A little culture

Wow, I hadn't realized that it's been almost a week since my last post. It's probably due to the fact that we're not running around like crazy, and are mainly based in Chiang Mai. We did spend two days in a small mountain town called Pai, which I'll post more about shortly, but for the most part have been enjoying slow days and our comfy hotel room.

After our cooking course last Monday, we didn't do a whole lot on Tuesday. Looking for a little activity, we came across a brochure for dinner at the local cultural center and decided to give that a try. The evening included a traditional Khantoke dinner, often served at weddings and gatherings, and multiple demonstrations of traditional dances.

Our Khantoke dinner. We sat on the floor in traditional fashion.

The food was very good, and seemingly endless. As we ate, waiters were quick to come around and refill our dishes as much as we liked. I particularly enjoyed the Burmese pork curry, and we both ate way too much of the sweet crispy noodle dish!

After dinner, the show started with a bit of music that was followed by the dances. Each dance was fairly unique, with different style costumes and music, but all followed a definite style of dance that focused on hand movements above movement of the feet. We saw traditional dances from Burmese tribes, Northern Thailand and Laos hill tribes, modern incarnations, and even dances created just for special royal functions. Even some local hill tribe children were included in the show. (The lighting made getting good photos very difficult, but I think these give you some idea of what we saw.)

Fingernail dance

I got to join in! They brought lots of us up on stage to teach us a simple dance.

Teens from a local tribe performing a fantastic drum dance.

A rice harvest dance.

Seeing the beautiful traditional clothing and dance styles was very interesting. Although the day to day experiences in a foreign country are always engaging, it's also important to explore and attempt to understand the history of a new place as well. We both enjoyed the show and were happy to learn more about the Northern Thai people. Plus, as I mentioned above, dinner was yummy! If you ever get to visit Chiang Mai, we'd recommend spending a night at the cultural center (www.oldchiangmai.com).