A WEEK IN THAILAND, PART TWO: CHIANG MAI

On to part two of the Thailand adventure. We were on the night train, watching the country pass by and wondering when exactly we would arrive in Chiang Mai. Because of how the rail system is set up, at times we had to stop for a long time while another train passed us by, so that in the end we got there a few hours late. When we did get to the Chiang Mai train station we took one of the pickup truck taxis, called a songthaew, to our hostel. The songthaews have benches in the truck-beds with tall roofs over them, so that about 8 people can fit into one.

Our hostel was really nice. It was called Dozy House, and was in the northern part of the old city. Chiang Mai  is built within four very old walls. As I read when I visited the city's museum, the city was apparently born on a Thursday at 4 AM, thousands of years ago, and its head is at its northern wall and its feet are at its southern wall. Culture and history are everywhere in this city.

On our first day, after checking in, we got a car (and a driver) from Dozy House to bring us to the famous Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. (Wat means temple.) It's located partway up a mountain and is one of the most famous temples in Chiang Mai. And there are a lot - there must be at least a dozen in the city, perhaps more. To get to this one, you began with a long climb up a brick staircase, flanked on either side by ornate, tiled dragon statues / railings. At the top, the procedure was the same as it is for any temple: shoes off, sarongs on. I really enjoyed this particular temple because of its great sense of peace, quiet, and spirit. Everyone was respectful and didn't talk above a low voice; no one was running around, just circling around the chedi, paying their respects. You could visit one of the monks if you wanted to receive a blessing, or walk three times around the chedi (the central dome-like structure) to pray, pay your respects, and light a candle. Or you could just walk around and look and soak in the atmosphere, but anyway you went about it, it felt like a spiritual experience. I think the mountain setting added to this.

That night we got a nice dinner at a restaurant close to Dozy House and went to check out the night bazaar on the other side of town. Chiang Mai is small enough that you can easily learn the streets with a little wandering and map-checking - it was easy to find and we didn't even have to take a tuk-tuk there. At the night bazaar we saw some traditional dances on a stage in a central plaza area and then spent the rest of our time looking around at the hundreds of stalls in the open spaces of the bazaar and all up and down the streets. A lot of the goods there are tourist-oriented: lamps, decorations, pants, skirts, dresses, candle holders, etc. I think - or at least I would like to think - that all the goods are local though. Probably made either by the sellers themselves or someone they know personally, at least in the case of the decorations and other handmade items. We didn't buy much of anything that night but resolved to go back again at the end of our time in Chiang Mai.

That night I had to make a very difficult decision. We were planning on going on a three day, two night trek in the hilly areas outside of Chiang Mai, and were leaving the next morning. We had arranged it ahead of time and would be with a couple of guides and stay in tribal villages or houses at night. Up until that night I had still been planning to go, despite not feeling very well, to be honest. I thought I might just push myself because I definitely didn't want to miss out on the experience of hiking in the wilderness in Thailand. But that night as we went around the night market and I felt exhausted and slightly feverish, my eyes getting puffy and tired, I knew that I couldn't go. If there had maybe been an option to leave and drive back to Chiang Mai as soon as I started to feel unwell, I might have pushed myself and attempted the trek. But we were going into the wilds where the only way out would have been a helicopter and I just couldn't put myself and the others at that sort of risk. So... I decided not to go and hang out in Chiang Mai instead. The next morning was difficult, because I was obviously very upset not to be going, but I stuck by what I knew was right. I wished my friends good-bye and then set off on my own exploration of the city.

That day, Tuesday, I took it pretty easy. My stomach still felt very  uncomfortable, so I stuck to rice, vegetables, and peanut butter toast. My accomplishments for the day were going to the museum in the center of town and getting a massage. On Wednesday, I went on an excursion I had signed up for the day before. I figured if I couldn't make it for a three day hike, maybe I could manage a one-day trek. This trek included almost everything my friends were also doing: elephant-ride, hike to waterfalls, and river rafting, but done by 6 PM.

For the trek, I was picked up in the morning by the tour company in a songthaew. I was the last one to join, the others in the group being three Germans and four Chinese tourists. We first visited an orchid farm, which was fairly interesting. Then we continued to drive out of Chiang Mai towards the Mae Rim river. The very lush, green scenery was beautiful and I enjoyed seeing it pass by from out the back of the songthaew.

The next stop was the elephant trek, which lasted for about an hour, or maybe a little less. I shared an elephant with one of the German girls, Susanna, and we fed the elephant mini bananas as we hiked along. Awesome as it was to ride an elephant in the first place, ambling along, seeing the countryside from the hightened perspective of the elephant was perhaps just as cool. We ended near the river and zipped across it in something that resembled a metal elevator box sliding along a cable.

