I taught my classes on Monday, September
25, 2006 in my traveling clothes and with my suitcase ready
in the teachers' room. After class, I went out to Narita airport
with a co-worker who was flying out to a different destination
at about the same time. We were separated at the Northwest
ticket area since he already had a boarding pass but all I
had was a voucher. Check-in is becoming automated, but the
machine I used refused to recognize my World Perks card, so
I had to do a manual check-in. The girl asked me if I had
any water or gels. I did not. When I went to security, the
guy wanted to take my toothpaste, shampoo, mouthwash, suntan
lotion, everything. I had to go back to the window and check-in
my bag or lose all that. This, plus the fact that I had no
embarkation card (then filled in the disembarkation card by
mistake) made me late to the gate. I had to get my seat assignment
at the gate itself and when I got there I noticed the same
girl that had checked me in was now out there behind the counter.
I told her that if she changed her language from "water
or gels" to "shampoo or toothpaste" she could
save her clients a lot of grief. I didn't get the impression
she took it to heart, though.
Although Taksin Shinawatra had just been removed from power
in a military coup d'etat a few days before, I remained undaunted.
I arrived in time to witness the last days of Don
Muang Airport in Bangkok before all airline operations
were moved to Thailand's new Suvarnabhumi
Airport. The last time I'd arrived at Don Muang, I'd
written on my website that there was a money exchange booth
near the carousels. This time I saw one even before immigration,
but stop because I didn't to put myself at the back of the
immigration line. This time, down around the baggage carousels
were money changer machines - they didn't accept 10,000 yen
or $100 bills, though. I checked my wallet and found that
I had two $50 bills and put them in. One was accepted, the
other refused. Outside after Customs were many more money
changers in the lobby - human beings this time. I got 36.57
baht to one U.S. dollar. I remember getting 25 on previous
trips. Taxis are just outside the lobby. They add a 30 baht
surcharge over the meter price for any taxis leaving the airport.
After I got in a cab, I showed the driver the card I had from
the KT
Guest House with the map and the directions in Thai.
As soon as he understood where I was going, we started out
and the guy told me 300 baht and didn't turn on the meter.
I told him to turn it on. He said there's a surcharge. Okay,
but surcharge on top of what? He turned it on. We didn't take
the toll road -- no traffic to speak of. He took me to the
K.T. Guest House without asking for a second look at the card.
When I got to the hotel, the meter said 105 baht. Just for
fun, I asked "How much?" He told me 210 baht. I
give him 220 box and made him make change. I knew I was getting
ripped off, but I couldn't get excited over the cost of a
500ml Coke in Japan after full teaching day and a 5-hour flight.
It was 3:00 AM Tokyo time, and was hungry. I hoped I would
be able to sleep on an empty stomach.
September 26, 2006 8:00 AM Don Muang International Airport
I guess that was it for me and the K T Guest House, as it
will be far from the airport after Thursday the 28th when
they change to Suvarnabhumi. I'll have to find another favorite.
The bathrooms at the K. T. Guest House have the towels, toilet
paper, and soap out in the room, not in the bathroom, so if
you just "jump in the shower," you'll get your room
pretty wet when you go out there to retrieve your towel. If
I had let them take my shampoo at the airport, I would have
washed my hair with soap in the KT because it's not furnished.
The bathroom floors have a wide indentation in the floor for
the shower. It could only really serve any purpose in the
case to drain gets plugged up, however, as of course there
is no shower curtain. The water is heated by an electric water
heater on the wall that comes on and heats the water just
before it comes out the shower head. The shower head was too
high on the wall and there was little water pressure, but
I don't have so much hair to wash anyway.
The KT Guest House now has wireless Internet available in
the rooms and free maps for the subway and Sky Train. I couldn't
discern any other changes. Price for the night (it was a double
room) was B595. I asked the man at the front desk which way
was best for taxis to the airport - left or right out the
door. He said right. I had always gone left toward the 7-11
and beauty shop because that's the way the taxis bring you
in from the airport. At least I learned the right way on my
last stay.
It wasn't raining when I hit the street, so I didn't use my
umbrella. I was just trying to get to the Main Street when
a taxi stopped to let
people out, so I was able to get a cab one minute out the
door of the KT.
|
When I told the driver "airport," he countered
Suvarnabhumi? Why was he trying to bust my chops? Everyone
in Thailand must know Suvarnabhumi airport is opening on Thursday.
