61: Chiang Mai Wats
Monday, January 16th, 2006A reminder to fill this in…
Did a day walk around the city to explore the old town and the Wats (Temples) inside)..
Archive for January, 2006
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60: Chiang Mai Arrival
Monday, January 16th, 2006After Bangkok I was quite excited to come to Chiang Mai because it is supposed to be a rather nice place and quite different to Bangkok…
Arrival
I arrived on the 12th of Januray by plane after two and a half hours on the plane including a thirty minutes delay because some VIP person had to take off before our plane or so we were told by our French pilot. A French Pilot… not that it really worried me but the thought of a French Pilot flying a tiny two-prop plane between Bangkok and Chiang Mai for a Budget Airline seems a little unusual don’t you think? Apparently he said it was too cold for him in Europe (he came our and chatted with some of the passengers a bit during the flight). Anyway never mind, we got there safely 😉
So out of the Airport I went to the Taxi rank: “Don’t have Taxiii!” the woman said. No Taxi? It’s wasn’t that busy so I was a bit surprised. She suggested I get one of the Songthaes, some small pickup Trucks that have two benches mounted at the back and which operate as shared Taxis.
Songthaes were slowly trickling in at the arrival area and I went up to a few and mentioned my Guesthouse and the Area “Ta Pae Gate” which is the main Gate of the City. This first waved the hand and drove on (not his direction I guess), the second looked at me as if I asked him to take me to the moon so no luck there either but then a fancy new Songthae pulled over with a boy barely able to look over the steering wheel asking where I wanted to go. I told him, he did not seem to know where the place was but I had the name written down in Thai and also a phone number so he called the place and asked where it was. Kind of him to do so and after a few minutes he said “OK, 40 Baht” (60p, 90 cents) which sounded like a good deal so I agreed. Two other backpackers whom I spoke to earlier also joined and off we drive into Chiang Mai.
After 20 mins or so I got to my place, Roon Ruang Guest House near Ta Pae Gate, by then it was around 16:00. BTW I picked Roon Ruang from my Guide Book and was easily reserved by calling them from Bangkok. Much easier than doing a internet booking as it only took 5mins of my time, great!
Ah, lets sidetrack a bit into Accomodation;
I thought I would stay in Youth Hostels but as I pointed out a few times Hotels and Guest Houses are cheap enough and very similar to Youth Hostels plus it’s much easier to fnid descent guest houses than seeking out those hostels which are usually a bit out of the way. Chiang Mai is about half of the price of cheap bangkok accomodation and I can get an Aircon room with ensuite bathroom for about 400-500 Baht.That’s about 7 pounds or 10 euros. I looked at a few others and many look like descent, clean rooms. Fan only can be had for 300 Bath I think and of couirse there are also a lot of rundown yucky places but it’s easy enough to walk around the old town to find a place to stay.
So no Youth Hostel for me while I’m in SE Asia I reckon. (Cambodia and Vietnam will be the same as Thailand I think)
The City
Back to Chiang Mai… so I made it to the hotel late afternoon, dumped my bag and quickly changed to get out and walk around a bit. It was about 30C and sunny so Shorts, T-Shirt and Sandals. I had a map from my guide book and also one that I picked up for free from the Airport so I was ready to explore the area a bit. I decided to walk around without a particular destination in mind just roughly following the guide book map which conveniently had my guest house marked…
Chaing Mai is divided into and old part which is surrounded by Moat and a newer area outside of the Moat. The buisiest area is along the east gate of the moat and outside of that gate. This is where my Guest House is located, just a few meters outside of the Moat.
So I walked and suddenly I realised that Chaing Mai is TINY!
It’s so funny, compared to Bangkok this place is like a backyard!
I almost crossed the inner city in an hour or two walking leasurely, looking at shops and all. I can’t believe how small it is 😉 I reckon walking straight along one length of the square moat takes about 40 mins?
Walking is certainly one of the best ways to explore the city or at least I think so. You can get a bike if you feel like it or hire a Scooter but a) the traffic in town is best avoided and b) it’s much nicer to explore the city on foot. Someone once said the human brain is designed to experience surroundings at walking speed, not faster. I quite agree..
Eating
Right outside of my guest house are plenty of cafes and restaurants. I don’t seem to be able to escape that Starbucks either because it’s just a few meters down the road from where I stay. (I have not been though). So Breakfast is easily sorted by crossing the road and picking one of the Cafes.
There is a street stall a few meters up the road that sells Pad Thai Noodles in the evening, good if I feel peckish before heading home. It’s costs 20 Baht (30 p, 45 cents). Oh and a 7/11 (little supermarket chain that seems to be open 24 hours) is nearby too.
Of course there are quite a few street stalls selling street food but they are by no means as frequent as in Bangkok and one of the most obvious things I noticed is that there are not as many fruit sellers. I’m usually having a hard time finding my little bags of pinapple or water melons during the day that I have gotten used to in Koh Samui and Bangkok. (There are not many shops that sell fresh fruit, actually I have not seen a big supermarket in Chaing Mai yet.
