Back Into Thailand: Chiang Mai Re-visited
After crossing the Mekong (almost certainly for the final time on this trip) I climbed up the road and back into Thailand. This time my port of entry was the border town of Chiang Khong. Re-entering the country presented no problem. This border post didn’t even have a posted copy of the amusing rules discouraging entry to hippies that I’d seen at the Thai-Malaysian border.
I’d read a bit and wasn’t enthralled by the prospect of hanging around in Chiang Khong, though I did make a quick (and ultimately unsuccessful) search around town for a nationalist Chinese soldiers’ cemetary I’d read about. Though I didn’t manage to locate the cemetary, the search and the walk to the bus station allowed me to see a fair bit of the smallish town.
Chiang Khong has a prominent place on the backpacker trail. The majority of those entering Laos from Thailand do so through CK, and it shows. Guesthouses and tourist restaurants lined the main street, and they weren’t nearly as subtle as those in, say, Luang Prabang. There were a couple of very pretty temples in town, but their appearance from the outside was marred by something I hadn’t seen much of in a while: Electrical and telephone lines. All of this served to send me the message very quickly that I wasn’t in Laos anymore.
I arrived at the bus station with a few minutes to spare and stocked up on food for the trip at the nearby market before climbing aboard bound for Chiang Rai.
While the geography of northern Thailand isn’t that disimilar to some of what I’d seen in northern Laos, there were differences. The fields looked greener (during the dry season this probably meant irrigation) towns appeared much more regularly along the side of the road, and they looked busier and more crowded. All in all things appeared faster paced and rather more prosperous than in Laos. Another HUGE difference was the quality of the roads (and the driving.) In Laos you were lucky to travel 100km in less than three hours, while in Thailand we flew along at a steady 80km/h.
The bus ride to Chiang Rai wasn’t that long, and soon we were deposited at the station. I took a very quick walk around and found that the place didn’t really appeal. I’m sure it’s entirely unfair to judge a whole city on the basis of what can be seen withiin a two minute walk of it’s bus station, but, well there you go. I was actually feeling a bit let down by returning to Thailand at this point. Laos had been so incredibly peaceful, friendly and slow-moving, and I just couldn’t yet deal with being confronted by so many buses, cars, billboards, power lines, people… Everything.
I remembered Chiang Mai as a very relaxed place, and figured I could re-integrate myself into Thailand there, so less than half an hour after arriving in Chiang Rai I was on my way again. All things considered this was probably a mistake. The last time I’d been in Chiang Mai was immediately following a few days in Bangkok, so it certainly SEEMED quiet and pleasant by comparison. This time, however everything seemed to be moving at breakneck speed. The traffic seemed to roar and the sidewalks were jammed with people. And in addition to the usual profusion of sound and signs that filled the city, it seemed that a Thai federal election was nearing, carrying with it the concomitant campaign billboards, placards and even mobile advertisements in the form of songthaews decked out in signage and slogan spouting loudspeakers.
It was very hard to believe that this place was about the same size as the much more pacific Lao capital of Vientiane. All the same, there I was.
I suppose I’ve made it sound actively unpleasant, which is a bit unfair. In truth it was very nice, but just not what I was looking for at that moment.
After heading out for breakfast my first action in Chiang Mai was to take a tuktuk to the Indian consulate. I left my passport with them while they worked on the visa. It would take four working days, six total, so it looked as though I’d be in Chiang Mai for a while. With administrative details taken care of, I set out to find a pleasant and relaxing way of spending my day. I remembered Chiang Mai’s temples quite fondly and found my way to one I remembered being particularly nice. I found myself a lovely little spot under a tree and whiled away the afternoon reading and chatting with the (infrequent) other visitors.
That afternoon I headed to an internet cafe for a bit (actually a huge amount) of writing before popping back out into the street for a delicious late night meal at one of the conglomeration of food carts near my guesthouse (these stalls produce, hands down, the best pad Thai I’ve ever experienced.)
The next few days continued in similar fashion: wandering round the town, stopping at a wat or a quiet restaurant for a read… The exact locations varied, sometimes I explored one of the markets, sometimes it was the backstreets of the town, sometimes wandering about looking at (what I later learned, and sadly missed) were preperations for the flower festival, or occaisionally admiring the pretty ornamentation of one of the inumerable wats. No matter what the details, the overall picture was the same. One definite plus to all this lazing about, reading and eating was that the food in Chiang Mai was every bit as good as I remembered. From green curries to spicy lemongrass soup to pad Thai, absoluely everything was delicious.
As pleasant as this all was, it still didn’t feel quite right. Thus it was that on my third day in Chiang Mai I decided to leave the following morning. I ended up staying awake a bit longer than I’d initially planned, finishing off ‘blog writing and playing internet backgammon (perhaps the missing factor was some social interaction? It’s often tough to come by in a bigger city like Chiang Mai…)
Nonetheless, I was up bright and early the next morning, intent on catching the 07:00 bus to the town of Pai, 135km away. Providence, not to mention about thirty people who were already on the bus when I got to the station at 06:45 seemed to have other ideas. I made my way through the astonishingly crowded (for that time of the morning anyway) bus station and joined one of the ticket queues (thankfully a small one… Some of them were absolutely monstrous.) Not only did I fail to get on the 07:00 bus, I also couldn’t get a seat on the next one at 09:00, and just managed to squeeze on to the 10:30 bus!
Oh well. At least that left me time for breakfast, which took the form of yet more wonderful Thai food from a little restaurant near the bus station. As great as eating in Chiang Mai was, I started to consider the possibility of heading back to Laos if Pai didn’t catch my fancy. The bus ride did little to cheer me. I’d gotten the second last seat which seemed to be the smallest one on the bus, right over the wheel and squished up the one in front.
Thankfully, the scenery during the trip was genuinely very pretty, and even the road was a novelty, being smooth and well paved but one of the hilly-and-twistiest pieces of asphalt I’d ever seen. Even better, when I stepped out of the bus and into Pai, I liked what I saw. It still looked faster paced than most of Laos (as well as cleaner and in better general repair). It also had such abomonations as a 7-11 store and two ATMs (I’d replenished my cash supply in Chiang Mai, so ATMs went from being desparately-sought-after back to ugly foreign intrusions.) But for all that, it looked quieter and more pleasant than anything I’d yet seen in Thailand. And while ther guesthouses and restaurants were even thicker than in Chiang Mai, they were of a less bustling, intrusive sort. All in all, it looked like I was going to enjoy Pai, and that the worst of my disappointing return to Thailand was over.
Tags: Thailand
Llew