Chiang Mai - Second Time Around

Hello to everyone. We really appreciate all the comments you are sending either directly to the blog or to our email addresses. It really helps us feel connected to you which is very important to us. We are all missing the people at home. We are sorry not to be able to respond to you all individually but internet access is slow here and so we are mostly restricting ourselves to checking email to make sure there aren't any emergencies back home or things that we must respond to - those that are work related.

Another housekeeping point is to tell you that right now we are in the town of Krabi on the Andaman Sea in southern Thailand. We have booked a flight to Auckland, New Zealand for February 26 which means we only have about a week left in our Thailand adventure and so we are moving a little more quickly. We will spend a couple of days in Bangkok before we leave for NZ.

We want to make this posting one devoted to Chaing Mai (pop 160,000 with 1 million in the metropolitan area). This is b/c we spent so much time there and really didn't tell you much about it yet. We are so thankful to Nancy Peters for giving us such a good introduction to CM and helping us to make it our home for almost 3 weeks of our trip.

We stayed in three different guesthouses while we were there. Each time we left we came back to a different one. But the majority of nights we stayed at Blue House - one could do a whole study of the English names of guesthouses - so many have what we'd call "cutsie" names - Friend House/Joy House/White House/Wendy House/Happy Lagoon/Bazoom Hostel/Fantasy Hill Bungalow - I don't think that anyone knows "cutsie" like the Asians. People also have cutsie names, so that the proprieter of the Blue House was Jimee and people are named Tee or Ya or Pee - most often a very simple, one syllable name and it's our understanding that Thais don't often use surnames - people use these nicknames instead.

So, Blue House was our home for a few weeks. The room was functional and although it wasn't very big, it was adaquate. We had three narrow beds lined up like a dormitory. The mattresses were typically hard but we were getting used to hard by then. The guesthouses are an interesting phenomena in themselves. They are something like our B&Bs, with some having a real family feel to them and others with less personality evident. But at the same time, they aren't like a hotel. In the Blue House we got towels when we arrived but when David tried to exchange his towel for a fresh one, he was told that "this isn't a hotel". So, it was up to us to clean our towels ourselves or take them to one of a multitude of places where laundry is done for you - usually for 30 BHT/Kg (that's about $1CDN/Kg.). Ever try to imagine how much laundry is 1Kg? Not much, but it's common for people who are travelling like us to have your laundry done this way. There were literally hundreds of signs up for laundry services in CM. You could have it washed, or washed/dried, or washed/dried/ironed. There really is no eqivilent to our self service laundramats. Many, many women still do their families' laundry by hand and it's our sense that people don't really feel that an automatic washer can do the job of a handwashing. And even if people do have a washer (some have a Hoover-like machine), they still dry their clothes outside, so laundry is everywhere and since it is hung on moveable racks, it is moved about during the day to follow the sun. That being said, we almost always do our own laundry, one or two pieces at a time. Most guesthouses provide a drying rack or have a balcony where you can hang your clothes to dry.

The other thing that the guesthouses do is simple meals - most do breakfast at least. So, there is a common seating area outside the rooms where travellers can gather to eat, watch TV, play cards, chat. There is usually beer available. Often the guesthouse people do tours as well. So, for instance our Jimee took us on a day tour of the highest mountain in Thailand - Doi (mountain) Inthanon - 2,595m.

Blue House was inside the moat of the old city. There were probably a hundred other guesthouses in this area, with travelers from around the world. Many are Europeans, some Canadians but mostly from the west coast and very, very few Americans. Many of the young people go on treks - three or four day walking trips into the bush visiting small villages in the mountains around CM. They go with a guide who can speak the language and do the cooking.

The moat is an important part of the life of CM. It originally encompassed the old city, like many of the cities of Europe. It is about 2-3 km per side. It was a pleasant place to walk. Unlike other parts of the city, it is alway kept clean of garbage, leaves and other debris in the water. There are many cat fish in the moat and people buy fish food to feed them, gaining merit for doing so. Although CM is a very large city, the area around the moat had a small town feel, other than the traffic which was tremendous and noisy. There are very few large buildings inside the moat, many old ones and funky bars and cafes to appeal to tourists and travelers. It also makes it easier to orientate yourself as long as you can remember whether you are inside/outside the moat! We were constantly asking each other - are we inside or outside? Courtney usually knew best. Traffic moves clockwise inside the moat and counterclockwise outside or is it the other way around?