Was I supposed to say "yes" and then pay for him
to take me an hour in the opposite direction, missing my flight
in the act? Light traffic, so no toll road again. Made it
back out in record time. The meter was B107 and that's what
I paid this time. Funny how it's always so much cheaper to
get to the airport than it is to get out of it. I was able
to walk straight up to the counter of Nok Air and I was checked-in
in a minute. It was still 7:35 AM and I was ready to go for
a 9:00 flight. I could have been on the 8 :00 flight serviced
by Thai Airways. I had played it safe, but this time too safe.
Oh well, I had time for Burger
King for breakfast. I ordered the omelet breakfast.
There were lots of German tourists around me . One was having
a Double Whopper for breakfast. Orange juice is B10 extra.
Sounded like a deal, but it was one-half ice and maybe 10
percent actual juice. B10 was probably too much for the orange
flavored juice drink. Two packets of ketchup - I thought.
I realized one was Thai chili sauce after I put it on my tater
tots and saw the orange color.
My gate was 65. I had one hour to write this. Buddhist monk
in one seat. Everyone on cell phones -- even the foreigners.
Who are they talking to? The gate TVs here are by LG -- same
as everywhere.
September 26, 2006 Chiang Mai
I got into an unusually painted
airplane, painted as one big advertisement for TOT
Broadband. The advertisements continue on the inside, as all
the seatbacks and overhead bins were sporting TOT logos. The
attendants were all in yellow, and they gathered at the front
of the cabin and gave us a Thai wei when introduced
and at other times. (To make a wei, put your hands
flat together and draw them back to your chest while pointing
them up at your chin) Rather noisy tourists around me -- people
who look to be Israelis. When I got into Chiang Mai Airport
I didn't find Gordon's friend waiting for me. I walked
around the floor for a while and visited the toilet twice.
I thought it was better to allow for traffic, etc. to make
her late than to panic and make sure I spent the three days
alone by giving up and leaving the airport in a taxi. I was
to wear my gray "Vietnam" ball cap as an identifying
feature, but I didn't really want to wear it long as hats
plaster my hair to my head. A couple minutes was OK, but after
a while I gave up and took it off. I had just thought that
perhaps I had her contact info somewhere, and I sat down,
hat in hand, and started to look in my wallet when she came
up and said, "Hi, Glenn." We went out to the parking
lot, got in her Toyota, and started looking for hotels. I
had the names of a few from the Internet, but I let her take
me to where she thought would be good. I took the second one
we looked at, the Tawan Court,
in the Night Bazaar / Riverside area. It
was only like 600 baht, same as the KT in Bangkok. After I
checked in, we got back in her car and started driving without
knowing where we were going. Rudee
seemed to gravitate towards the university, as that's where
she lived. We stopped at a rather everyday place for lunch.
I ordered Tom Yum soup and Pad Thai. Tom Yum is soup that
was so spicy it made me cough. The noodles were sublime. Since
I was on vacation, I wanted to order a beer, but they didn't
serve it. I couldn't imagine an equivalent restaurant in Japan
not serving beer.
The restaurant was almost at the base of the mountain, so
she showed me how to go up the mountain to Wat Phra That Doi
Suthep temple. We didn't go up, though; she turned around
and we went back towards town. We went to Wiang Kum Kam, which
is an old capital that was covered by silt from floods, but
it was raining and not good for sightseeing. We went instead
to a paper parasol factory
that she knew about. I bought a couple of hand painted wall
hangings and took a bunch of pictures of ladies outside at
work. A group of German tourists were there at the time, and
many were getting their cut-off
jeans hand painted. Would it just wash out? We looked
longer at the souvenirs and I considered buying a lantern.
The skies had partially cleared, so we went back to the temples.
We took a horse cart tour that was less than spectacular,
but it was nice to be on a horse cart. I got some OK pictures,
including one of Rudee being Buddhist in a temple, which means
on her knees in front of the alter. A kid had taken a picture
of us as we were leaving and it had been transformed into
an OK commemorative plate when we ended the tour. I kind of
wanted to buy it, but I thought a picture of me with a Thai
girl could only cause bad feelings so I passed.
