This morning after breakfast I started trying to organize a tour for myself outside the city. The feature activity around here is treks to hang out in the villages of the mountain tribes that still live in the area. I would really like to see that, but the tour operators give the impression that its all pretty boilerplate and structured, not to mention smarmy, and I don't really have time anyway. I'll see about trying something like that in Laos.
But I wanted to see the countryside a little, so negotiated an itinerary and price with a sorng taa ou driver. The main public transportation source here is a kind of freelance cab consisting of a small red Japanese pickup truck, usually about 20 years old, with a kind of roof over the bed and two benches. The drivers try to put together a bunch of passengers going the same way, but it's the slow season here, and there's usually only ever one passenger.
I'm lousy at haggling and vastly overpaid for this trip, but at least I got to sit in the cab with the air conditioning and my driver's collection of B.J. Thomas CD's. We spent about five hours together talking politics and life stories. He's pretty frustrated with the current government both on the practical grounds that they're all talk and don't do anything (i.e. poverty and jobs) and on the principled grounds that they didn't get in power by democratic means. He's refreshingly (compared to Vietnam) keyed up about the insult to democracy, and he wants to see an election. He didn't say so, but I got the impression he's in favor of the protests that are off and on in Bangkok in recent weeks.
He's 60 years old and remembers growing up in Bangkok when everyone traveled either by bicycle or on the canals. He prefers Chiang Mai. He worked at a U.S. army PX during the Vietnam War. He lived in Saudi Arabia for four years doing construction work and then went to Libya for the same but broke his contract after 6 months because there was no food he wanted in the markets. His son is a driver like him. His daughter just graduated from Chiang Mai University and teaches English at a local high school. His mother is 82 and still strong, and she lives with him.
Our first stop was Was Phra That at the top of Doi Suthep. Mt. Suthep is supposed to dominate the landscape, but it's so hazy here, from the seasonal burns by the farmers mostly, that I didn't know there was a mountain until we were driving up it. Judging from other pictures I've seen, I missed getting a great view from the top. The temple was really interesting with all the vendors selling snacks and incense and prayer bells along the steps climbing up to it. Around the outside, children from programs teaching traditional dance put on performances for tips.
Next we drove north of the city to the Mae Sa waterfalls. It's the dry season, but these still have a little action to them. It's a series of 10 short falls along a path of about a mile or two that I hiked up pausing along the way to check out each of the pools. I picked out the one that looked best and on the way down put to use the fancy traveling pants and lightweight pack towel I brought, zipping the legs off and getting in for a dip.
Lunch was one of the stands at the park entrance selling grilled chicken and fish and spicy papaya salads. My guide dropped me off back in the old town section of Chiang Mai at the City Arts and Culture Museum, an old royal administration building converted into a city hall and finally into the museum. It focuses on the history of the city, which I'm glad I learned about, because I didn't get before how it was planned out and why it has so many temples. (I'll just refer you to the Chiang Mai entries in Wikipedia and Wikitravel.)
I loved my dinner last night at Taste From Heaven so much that I returned again tonight to try some other dishes. Plus they have free internet for customers, which is kind of weird for a proper sit-down restaurant, but here I am.
Another day in Chiang Mai gleaning what I missed, I think, then the bus to Chiang Khong on Sunday to cross into Laos on Monday.
-Robert