Internet
The Internet Cafe that I’m using is also only 5 mins away just through Ta Pae Gate and turn left onto Moon Muang Road for a few meters. Internet Cafes are plenty and about half the price compared to Bangkok (30 baht an hour). Only problem is that most use ancient PCs with USB 1.1 rather than USB 2 which is VERY slow for copying pictures off my camera.
This Internet cafe that I am using is one of the few I found with more recent PCs which include USB2. Plus they are open until 2am so I don’t get thrown out at 10pm 😉
People
Things do indeed go much slower in Chiang Mai just as mentioend in the Guide Books. The people here really do seem to have a more relaxed attitude to things, or at least when you walk around the little side roads or go to the markets it’s much less hectic than in Bangkok (or Chaweng no Koh Samui for that matter)
Guide Book Maps
Of course there was the thing about getting lost (not really;-) but eventually I realised that the map in my guide book which was incorrect as in it has the guest house drawn on the map in the wrong place. So I was walking south when I thought I was walking north. Naturally that causes some confusion and only after finding some landmark I realised that my guest house is not where I thought it was.
Markets
The Landmark that corrected my navigation was the Anusarn Food Market. A big courtyard surrounded by various open air restaurants serving lots of Seafood but also the usual thai and chinese style foods.
I decided to have dinner there so grabbed one of the tables on the square near a restaurant after checking out the whole market. I had a big bowl of spciy soup noodles with roasted pork. It was just after sunset and started to get dark. As soon as most of the light was gone hundreds of birds stormed the nearby trees and made it perfectly clear that they were the real owners of that square. It was difficult to even talk to the waitress due to the noise of the birds. OK so I’m exagerating but they were very loud indeed 🙂 Sadly it was too dark to makeout anything more that darks blobs on the trees so not sure what kind of birds they were.
After I finished dinner I walked around a bit more. Anusarn Food Market is adjacent to the Night Market which are street stalls along both sides of one of the main roads (Chang Klan Road) outside of the East Moat that open at night selling all sorts of things; Clothes, Shoes, Bags, Watches, Jewelery, Silk, Arty things… Anything you can think of and lots more.
It is fun browsing those stalls especially at night because the lights in the stalls make the whole area look quite nice (but also very! difficult to photograph :-()
One of the most impressive things I saw were Artists doing photo-realistic pencil drawings . They use photos as templates (you can give them a photo of someone and they create a large pencil drawing that looks simply amazing).
Watch the flickr space for the pictures showing one of the artists at work…
59: Hot, Spicy and Thai Style
Saturday, January 14th, 2006
It's amazing. I don't shy away from really spicy food. In fact I love it. After few weeks in Thailand I have to adjust my definitions of hot and spicy though.
HOT I would call a dish if it has ... [Continue reading this entry]
58: Off to Chiang Mai
Thursday, January 12th, 2006
I'm at the Airport heading off to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand in a few minutes (making use of the free internet access:-)
I was planning to get the overnight train up ti Chiang Mai and went to the ... [Continue reading this entry]
57: Nonthabury Market
Wednesday, January 11th, 2006
Another reminder for later..
Tok a boat trip to Nonthabury with the idea to go over to o Krep Island. It's about 25km north of Bangok but the I arrived too late to catch a boat. (The only run in ... [Continue reading this entry]
56: Wat Day
Tuesday, January 10th, 2006
Wat Day:
(Pictures Links come later)
I walked around the old part of Bangkok all day visiting some Wats (Temples).
I had seen many of them a year before when I was in Bangkok but I didn't mind seeing them again ... [Continue reading this entry]
54: Arrrrghhh
Tuesday, January 10th, 2006
Someone PLEASE remind me to SAVE my blog-in-progress REGULARLY!
Thai Computers like to often
a) Crash with Blue Screen
b) Reboot due to Power Cuts or
c) simply stop working for no reason
Today I had two blue ... [Continue reading this entry]
53: Back in Bangkok
Monday, January 9th, 2006
I left Koh Samui yesterday by plane and arrived back in Bangkok in the evening.
It had rained quite a bit for the last few days and I got a little bored and restless (I wouldn't have had problems lying on ... [Continue reading this entry]
52: Scary Creatures (2)
Saturday, January 7th, 2006
And then there are the other kind, those linger mainly on the main road in Chaweng ;-)
There are a few bars with "bar girls" or hostesses for using a kinder word and you have to change road sides or swiftly ... [Continue reading this entry]
51: Scary Creatures (1)
Saturday, January 7th, 2006
Scary Creatures one can find on this Island and I don't only mean the ones that belong to the animal world though lets stick to that category first :-)
Not really scary scary but it was a bit of a "spider" ... [Continue reading this entry]
saschas