I can't write so much about Wiang
Kum Kam, because I don't know much about it - nobody
does. But the story goes that a great city was built previous
to Chiang Mai, unfortunately on a flood plain. Eventually
the inevitable happened, and the city dissapeared from sight
and later from people's memories. Still, the legend of its
existence continued, it was rediscovered, and now it is slowly
being excavated. I'm going to include a link to a
blog with more pictures, knowing full well that it may
be long gone by the time you click the link, dear reader.
We got lost roaming the countryside (and city streets) of
Chiang Mai, but Rudee had a cell phone with an ear piece and
she kept calling somebody she knew who gave her directions.
She called him "my GPS." We finally found our way
to "The Good View"
restaurant, located on the riverside, where Rudee wanted
to take me. We paid 50 baht to park across the street at a
gas station, but the money went toward two choices of wash
for drinks. I ordered Thai whiskey and chose ice and Coke
as our wash to mask the taste. It wasn't whisky. It wasn't
bad, but it was closer to wine than whisky.
In many countries, the waiter will pour the first glass for
you. In Thailand, they expect to pour every glass for you.
Whatever you order to drink stays on a little table at the
end of your dining table, and they hover and pour drinks as
they see fit. This is in disregard of what you may actually
want. After I ordered the cheap Thai whiskey, I wanted to
try the first glass on the rocks to see how it actually tasted.
Nope, the person in charge of the table grabbed a glass, poured
in the amount of whiskey that he deemed fit, and then dumped
in Coke. I had to have Rudee tell them again and again, "Don't
pour his drinks. He wants to handle it." I'm an American,
after all.
We
had morning glory fried vegetables
and green chicken curry. Very nice. Interesting
cover band. Great English and nice set lists. Lots
of farang in the audience. I'm hoping the cheap whisky
doesn't wipe me out my tomorrow. I bought water and breakfast
(bread and drink yogurt) at a 7-11 and went back to the hotel
to write this. I don't know what the day would have turned
out to be, especially with the rain, without Rudee.
September 27th, 2006 Chiang Mai
The skies were very heavy when I woke up. I thought the day
would be a waste. Still, I optimistically went out to rent
the motorbike from the store out in front. The day before
I had spied a yellow motorbike and had Rudee ask the lady
if I could have the same one tomorrow, but she said there
was no guarantee. Rudee said she didn't like to deal with
people with her attitude and I agreed. Later, I saw the lady
working at the laundry next door, so I guessed she was only
watching the shop temporarily for the man who worked there.
When I got there, the yellow one was available, but it didn't
want to idle. I tried several of them. Automatic motorbikes
rented for 250 baht, shift ones for 180 baht. The owner proudly
showed ma a motorcycle with almost zero kilometers on it,
which definitely should have been a selling point. However,
shifting a motorcycle is something I enjoy, so I tried the
older, manual transmission ones. None seemed to run that well.
I went for a walk looking for other shops, but there was nothing
better. So I went back and rented the yellow one after all.
I took me a while to get used to the "four down"
shift pattern instead of the more familiar "one down,
three up" pattern, and I had some embarrassing moments
due to that when my instincts didn't get overruled buy my
conscious. Gas was 26 baht per liter.
I immediately headed for the mountain to the east, Doi Suthep.
There were some scenic lookouts on the way up, and I stopped
and took a "manual panorama"
picture of Chiang Mai by clicking three pictures across
of the view and hoping I could stitch them together with software
later. When I reached the temple, or Wat Phra That Doi Suthep,
I kept going past. I passed the king's palace and followed
the signs to a Hmong Village that was 100% tourist shops.
It made me wonder where the locals actually bought their daily
necessities - surely they don't go all the way down to Chiang
Mai. Where
do they shop? There was a waterfall that they had kind of
landscaped around and seemed to hope to make some money off
of, as there was an admissions sign. I was prepared to pay,
but no one looked at me twice as I rode through. I
took a picture of the waterfall
and intended to continue on, but the road disintegrated
into mud at that point. I rode back through the Hmong
village-cum-tourist-trap, stopping once to take a picture
back over my shoulder. I backtracked a while until I came
back to a junction that had a sign indicating a hill tribe
village in either direction and I decided to go see the other
one, although it was farther away. The road continued up and
up until I was right in a cloud that was sitting on the mountain.
