Saturday, January 14, 2023
Dinner at Miguel’s and exploring

Started the day with Ning at the O2 gym and a hearty strength workout. Following that, I returned to The 3-Sis for a late breakfast. Then, being that in just 1 day I move from The 3-Sis to See You Soon, I spent time in my room reorganizing and repacking my belongings. After everything seemed to be in order and ready for the move tomorrow, I worked on a couple of blog entries. I spent most of the day in my room, not a bad thing, as I have been pushing myself quite a bit with yoga, workout sessions at the gym, and walking many places. I do not feel particularly tired, and a low-key day just materialized.

For dinner I walked about 2 kilometers to Miguel’s, a Mexican-style restaurant near the northeast corner of the wall/moat, Sri Poom Corner. (So much for the low-key day.) As usual, I had their black-bean soup, arguably the best black bean soup I have ever had. That and gazpacho are two things that if I see on a menu, I cannot pass up.

Gazpacho is a cold soup originating in Spain made primarily of tomato and cucumber, with bell pepper, onion and other ingredients and spices. The very best gazpacho I have ever had was in Madrid, Spain after my second 800 kilometer pilgrimage walk on the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain with my friends from Sydney, Australia whom I met here in Chiang Mai at Wild Rose Yoga. After the walk, we spent three days in Madrid resting and being tourists. I had gazpacho all three days at different places, all very good. My next favorite is at La Fontana right here in Chiang Mai.

I have had black bean soup at a good number of places in San Diego and the Los Angeles area. It is not commonly on menus, but when it is available, I order it. As I said, my favorite black bean soup is here in Chiang Mai at Miguel’s.

Also with the black bean soup for dinner I had the crispy chicken tacos:

After dinner I went exploring a bit in the sois to the east of Miguel’s. I know that the Kamphaengdin came up this far on the east of the old city, and the Klong Mae Kha was just outside the earth and clay wall, but while the Klong Mae Kha is easily found, there is no surviving evidence of the Kamphaengdin north of Tha Phae Road.

I did find an interesting and fairly large chedi, right in a primarily residential neighborhood. The outer moat road where Miguel’s is located is Chaiyapoom Road. This chedi is on Chaiyapoom Soi 1, about 300 meters from Chaiyapoom Road. It is large, obviously very old, and there is no sign of a temple or temple remains nearby.

On Google maps, the chedi is landmarked, listed as “Old Chedi (Nameless Chedi).” Here is another view of the rather large, unnamed chedi:

Walked around more, eventually getting to Tha Phae Road, and walked back to The 3-Sis, ending my last night there with two scoops of their house-made coconut ice cream. Tomorrow morning breakfast, followed by yoga, then moving to See You Soon, and finally dinner with Rose and John at La Fontana (where I’ll have the gazpacho for sure).

Next: Walk to Bake & Bite for lunch