#4 Climbathon Chingmai December 2017

We met at the Chingmai airport, and that was after Mum and UP's 3-month honey moon in Europe (I think that was also their first time visiting Kalymnos). I remember the folks were already out seated at the arrival hall waiting for us, I ran towards them and gave them a massive hug.

We picked up our rented car and drove to the hotel. We had to drive through town, especially the older part of town. Beautiful, though it is small, so before we even got to the hotel, we already started recognising our way.

Nothing too fancy with the hotel, though the room Shang and I had was experiencing some air-con problem, do we have had to move around quite a bit during the first couple of nights. So hotel is not the highlight of this climbathon.

Then it must have been the climbing... ? The climb was nice, the temperature was great but the routes are not so concentrated so naturally we were just mainly having chill climbs. The tufa was a plenty though, although not climbing hard, the climb was characteristically fun and enjoyable. Besides, my overseas climbing holiday experience was still at it infancy stage back then, I didn't quite know how to approach it so I just climbed (actually this is one of the best authentic ways).

So, what was the highlight of the Chingmai climbathon, if it wasn't the climbing. The before climb and after climb experiences had made this trip so memorable. It was the food!!!

We were so pleasantly surprised with how authentic and delicious the Northern Thai Food was.

This soup noodle place we trodden upon one morning, had quickly become our "regular" every morning thereafter. The moment we walked into the local shed we could smell the freshness of the local herbs, which they put a plenty in the 豬肉粉 making it extremely fragranced. If I haven't remember wrongly, there were days I had two servings.

And after climb, we would go back and shower before we headed out to the same local street, not to have my third bowl of 豬肉粉 for dinner, but we would go to this popular local restaurant happened to be just across the street, to enjoy a post crag big feast. I can't remember the name of the place unfortunately, it is a place recommended by another climbing friend and we couldn't be more thankful. We have also spent one of the evenings doing the inevitable, hitting the night market and I remember we went back to get some 燒雞, something I have tried a few years back, and the same 燒雞爐，the same 燒雞, was still there, and it was the same delicious.

Another big piece of memory of this climbathon came from how Mum and I would go 拍拖 after dinner every night. There was not much to do or browse, but we would take a gentle stroll and pop in and out of some local shops (and bought a few pair of tartan 漁夫褲, there, Mum was wearing them... ) before going for a foot massage. We would then begin our endless girls chat enjoying each other's company just like that: simple but wonderful.