Chiang Mai Thailand
Flew from Koh Samui on Bangkok Air (the only airline off the island because Bangkok Air built the airport) and then on to Chiang Mai on budget Air Asia.
I guess Bob is in Bangkok, but I am in the Galare Guesthouse in a cozy Thai-style building on the Ping River that runs through the city. A broadband internet cable is plugged into my laptop. I am drinking real drip coffee made in my little Starbucks coffee maker on this blessedly cool morning and listening to Leonard Cohen on my tiny speakers.
I am mid-way through “All That Matters,” a lovely book by Wayson Chow about Chinese immigrants in the 1930’s in Vancouver B.C. Most of the Chinese those days were from the Pearl River Delta of Canton China who came as merchants to Chinatown in Vancouver or as workers on the railroad.
I catch up on the news in the U.S. on BBC TV…much better coverage than we get from US media. I am following the political crisis in Thailand in the English-language Bangkok Post in the downstairs open-air restaurant at breakfast each morning. In the streets of Bangkok thousands of people have been demonstrating for constitutional reform and an end of corruption…calling for Prime Minister Thaksin to step down. And that is really something for a culture that generally disdains confrontation. Locals are hoping there will not be a repeat of the military coup in the late 90’s that left scores of students dead in the streets.
I am walking distance to the Night Market (actually a street market) that bustles with open-street cafes until midnight. I usually don’t take the Tuk Tuks in Thailand because I am tall and the ceilings of these things slant downwards making it difficult to see ahead but they are the best way to get around in this city because they can dodge through the smooth-paved alleyways avoiding all the one-way streets. I like this city. Much quieter…even the Tuk Tuks don’t sound like weed-eaters…and the traffic isn’t as nuts as it is in Bangkok and on the islands.
More farangs (White westerners) in this town than I’ve seen anywhere in Thailand (even the islands because most tourists there just stay within hotel compounds) so Chiang Mai seems to be quite the tourist destination. Tour companies offer trips to places like the national parks, elephant training camps and to the Golden Triangle where Thailand meets the Lao, Chinese and Burmese borders that is famous for the opium trade of years past. I am thinking I will take one of these trips…maybe to the Golden Triangle…and to Chiang Rai through colorful Akha, Karen, Lisu and Palong hill tribe villages.
How long can I stay in my room, I ask the smiling girl at the reception desk. Until way next month, she says laughing. Maybe I will.
Tags: Chiang Mai, Hotels,Hostels & Guesthouses, Markets, Reading, Thailand
Zoe