Things I did in Chiang Rai Today!

Firstly, I called some banks after almost running out of money and then not being able to access two of my bank accounts. One was because the fob was out of sync, but that was fixed after one call. The other was because my Telstra Sim stopped roaming for a while so I was unable to get at my savings. That one was a harder problem to solve because they wanted the last four digits of my medicare card to know it was me over the phone (so the two passports, the drivers licence, the lengthy knowledge on the person in question wasn't enough?). But magically, soon after I made the call to them the Tesltra sim started working again. I didn't do anything different to the past two weeks, it just worked again. Hmm, unless I'm being watched.... With most of that sorted, I went out to find something to drink.


Doi Channg Coffee

 Doi Chaang to have some coffee. The beans are sourced from a village within Chiang Rai province and they are proudly "Beyond Fair Trade". The villagers own the company so all the profits from their work go back to them, but their website tells your more than I can be bothered typing here. There are coffee shops all over town, but the reason I went to this one is the Wild Civet Coffee where the coffee beans are gathered from the droppings of the civet which eats the coffee berries. This is poo coffee!

Poo Coffee!

This coffee is far more expensive because it is quite rare of course. This cup of coffee-infused-poo water you see above cost 500baht, or AU$15. There are various other Civet coffees in Thailand (and Vietnam I think), but apparently most are Robusta beans rather than Arabica beans, which are then force fed to caged civets. This one was of course Arabica, and from Wild Civet poo, so doubly special! 

And for my review: It didn't have a strong coffee taste but I think that was because it wasn't bitter at all (the enzymes in the civet apparently remove the bitterness), however there was a stronger more coffee-er aftertaste. It also seemed to be a bit watery, but that may be the way they made it, or the batch they had, might have to try it again somewhere. If you gave this to someone without telling them what it is I'm not sure they would be impressed other than how non-bitter it is, but afterwards you could laugh at them for consuming something from an animals butt. So for me, it was good, but I prefer really strong bitter coffee.

Of course, this was another thing I had learnt about thanks to QI, which I've been watching on youtube whenever I get some free wireless.


Mystery South Korean Grape Drink

I stopped at 7-11 to make sure I stocked the fridge in my room with enough beer to last through a day, but also picked up this interesting can while in there to add to my series of drinking random things in cans when I can't read the text on them.

I could only assume it was grape flavored from the picture.

Well this turned out to be grape flavoured, but what was odd was that along with liquid the can also included grapes. About 10 or so. This being from Korea I wasn't sure if it was actually grapes, or small jellyfish, tasted like grape though... Very strange and worth the $1 to try.

Strange Sign

See if you can guess why I took a photo of this sign...

Mystery Camera Shop

I stumbled upon this shop after buying some new shoes. They had some cameras in a glass case inside, so I asked if they were able to get a 60D, and they can, and for a price that's better than anywhere else and better than the US prices. It satisfies all my requirements: Cheap (er than anywhere else by 1500baht); grey import so no Canon warranty but there is a shop in Bangkok I can get it serviced if there are problems; It's available. 

Maybe tomorrow I'll be camera shopping in my new shoes.