Gone To Thailand: Chiang Mai

(Written Sunday, June 10)

I woke up around 5 this morning in an attempt to get to Doi Suthep Temple (in the hills above Chiang Mai) by 6, when the monks gather with their alm bowls to collect offerings. Unfortunately, I hadn’t realized a side effect of traveling during the low season is that there are very few other tourists to travel with. This makes transportation much more expensive. I waited for almost an hour at the truck taxi for at least one other person to join us before I gave up, and paid an exorbitant price to travel up to the temple by myself. While I was waiting at the taxi, I did see some monks with their alms bowls. But by the time I reached the temple, they had already gone. Oh well.

Doi Suthep is very grand. There are 300+ steps leading up to it that I was determined to climb, although there is a kind of lift that people can take if they can’t stomach the ascent. Two curvy green dragon-snake creatures line the top of the staircase, and there were girls dressed in traditional village garb sitting on the stairs looking mournful in the hopes of receiving some handouts.

I made it to the top, then explored the temple. Very pretty, but my favorite part was seeing Chiang Mai from above. It was just a little foggy, but I could still see the city, and the view was beautiful. After admiring the view and temple, I headed back down the stairs, had some pad thai for an early lunch, then got a ride back home (it’s always cheaper to go downhill!).

I briefly went to my hotel, then headed out to visit more temples. A tuk-tuk driver suggested that I let him drive me around to a few temples, then take me to a few good souvenir stores he knew. I would have refused this offer since it sounded sketchy, but I had run into two of the other interns last night who had paid for this exact trip, and said it was well worth it, so I agreed. After the temples, my driver first took me to a silk store. I got to see the silk being turned into thread and cloth in the back (very cool) before being led to the store. Beautiful, but expensive! Next up was a lacquerware store. It was interesting to see the lacquerware being painted, but I don’t find lacquerware particularly attractive, so I didn’t buy anything. Lastly was a jewelry store specializing in jade. The store itself was more impressive than the jewelry—there were fish tanks through the main room filled with sharks! Very swanky.

The last thing on my list for the day was to take a look at the Sunday market, which I found a little more interesting than the night market, especially in terms of the foods offered. I ate coconut rice with mango (YUM) and a chicken kabob, and admired the tiny soup-filling leaf boats and other delicious delicacies. I didn’t buy any souvenirs there, but did find a few gifts in antique shops nearby.

This weekend was fun, but I’m ready to do some relaxing back at work now!

(Friday and Saturday, June 8-9)

After work today, I went home to pack for Chiang Mai, then took the subway to the train station. The same guard was there, and he took me to my train, found my car, and made sure I was in my seat before he left. Great service!

The train was actually pretty comfortable. In each car, there’s a long middle walkway with seats on both sides. The seats are arranged in pairs facing each other. Each set of two seats turns into one bed, while a second bed is located above these seats, and is tucked away into the ceiling until needed. The train was smooth enough that I was able to read without getting motion sick, for which I was very grateful.

Of course, just as I was hoping no one would sit across from me so I could put my feet up, a guy sits there. And he was bizarre… maybe crazy. He was a Thai teenager, who kept giggling incessantly as he listened to his iPod, which was turned up loud enough that I could clearly the words of each awful pop song. He had longish hair that just touched his soldiers, and he kept twirling the same piece of hair over and over and over again. Periodically, he would stop to (grossness ahead) wipe his hands on the curtain hanging over the window (which was far from clean) then smell his hands and laugh some more. VERY strange. He also appeared to be with two old white guys who were sitting opposite us. He kept yelling, “OKAY, JIM?!” to one of them and “Jim” would answer, “Ha ha, okay.” Then the kid would ask for money to go buy water, food, etc. VERY, VERY weird.

Needless to say, I asked for my seat to be turned into a bed at the earliest possible time. So around 8 pm, a man comes and rearranges the seats, covers them with a thin mattress, covers the mattress with a sheet, gives me a pillow and blanket, and arranges a second curtain between the bed and the middle walkway to give me some privacy. I found this arrangement very cozy, although a bit warm, since the AC was located outside my little den. With the small light inside, I read for a while, then went to sleep. Although I had some trouble falling asleep due to the train stopping at stations and occasionally lurching unexpectedly, when I did fall asleep, I slept for a good 8-9 hours.

Breakfast was a vastly overpriced very plain sandwich and coffee, after which I read some more. At one station we stopped at, I was surprised to feel the train backing up a few yards. Then we started up again and I thought nothing of it. However, when our time of arrival in Chiang Mai came and went, I asked the men sitting next to me if they knew why we were late and what time we should get to the city. They informed me that our engine had broken down, and we had backed up to put a new one on the front. So the delay had cost us 2 hours! I was very frustrated, since I knew I had a limited time in Chiang Mai anyway. So I sat there and sulked a bit, which was quite fun.

Finally, around 11:30 am (we should have arrived at 9:30), we were in Chiang Mai. At the door to the train station I was bombarded by at least 30 people asking “Tuk-tuk? Songtaew? [truck taxi] Where you go? Where you go, lady?” I actually closed my eyes to wade through them.

Once in the parking lot, I followed a calmer person to his truck taxi. After collecting a few more passengers, we set off toward the main city. 20 minutes later, I was dropped off a few meters from my hotel, located in the northeast corner of the city, very close to the moat.

The owner was sitting in the lobby of the hotel when I walked in and exclaimed over how late I was. I laughed, and told him about the train. He showed me to my room, which was plain but very nice. Comfortable beds, a refrigerator, great AC, hot water, clean, with no bugs: these are my only requirements for lodging in Thailand!

I was restless after my long trip and had already lost valuable sight-seeing time, so I dropped my stuff in my room, and left right away to check out Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is a little like Bangkok, only a little quieter and conveniently surrounded by a moat, so it’s difficult to become lost. Chiang Mai also has more temples than Bangkok, and I was very eager to see as many of them as I could.

Chiang Mai temples have many things in common: ornate statues and gold things and glittery things and carvings and paintings and Buddhas and bells and hundreds of colors! But despite these similarities, each temple manages to be unique in some way, which is the reason I saw nearly 10 of them today, and took a shockingly large number of photos of each.

After walking around for hours, I was exhausted, and returned to my hotel for a shower and nap. A peek in the mirror showed that I was already a little sunburned on my neck and shoulders. The humidity and heat don’t feel as bad here as they do in Bangkok, but the intensity of the sun is fiercer. Unfortunately, sunscreen doesn’t stand a chance against how much I sweat in Thailand, so I’ll have to live with whatever odd tan I get as a result of this weekend’s excursions.

Once evening rolled around, I went to check out the night market. It wasn’t anything special—just a night version of Bangkok’s Chatuchak. The only thing I got was a t-shirt and a bowl of “Kao Soi,” Chiang Mai’s famous noodle dish, which is a coconut beef curry with crunchy noodles sprinkled on top. It was delicious!