We stopped for a lunch of pad thai (I have come to learn that a small parcel wrapped in banana leaves = food inside) and continued on to our trek. We walked for 50 minutes along a beautiful path next to a river until we arrived at a spectacular waterfall that seemed to suddenly come out of nowhere. Waded and splashed and sat around for a while. I tried to edge up as close as I could to the waterfall without getting completely drenched (not that that would have been so bad!)

The last event of the day was rafting - first in rubber rafts, then sitting on a bamboo raft - down the Mae Tang. Being on the water was amazing and it was such a beautiful day and place to be that I got a real sense of peace out of drifting along the river. I tried to soak it in, so I could remember it when I got back to the urban jungle of Jakarta. I was really happy I opted for the one-day excursion and still got to experience some nature. (And it only cost 1000 baht, or about 30 dollars, for the whole thing!)

That night, having finally regained my appetite, I ate at a small mom-and-pop type restaurant and had some wonderful pork curry dish. Just as I was about to leave, however, the rain started to come down with lots of gusto and I was effectively stranded. I asked the woman if I could stay and maybe watch the TV that was playing in the back of the restaurant. And when I say "asked" I really mean gestured, because she didn't speak any English and I don't know any Thai. The rain continued and I watched a ridiculous sitcom, full of silly antics and over-the-top gags and sound effects, which I thoroughly enjoyed. There were some portraits hanging on the wall and I managed to ask the woman who was in the pictures. She got out her English-Thai dictionary, and even though we couldn't say anything to each other, we had a very pleasant conversation about her daughter and granddaughter who were in the pictures. When the rain finally let up and I left, I felt very happy (and somewhat warm and fuzzy inside) to have made the acquantaince of such a nice, old Thai grandmother.

One the third day of my solo stay in Chiang Mai I headed to a local market in the morning. The zipper on my back had broken off while zipped up. I asked the owner at Dozy House where I could go to buy another one and she gave me directions and let me rent a bike from the hostel. Biking was a lot of fun. I remembered to keep to the left side of the road, and using what I've observed of road rules in Indonesia and Thailand, successfully managed to get myself outside the old city walls and to the big, sprawling local market. It was really local: the number of white people dropped dramatically - saw maybe four or five other white people there in a the span of a couple hours. I shopped around for a new bag (eventually settled on a small backpack, and bargained for my price of course) but when I went to buy it, I had to explain to the lady that I needed a scissors or knife or something to cut open my other bag so I could get my money out. Instead of giving me any scissors, she sent me along to a small corridor behind some shops to where there were couple of people randomly working at sewing machines. A man fixed the zipper for me, and then sent me along to another woman at a sewing machine to patch up the new zipper and secure the whole thing. She asked for 10 baht (about 30 cents) and I tried to pay the other man too, but he wouldn't take anything. Silly me with my Western materialistic mentality - why buy another bag when you could just fix the zipper? So now I have a small backpack and my old bag (which I'm still using.) I wandered around after that and explored the market.

For lunch I went to a tiny food court upstairs where nothing was in English. (Good sign I figure.) I saw one couple there who looked like expats who seemed to know what they were doing. When I went to ask them for their advice on ordering food, they invited me to sit down. The woman was originally from Thailand and the man was Australian; they live in Australia but visit Thailand every year. Before I even realized it happened, they ordered a meal for me and we chit-chatted for quite a while. The food was tasty and it was very rewarding to have such a nice, impromptu meeting with the couple. They even invited me to stay with them if I ever found myself in Australia. (And I just might!)

I spent the rest of my afternoon temple-hopping on the bicycle, by this point feeling pretty comfortable navigating anywhere in the small city. In the evening I returned to Dozy House where the owner told me my friends had gotten back. I met up with them at the night bazaar and we spent more time perusing the stalls and eating at the food court. The highlight of the night was the very glitzy cabaret show with Thai men in drag. It was so campy, I loved it! At the end of the show they invited people up on stage to dance and I decided to jump up there and give it a go. Dancing on stage at a cabaret drag show in Thailand? Check! The second highlight was bargaining and purchasing for very cheap at the midnight rate, a sturdy, proper backpacking backpack. I can't remember the exact price now (grrr!) but it was less than $100. I think I got it for about $50-60, which is absolutely ridiculous.

On our last day in Chiang Mai I went to a museum out of town (a sad, somewhat surreal, mostly empty-of-people museum that looked like it hadn't been touched since the 70's) while my friends visited the temples I had seen the day before. We ended our stay by taking a Thai cooking class and made some awesome food and met some other travelers: two British guys, two Chinese women, and an American couple from Texas.

We left for Bangkok by the night bus, having decided that the train was too unreliable. Of course, the bus was also more than an hour late in arriving. After traversing the country during the wee hours of the night and waking up early to some loud Thai pop music on the stereo system, we arrived in the industrial part of Bangkok and got a taxi to the airport.

And such was our whirlwind, but thoroughly incredible, adventure in Thailand. I'm only sorry I took so long to write about it. If anyone reading this ever finds themselves in that country, go to Chiang Mai. I don't image anyone could regret visiting there.