myrainasia

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Today I’m taking an R and R day in Chiang Mai.  I realize there are many of you who believe that every day of mine is R and R and it does seem a bit piggy to say I need a vacation from my vacation.  But there it is.  I was planning to take off today for Pai and then on to Mae Hong San before returning to Chiang Mai to head north to Chiang Rai and then to Chiang Khong, the border with Laos, but over breakfast I decided that today was a day to do nothing tourist related.

The excitement for today was to mail home a package with diary #1, some souvenirs, and some unnecessary clothing, take care of my laundry (I would say do my laundry but laundromats don’t exist here and the cost for 1 kilo (2.2 lbs.) of laundry is 30 baht (about $1) so someone else gets to “do” my laundry), lie by the pool, take a nap, and catch up on diary #2 which is stuck on arrival in Sydney.

Since I am now continuing with this entry about 8 hours after I started it, I can report back that I was successful on all assigned tasks above, save writing in my diary.

I have enjoyed my time in Chiang Mai and tomorrow I head off to Pai.  Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand and it feels even more westernized than Bangkok.  All of the main drags seem to cater to the tourist trade.  I walk by the 972nd tourist office in a 3 block radius and ask myself how they all manage to do business.  But apparently they do.

Chiang Mai is the main hub for trekking.  If you hark back to my Australia tales you will recall the vow never to trek again.  I kept my vow.  But that doesn’t rule out day trips so day trips it was.  Many.

On my first day in Chiang Mai I did my usual routine of marching around the city and getting acclimated.  I saw 2 gorgeous temples and took my usual way too many pictures.  In the second set of temple pictures you can see the sign “Monk Chat”.  The monks hang out and the tourists can ask questions.  Having chatted at length in Bangkok- at the monk’s request to practice his English (Tourist Chat?), I didn’t have a whole lot of questions.  But one chatty monk told me how he was going to the US next year to study for his master’s degree at Philadelphia University (he was shocked that I didn’t know this school) in English literature and live with his American girlfriend.  He explained that he would be leaving the monkhood (sounded to me like he kinda already had), but could come back later if he so desired.  He wanted to know what US parents think about living together.  Told him it depends on the parents.  He also explained that his favorite was Shakespeare and cited Sonnet 1.  Told him I wasn’t all that familiar with Shakespeare’s poetry and asked if he had seen any of Shakespeare’s plays.  He was not clear on the word “play” or “theater” or “stage” or any other remotely synonymous word.  I also drew a puzzled stare on Hamlet and Macbeth.  So either this monk was having a dandy time pulling my leg, or he has got a whole lot of English to learn before getting remotely close to a masters in English lit.  But I wished him luck- he was certainly pleasant and besides, who wants to dis a monk?

That night I hit the night market which is a big thing here in Chiang Mai.  Blocks and blocks of shopping- stalls, street vendors, multilevel shopping centers, street front stores, etc.  I got overwhelmed and flipped out and couldn’t buy a thing.  I even went to the 24 hour Burger King and ate comfort food (to my great shame.)

Chiang Mai also has a Saturday night market and a Sunday night market- all in different locations and all selling the same thing- which is just about anything and everything imaginable!  By the time I hit the Sunday night market I decided it was time to get over this fear of shopping phobia so I bought some souvenirs and felt much better.

But back to the tours.  I took 1 day tour to Doi Inthanon- the highest peak in Thailand.  Couldn’t really tell you were going up to a mountain top, but the air was about 10 degrees cooler than in Chiang Mai so that was a pleasure.  Stopped at a gorgeous temple (oops, don’t remember the name) which was built moderately recently in honor of the king and queen of Thailand.  There are two buildings- called, respectively, the king and the queen.  The king is under renovation but the queen was fabulous.  Also pleasant was the escalator to get to the top.  Finally, the trip included (as, apparently do all trips from Chiang Mai) stops in a couple of hill tribe villages.  By now I should be able to report exactly what tribes are around here and where each comes from, but I think I am suffering from tribal overload.  The most famous tribe is the long-necked Karens (they don’t really have long necks, but they put brass rings around the necks of the girls starting at the age of 5, and they keep adding rings until I think they said age 30.  This ends up pushing down on the collarbone and causing the ribs to slant down, which ends up making the neck look longer.)  I did not see this tribe but saw a different Karen tribe as well as a couple of Hmong villages.  The biggest problem with visiting the tribal villages is the feeling of being a gawking tourist in someone’s life.  Regrettably they seem quite used to it and are perfectly accepting of all the picture taking.

Took a half day tour to see Doi Suthep, the major temple in the Chiang Mai area which supposedly contains relics of the Buddha.  I feel similarly about Buddha relics as I did about relics of Christ- skeptical because I don’t think the body of 1 person can be spread around in that many places.  Nonetheless it was certainly another stunning temple and you could view Chiang Mai from the grounds.  Unfortunately no escalator.  There is a cable car up, but our guide for the day felt that it was a waste to wait for the cable car and so I climbed the 306 steps- (I wasn’t counting; he told us that.)

The last day’s tour was the most fun.  First off, we had a very peppy guide named Mai.  This tour was called Elephant Safari.  The first and most highly touted stop was at the elephant camp.  We had a 40 minute elephant ride (not recommended for those who get seasick), followed by the elephant show.  Among the many things we saw the elephants do, my favorites were the dance performance and watching one of the elephants paint.  The finished painting was not impressionistic, but a plant in a pot.  But the big highlight was the elephant massage.  They asked for 3 volunteers and when only 1 guy responded, I decided that an elephant massage would be a plus.  (I have tried to link to the video of this that one of my tour buddies took, but I am not sure if it works so I am including a photo as well.)  I had to lie on my stomach to do this which made watching the elephant a bit difficult (maybe one is better off not seeing an elephant put his (or her) foot on your back).  The massage consisted of being whacked by the trunk and a couple of foot steps.  It actually felt quite good and I kept wanting to say “Could you work on my neck a little?”

The elephants were followed by a bamboo raft down the river and then directly into the ox carts for our second bumpy swaying ride of the day. The end of this ride led directly to the buffet lunch which was really good and really appreciated after all of the excitement of the morning.  The afternoon included a visit to an orchid and butterfly farm.  Let’s just say it’s a lot easier to photograph orchids.

And that sums up Chiang Mai.  I have a batch of further random thoughts on Thailand that I was planning to share in this post but my neck has developed a severe crick so I am going to share 1 and then head off to find dinner.  It’s not really a random thought, but an amusing experience that I forgot to share in my post about Ayutthaya.  I ate dinner one night in a restaurant that provided entertainment during the meal.  There were 2 Thai dancers who were very sweet, but the highlight was the musical performance.  There were 4 or 5 musicians playing various instruments.  They played Sukiyaki (I think that’s the name of the song in English- you’d know it if you heard it) for the Japanese tourists, but it was the medley for the westerners that was the most amazing and I wrote it down to make sure I didn’t forget.  It started with Battle Hymn of the Republic, followed by Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (that old American favorite), When the Saints Go Marching In, and finishing with a rousing rendition of Jingle Bells.  Gotta love it!

So that’s the update.

Tags: 1, Chiang Mai, elephants, Thailand

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 at 8:50 am and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.