Chinese New Year.

Shirley Temple...eat your 
heart out. This little cutie
just might take your place.

This is one spunky little girl. 

"That was so...so...good!"

Not everyone was happy to see me.   Winning the hearts and minds of the locals isn't easy work.

I'll be you 100 Baht she's ethnic Chinese and Thai mixed.

The obligatory dragon makes his appearance.

From the way this little girl was giving me the "eye"
and trying to nonchalantly get her father's attention
I came to the conclusion he must have been
a Afghan freedom fighter on R&R from Kabul.
Home for the holidays, so to speak.  Note:
He still appears to be at least partially in uniform. 

And I bet you never knew there were over 40,000 
different types of rice in the world did you? 
 Types of Rice

This is where you go when you want to bring home the bacon. This isn't Poh's butchery but you can get the same stuff here allot less expensively.

And since it is the New Year and the spirit of
good will is with us it doesn't hurt to
acknowledge the truely needy and lend them
a hand when you can.

There is nothing like a glass of fresh cold coconut milk and chunks of coconut meat over ice on a hot day.  Great Stuff!

I talked to this gentleman for a while, the
best I could, and he's seen more history and
seen more changes in the world than
most people can imagine.  He get's my vote for 
the first "Naam Bplah" hard worker award for 2012.

Well that's it folks for the Holidays from this part of the world.  We'll be hitting it hard and heavy it the political end of things in the next few weeks to come.  Stay tuned.  And make a contribution to our site if you can so we can continue to bring your these fascinating reports from Asia and beyond.

Let's keep our eyes open and aware this
 year.  It's a dangerous world out there.