Christmas In Chiang Mai

As one can imagine, Christmas, in a land where the temperature rarely falls below 20°C and Buddhism is the main religion, is a very different experience from that to which I am accustomed. In fact, it is safe to say that Christmas is a non-event here. Had it not fallen on a Sunday this year, all the stores, restaurants and services would be open for business as usual.

Aside from the obvious lack of snow, most noticeable is the near total absence of Christmas decorations, carols playing in the malls and, worst of all, Santa Claus. Of course there is the one life-size, saxophone playing, robotic St. Nick, who dances in time to his music, but he's playing some Thai tune that is completely foreign to the Western ear.

To cater to the expats, some of the larger hotels offered multi-course Christmas Eve dinners, complete with wine, in the $100 per price range, but none of these suited our vegan lifestyle. In any case, for $200 we can eat in our usual dining spots for two solid weeks!

So how did we celebrate? Well, we started on Xmas Eve with a wonderful meal at Ama Vegan Restaurant. This lovely little spot only opened three months ago and is run by a very delightfully zen Thai woman who speaks perfect English. The menu is organic, Buddhist vegetarian and vegan, which means no onion, garlic or animal products are used in the preparation of the food. We ordered a noni leaf curry (the noni was replaced with another Thai green as they had run out) that was cooked to order and not too spicy at Brenda's request. It was superb. Next on our plates was a banana blossom salad that was made with flowers taken from banana tree right on the premises. Lastly we were treated to a medley of deep fried root vegetables that was served with four different homemade dipping sauces. A wonderful red, brown and black rice dish was served to soak up the juices. All this food came to 410 baht, or about $15.00CDN. Very expensive by Thai standards.

After dinner we went home and watched A Christmas Story, which Brenda had never seen before. It was like winning "A major award".

Christmas morning started with our annual exchange of cards,which Brenda won hands down this year with her card bearing the image of a dragon boat adorned with a single Christmas decoration.

We jumped out of bed and headed to the JJ Market, an open air organic farmer's market that takes place every Sunday morning. We picked up some organic lettuce, passion fruit and bananas as well as a few gluten free treats to eat as dessert tonight. We also ran into some friends with whom we exchanged Christmas greetings.

Then it was off to the gym to burn some calories in preparation for tonight's food binge.

Once back home, we called Brenda's family and chatted with them for a while and then sat down to send emails and messages to friends and family we couldn't call.

At around 3:00 PM, we made our way to the Lotus Hotel and spent a couple of hours at their pool, soaking up the sun and enjoying the water.

After changing, we headed out for dinner to Imm Aim Restaurant. When we were here two years ago, we fell in love with this vegetarian place, particularly their fresh spring rolls.They have since moved to a new location and, it would seem, have brought on a new chef. We dined on spring rolls, a Panang veg curry and a broccoli,mushroom & ginger stir fry. Unfortunately, the entire meal was somewhat less than what we remembered of the place and we left quite disappointed. On our way home we stopped at Tops Market and bought more goodies to close out our evening: sun dried baby bananas in honey, fried crispy bananas, a gluten and oat free granola bar and some chocolate dipped wafers. Oink!

We consumed the majority of our purchases while plunked down in front of the TV binge watching the end of Season 2 of Scandal. Scandalous!

Of course it's strange to be in a land that ignores Christmas and of course we miss our family and friends at this time of year. But thanks to the wonder of the internet, Skype and VOIP, we still feel as close to our loved ones as though we were there. For me, I'm treated to exclusive access to the woman I love, cherish and share my world with. What more could one want for Christmas?Read more