chiang mai
14 - 20 november
post by scott
We had timed our trip up north to coincide with the famous Loy Krathrong (lit. “to float a Krathrong” which is a small ceremonial raft made of banana trunk, leaves, bread and other decorations) and Yee Ping lantern festivals which are held according to the Buddhist calendar every year. We were pretty excited to have our first visitor for the year – Dad was flying in to meet up with us for a few weeks! Chiang Mai was fully booked and as usual we had left it to the last minute, but luckily Mal had secured some accommodation for the busy few days during the festival.
To get there from Bangkok Allana and I had opted for the train again – the railway system seems so good in Thailand! Particularly on overnight trains when they make up a comfy little bed for you and guys come round with buckets of icy beers you can relax and watch the world go by, getting a voyeuristic glimpse into the everyday lives of Thai people whose homes back onto the track. Unfortunately the last section of track into Chiang Mai was under maintenance due to the large number of derailments there recently, so we (about 20 farangs) were roused out of our comfy beds by the conductor just after dawn and dumped out into a small town where opportunistic car owners ferried us to the local bus station for the final 5 hour stretch. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see the final part of the train journey which is supposed to be spectacular, winding through lush tropical jungle.
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Checked in to our new fancy digs “Chiang Mai Plaza” – one of the fanciest looking places we had stayed all year, and from the window we could already see a few paper lanterns floating up prematurely in to the sky! The city itself is lovely. Clean and green with a well defined central “old city” bounded by crumbling walls and a moat (that’s right, it has a moat!). Even in modern times it is reasonably defendable against rampaging Mongolians. The old town (which originally was literally the “new city” and capital of the ancient Lanna Kingdom) is well organised with each cardinal direction around it’s walls associated with something different, for example “Power”, “Entourage”, “Wisdom”, “Glory”. We were staying down in the “Industry” part of town, which I thought was appropriate for such hard workers like ourselves. At least we weren’t in the southwest “Misfortune” corner. On our map there were no hotels or guesthouses around this part of town, only a psychiatric hospital, crematorium and former communist prison.
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After a beautiful dinner we had a stroll around the famous night market. The streets are mostly full of the usual junky stuff – Singha singlets, puffy elephant pants, knockoff watches and sunnies, wooden ornaments, jewellery, lights, etc. I found the most interesting part to be downstairs in the main market building, where scores of local artists have the most extensive and diverse collection of elephant paintings, probably in the world. Imagine any style of painting – colourful and abstract, intricate and detailed, oil, acrylic, water colour – here you can find that painting of an elephant. While there are a few not so good ones, there are lots and lots of seriously talented artists in Chiang Mai. The other beautiful thing about the night markets is that if you are feeling tuckered out or just bored with shopping for souvenirs you can lie down for a massage right in the middle of the main pavilion and watch the bartering go on around you! Our old friend Dr Fish was also very popular around these parts, ready to cure whatever ails ya by munching on your dead foot skin.
Mal arrives!!
NB. Although a guest post was requested, we are still waiting! It must be in the mail..
We took a tuk-tuk out to the airport and got into prime position behind the rail for the big man’s arrival. Unfortunately there was some translation issues with the spelling on our sign but he recognised us nonetheless.
We took a tuk-tuk out to the airport and got into prime position behind the rail for the big man’s arrival. Unfortunately there was some translation issues with the spelling on our sign but he recognised us nonetheless.
It was great to see Dad again after 8 odd months away. Having been to Chiang Mai earlier in the year he would also be an invaluable guide and on the taxi ride home he was already teeing up day trips with the driver. Lanterns were becoming more and more common in the sky as we returned to our plush hotel around midnight (even though the festival was officially two days away) to have a celebratory drink.
15 november
Had a relaxing start to the day – leisurely breakfast and a swim before having a coffee next door. The espresso is surprisingly good in Thailand even for coffee snobs like us. In fact the Thai people must just be naturally gifted cooks because they can pull off amazingly good Western food and drink. Even if for some unfortunate reason you didn’t like the delicious local and street food you could be perfectly happy eating here! In fact the best pizza I’ve ever had was whipped up by a young Thai guy at our favourite little Italian restaurant in Bangkok. You would swear this guy was brought up by an Italian momma and had been rolling dough since he was in diapers. Anyway it was time to explore the old town a bit so we headed for the most famous Buddhist Wat in town (temple/monastery/school all rolled into one complex) – Wat Phra Singh. It was indeed a beautiful place, complete with ornamental rooves, gold statues of the Buddha, and incredibly lifelike wax sculptures of well known monks who have passed . The living monks were busily preparing for the upcoming festivities, hanging lights and making the place look extra nice. The thing that struck us though after being in Chiang Mai a while was that this was not just a one off place of remarkable beauty, but it just happened to be one of the biggest. Dozens of similar Wats were scattered everywhere throughout the town, and most of them you could just stroll in and have a bo peep. We had lunch at the busiest (and cheapest) place in town which served delicious northern style food for a less than a dollar per plate, and then went back home for the first of many Thai massages.
That night we headed down to the banks of the Ping river where people were already getting into the spirit of things, letting off fireworks and releasing lanterns. It seemed pretty crowded already but it turned out this was just a warm up!