David was very happy to discover great coffee in CM and northern Thailand in general. One of the important things that we discovered about the north is that new products (flowers, tea, garlic, rice) are being grown there to replace the opium growing that had been a source of income to the hilltribe people of this area. One of the things they have begun to grow is coffee beans and the coffee is excellent. Many of the little cafes and restaurants catering to travelers have high quality machines to make a "pressed" coffee which is very fresh and tasty. Coffee cream isn't common, mostly it's a soy product or a type of canned cream but Coffeemate in little narrow packets is everywhere. David says he's getting to like it but I suspect he will really enjoy a good cup of coffee with real cream when he gets home.

The night bazaar was one of our favourite places to go. In the evening you can visit the food court at the bazaar, after walking through a huge area devoted to a selling you everything you ever wanted or not. At the night bazaar, you purchase coupons and then use them at the various booths around the open-air courtyard. There are lots of variety of food and drink available - mostly Thai but also Muslim and Indian. David did end up eating a grasshopper of some kind. He said it tasted like nothing he had ever tasted before and he doesn't plan to eat one again - enough said.

But the best part of the night bazaar was that they had continuous entertainment while you ate. We saw dozens of traditional Thai/Burmese/Shan dances with both men and women. In addition all the music was live using traditional instruments. The musicians sit on the floor on the side of the stage. Each dance had a different beautiful costume as well. In some dances the women held burning candles using their arms and wrists to move the candles in a variety of ways around their heads and bodies. That one was lovely. We also enjoyed some of the rural dances where it was obvious that the dances were depicting the planting and the harvest. There were also single men dances where the man was very graceful and had that look of "Siam" that we all find familiar.

There are many beautiful wats in Chiang Mai. We visited many of them - some in the old city inside the moat, some in the mountains surrounding the city, some in the forests found outside the old city. Each has it's own individuality and some similiarities to others. The statuary and architecture of the wats is beautiful but it was the ordinary things that we often found most endearing. You have these centuries old buildings and you are admiring the Buddha housed inside and maybe there is a ratty old vacuum cleaner sitting on the side of the "altar". Every Sunday night there is a huge night market inside the moat of the old city of CM. But you will find many of the food vendors are inside the grounds of the wat and also the traditional Thai massage therapists. The wats seem very integrated into life here. A person can always stay in the wat grounds overnight if you're traveling and can't find alternative housing.

We visited Chaing Mai University and in particular the main university library. They have several specialized ones for medicine, pharmacy, science and arts/humanities as well. What I found most interesting about the library was that there was a large room in a corner of the second floor that was called the America Corner and under this sign it also read World Wide Web. Inside there were dozens of computers with Internet access and also a huge screen TV with earphones and students watching CNN. They did have computerized OPACS (online public access computers for the non-librarian readers), a room for databases, and a wireless area for students with their own computers, there was no access to the internet in this library other than in the America Corner. It's our observation that Thais aren't all that interested in the Internet. Right now we are in a little shop where there are 20 computers with Internet access and we are the only ones using it. The other users are young boys playing computer games. I don't even think they are doing online games - just your regular computer game. And this is very common. Most of the time, the only people using the Internet in these places are foreigners like us, doing email and information/web searching/surfing.

A typical day in CM involved David leaving the room early in the morning to walk about and get lost, usually finding a place to get a coffee and maybe have breakfast. Once he found his way again, he would pick up yogurt and fruit which he brought back to the room for Courtney and Elaine. We would add homemade granola that we brought with us to the yogurt. This would take us to about 11am when we were ready to go out for the day. That usually entalled more coffee and a fruit shake for Courtney (she is going to miss them!) and sometimes more breakfast/brunch. Then we'd have an activity - visit a wat or an area of the city we hadn't explored yet which involved lots of walking, enjoying the city life along the way. We'd usually end up back in the room late in the afternoon to take a break before heading out for the evening. Many times we ate in the street markets on the side of the street, deciding each time which one we would attempt to find. Often we would be peering into the vendor's carts trying to figure out what they were preparing. Sometimes there was a dirty little English menu that would appear but mostly we were on our own to figure out what was being prepared. We discovered some wonderful dishes this way and some that we wouldn't try again. David had soup everyday at least once!

Well we are now arguing about what else to tell you about and how careful we should be with tenses, so we think that the heat is getting to us and it's time to call it a night.

Next posting will probably be something about southern Thailand where we have been the last few weeks. We have seen some of the devastation of the tsunami but generally things appear to be back to normal for many people except that tourism has suffered tremendously. There are lots of discussions about rebuilding and how it should be done.

We'll keep you posted. Love to all.....