Sunday a.m. here. I have a bus ticket to Chiang Khong and am leaving Chiang Mai shortly, with reservations. I had a good time the last couple days.
Yesterday I hiked over to the other side of the river to check out some temples there and to wander the quiter residential streets. The soi -- lanes -- off the main streets are fun to explore. They are mostly residential, except in the backpacker areas where a lot of homes are converted into guest houses and internet cafes, and most of the homes have nice gardens. I stopped at one little patio cafe run by Indian immigrants and had a really refreshing masala iced tea. I'm definitely going to find the recipe for that.
Back on the river I signed on for a short cruise on a scorpion tail boat. It's a corny tour for 15 dollars, just a few miles total all in the city limits, looking at architectural highlights along the river. We saw a couple of enormous beautiful Banyan trees estimated to be over 500 years old and that had dozens of Kingfisher birds roosting in them. We stopped at a little canteen and had some great delicious rice and lychee juice.
The upside of these overpriced tours in the off season is that you can get the guides off their patter and talk to them a little and to any other guests along. I thought I would have the boat to myself, but at the last minute a couple of Australians showed up. One was a professor and the other a grad student of peace studies in Melbourne and they are in Thailand for 8 weeks for a retreat at a conflict resolution camp of some kind at a Buddhist monastary. They said they are quite isolated and wearing white pajamas the whole time and not seeing much of Thailand except for their fellow novices, but they got a one-week furlough to run roughly the same path I am taking in two weeks.
In the evening I went to the Saturday walking street, which is what they call it when they close off a street for a market (on a Saturday.) The vibe at this market is very different from what I've learned to expect in Vietnam. There's a lot more variety and originality in the arts and crafts and a lot less cynicism. All the vendors seemed to enjoy being there and were having a good time talking to customers, which was mostly locals instead of tourists. It's a good thing for my budget that I'm carrying everything with me on my back, otherwise I would have spent a fortune on souveniers. Everywhere you go, there are musicians and dancers performing for tips. The best part of the market was sampling from all the different food stalls. A typical serving was either $.17 or $.34, so for about $1.50 I sampled about 5 different dishes I had never heard of or seen before.
In that same neighborhood, I went to Wat Sisruphan were they have informal conversation tables with the monks and quick introductions to meditation, where we learned to get in touch with our suffering. I had a head start; see my previous post on my difficulty sitting on the floor.
-Robert
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Countryside tour
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
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
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
From Saigon to Chiang Mai
I arrived in Chiang Mai, Thailand about 9:30 this a.m. after about 26 hours straight of travel. Air Asia did not impress, and I've had a few unique travel hiccups to go along with the usual delays and annoyances. I had a few hours between my flight to Bangkok and my train out, which I planned to spend exploring around the train station, but I got lost looking for Chinatown instead of getting lost in Chinatown, which is the usual point. My ATM card isn't working in Thailand for some reason, so I've had to dip into my plans C and D for cash.
I had a second-class sleeping berth, upper. Once the beds are made up, these are in the style of sleeper cars you see in old Hollywood movies like "Some Like It Hot." I don't believe they used real cars for those scenes, though, unless Jack Lemmon is under 5'9". What is it about me and the rail systems of Southeast Asia that I can't stretch out in my bunk? The transvestite who was our attendant must really suffer. She was 6'3" easy.
Before the beds are made up, the bottom bunk is two bench seats facing each other, and I was seated with a Belgian massage therapist who spent the last two months snorkling around peninsular Thailand, getting tattoes based on her own drawings of lotus flowers and meeting some really great people. I wasn't one of them, apparently, because once the train was moving, she wanted me to take an empty seat so she could fold down her bunk early.
Most of the train trip was in the dark, but the last few hours were after dawn, and it was nice seeing the countryside, though it is awfully dry. Chiang Mai is in the foothills of the mountain frontier with Burma, so we were climbing low hills through a lot of it. In the morning I talked to a couple from Holland while we watched the scenery, and they congratulated me on Obama finally signing in universal health-care coverage. I had to break it to them that it wasn't quite that yet.
I'm at a guest house run by . . . well, this was going to be the third story in a row about a northern European! I better cut it out. Let's just say that there are a lot of signs tacked up at this guest house. I have all the information I need in order to do the right thing.
More about Chiang Mai when I've caught up on sleep and formed a proper impression. Pictures are going to have to wait until I get back to Saigon.
-Robert
I had a second-class sleeping berth, upper. Once the beds are made up, these are in the style of sleeper cars you see in old Hollywood movies like "Some Like It Hot." I don't believe they used real cars for those scenes, though, unless Jack Lemmon is under 5'9". What is it about me and the rail systems of Southeast Asia that I can't stretch out in my bunk? The transvestite who was our attendant must really suffer. She was 6'3" easy.
Before the beds are made up, the bottom bunk is two bench seats facing each other, and I was seated with a Belgian massage therapist who spent the last two months snorkling around peninsular Thailand, getting tattoes based on her own drawings of lotus flowers and meeting some really great people. I wasn't one of them, apparently, because once the train was moving, she wanted me to take an empty seat so she could fold down her bunk early.
Most of the train trip was in the dark, but the last few hours were after dawn, and it was nice seeing the countryside, though it is awfully dry. Chiang Mai is in the foothills of the mountain frontier with Burma, so we were climbing low hills through a lot of it. In the morning I talked to a couple from Holland while we watched the scenery, and they congratulated me on Obama finally signing in universal health-care coverage. I had to break it to them that it wasn't quite that yet.
I'm at a guest house run by . . . well, this was going to be the third story in a row about a northern European! I better cut it out. Let's just say that there are a lot of signs tacked up at this guest house. I have all the information I need in order to do the right thing.
More about Chiang Mai when I've caught up on sleep and formed a proper impression. Pictures are going to have to wait until I get back to Saigon.
-Robert
Monday, March 22, 2010
Inflexibility
Sometimes we get invited to have dinner at the homes of friends and colleagues, which has been wonderful.
One of the charming parts of family life here is that meals are often served on the floor like this. I knew from experience on previous trips that I didn't have the flexibility to do this comfortably for even ten seconds -- or any of the other socializing that is routinely conducted while crouching or sitting on the floor -- and I really tried my best to do a lot of stretching in advance and while we are here. But I'm not smiling in this picture -- I'm grimacing in pain. And we haven't started eating yet. I was hobbled for about three days afterward.This meal a couple weeks ago was at the home of one of the young faculty Ilene works with. She and her husband, a college instructor in another field, share a small apartment --3 rooms the size of the one you see here in a remote district of the city-- with the wife's college-aged sister, a new baby, and a live in nanny, who is a widow from their hometown. That tells you something about the relative costs of real estate and labor here.
All the food shown here is terrific. The salad seen in closeup I want to mention especially. I forget the name, but we have it pretty frequently. The gray pieces that resemble pork are actually the inside of the rind of jackfruit, fried along with the shrimp. There's usually something cool in it like lettuce, along with peanuts, onions, hot pepper slices and some fish sauce. You eat it by spooning some onto the white crackers, which are made from rice flour.
-Robert
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