James and Cat’s Jazz-tastic Journey!

So we finally got out of Chiang Mai and got a local bus 3 hours north east to small town called Chiang Rai. This hold a special place in our hearts as it was the very first stop on our trip last year, and it hasn’t lost any of its charm. It is basically a smaller version of Chiang Mai, located 50km from the golden triangle, which makes it a haven for local tribes people to come and sell their products. There are around 5 big tribes located in the area and many other smaller tribes. Part of the charm of Chiang Rai is the lack of attention tourists get; coming up from Bangkok where all westerners are bombarded with offers of drink, drugs, girls, and taxi rides, it is very pleasant to be able to walk around the night market and not even conjure looks.

Of an evening the whole town seems to gravitate towards the huge night market, where there are two stages packed with locals showing off their talent for dancing, singing, or dressing up in women’s clothes and miming… quite a hit with the locals. The local food is also delightful, ranging from a DIY soup to whole fish and KFC style chicken and chips, all for ridiculously little money.  After the night market many people head round the corner to the bars and snooker halls until the early hours. So on Friday night we thought ‘when in Rome’ and headed down to bar street to find somewhere with a pool table.  And what luck we had; we stumbled across a small bar called ‘Cat Bar’… if the name didn’t sell it the tabby sat in the door way seem like a pretty good sign that we had found our watering hole for the evening. We were led in by the owner, Sam and his wife, an ageing couple who were unable to bear children and so had many cats instead, hence the name. Once inside we were told that there was a jam session on tonight; Sam (who apparently played all instruments) would be performing with a local expat and David, which was followed by a long stare and then ‘You know david?’ Quite a curious question we thought… should we know David?  Is he some kind of local hero? Well, no, it turns out he used to play guitar for James Brown.  Yes, that’s right, the soul legend that is James Brown! Playing in a jam session in bar that has egg boxes on the walls for sound proofing!  In Chiang Rai, a quiet trading cross roads with a population of only 73,000 this is where we found a guitar legend! We really couldn’t believe our luck. But before we were gifted with the aural pleasures of old school rock, we had the visual delights of Sam playing pool. He does own the bar and pool table so you would expect him to be quite good, but when Cat took up the offer she was thrashed…. and he played the whole game using only one hand! Amazing!

So roll on 22:00 and in strolls and ageing, bald, black man, who had more soul than anyone I’ve ever met, he picks up a guitar and kicks straight in to some Pink Floyd, followed by Mustang Sally then All Along the Watchtower, to which he did an amazing solo, completely behind his head!  The 6 people in the bar were blown away! Unfortunately we didn’t have our camera with us, but Sam assures us he will be back on Monday so we can go back and get trigger happy with the camera.

Today we woke up, a little the worse for wear, around midday.  Last night was Paul’s leaving do as he left for Laos today.  We have been travelling with him for around 2 weeks now so we had to send him of in style; lots of pool and lots of beer.  However, as it’s election time we weren’t technically allowed to drink alcohol, so when you buy a bottle of beer you have to drink it out of tea cup and keep the bottle in the fridge. We looked like doughnuts cheersing with tea cups, the locals were quite amused. So today we headed out to a Wat around 15 km out of town; Wat Rong Kunh designed and built by a local artist renowed for bringing Buddhism into the new age. So instead of the usal gold and gaudily painted buildings, it was adorned in white with mirrored inlays, An amazing feat of architecture and artistry as well as a very holy place and one that attracts many pilgrims. In terms of response from the locals, it’s similar to the Louvre in Paris.  While many hail it as a genuis, some still think it has no place as a Buddhist temple as it is so different and out of the norm. Inside for instance, instead of the usual murals depicting the stages of Buddhas life, the artist has taken a modern twist on the idea of Samsara “the concept of a cycle of birth and consequent decay and death, in which all beings in the universe participate and which can only be escaped through enlightenment” (Wikipedia).  His murals instead depict such far flung images as the planes hitting the twin towers and Neo from the Matrix.  Strange and shocking, yes, but in their ability to draw the viewer in and lead the eye from one image to the next, incredibly powerful.  We have taken many pics and loaded them on to the website so you can make your own mind up, unfortunately, photography is forbidden inside the Wat, so you’ll have to take our word for the sheer power of the murals.

Talking of pictures, we have been having some troubles with the site we were using… it’s a heap of crap! So as Tom advised, we have switched back to our old site.  You can follow the link at the side ‘OUR PHOTOS!!’ We have organised the pictures by country and town, you can also browse our pictures from last years trip as well, if you feel the need.

If you have any troubles or suggestions or just want to say how much you love us, just drop us a comment.

peace and love
xxxxx

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 5:16 am and is filed under Travel. 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.