The mist, wet streets, trees, altitude, and headwind all made
things pretty darn chilly, and I was glad that I had had the
foresight to bring my long sleeved shirt even though it had
been steamy in town when I left. I went back to the golden
chedi of Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. I'd read in the Lonely
Planet that there were 309 steps to get up to the top, so
I was getting mentally prepared for them.
September 28, 2006 Chiang Mai
The steps had for banisters two great dragons, one on either
side, with their heads down at the bottom. At the top, there
was a sign "Foreigner buy ticket 30 baht." I first
walked past the temple entrance and walked over to where there
is a lookout with a dramatic view of Chiang Mai. Back at the
entrance to the temple proper, there is a sign telling you
to take off your shoes before entering. Consequently, there
was a pile of shoes across the walkway from the flight of
steps up into it. Inside were tourists with Thai guides explaining
the sights in many languages. I hung around one guide that
was speaking Spanish to a couple of ladies for a while. In
places there was "astroturf" on the marble floor,
but I learned to avoid it with socks on as it held moisture
from the rains. A lot of Buddhist faithful, ones who were
not there to take pictures, were holding lotus blossoms and
walking in a circle around the base of the great
golden chedi. I took a picture of myself, making
first use of the 6-inch tripod that Gihong had bought me for
my birthday, but I found that it certainly wasn't easily framing
a shot while on all fours on the floor trying to see the LCD
on the camera. Once I felt like I'd seen the temple, I went
back outside to get my shoes and found that a guy had just
mopped the tiles, leaving them wet. It was tough on people
who were wearing socks. Near the bottom of the 309 steps,
there was a little girl, maybe three years old, in a hill
tribe dress. I didn't see a parent anywhere near her. Was
she there for pictures? She sure was cute. At the bottom of
the steps on the landing area, there were lots of tourist
shops. There was also a sign "Toilets." I went in
and looked around the souvenirs, taking a picture at one point,
but I never found the toilet. On
the last flights of steps down there were ladies selling prints
and paintings. Nice artwork, but not something you could stuff
into a backpack. Down at street level there was an elephant
on a pad of concrete tethered by a short chain on its leg.
I noticed that there was an upright tree trunk supplied for
it to scratch itself. The elephants reached for me with its
trunk and I wasn't sure if I should pet it or not. I couldn't
imagine what purpose this horrible cruelty served. Next to
the elephant was a guy roasting some nasty looking sausages
on the street. God knows what was in them, but huge lumps
of fat would be a good first guess. I rode down the mountain,
the temperature climbing all the way down, and when I hit
the moat I rode along the inside. The traffic inside the moat
goes counterclockwise and outside clockwise. I
went to a place called the Bier Stube where I had pad Thai
(Thai-style fried noodles) and mango lassi (a mango
milkshake made with yogurt). Both were great. The radio had
a girl talking and talking in a rather sexy voice in Thai.
I wondered what she had so much to talk about. She certainly
could keep up a monologue.
I took a good look at the map while there. In the Lonely
Planet I thought I had read about two places of interest south
of Chiang Mai, one 30 minutes south and the other one hour
south. Unfortunately I had left the book back in the hotel,
and on the tourist map I couldn't figure out what the Lonely
Planet was talking about. Doi Inthanon, Thailand's highest
peak, was on the map and Rudee had told me it was a good destination,
but it was maybe two hours south and it was already afternoon.
A started south anyway, the hot sun beating on my neck and
arms. The road south was flat as a pancake, and a pretty boring
stretch of highway at that with just shops on both sides like
a long strip mall. After awhile, I thought what I was doing
was crazy, so I turned around and started back. I stopped
into a gas station to put 20 baht worth of gas in the bike
to get back, but the attendant told me there was a 50 baht
limit, so that's what I put in. Good
thing, too, as when I got to the crossroads were Hang Dong
[sic] was to the east I went left to a road that looked like
it went around the southern base of the mountain. It did.
It was a nice stretch of highway with just enough curves to
be interesting - a much better ride than what I had just exited.
From the top of the mountain I'd seen some buildings, maybe
a town, in the valley to the west and wondered how to get
there. Maybe this was the way. I rode the bike about as hard
and fast as I could. It was 38 kilometers, I think, to Seong
(?) and it gave me a destination. There was very little there
when I finally arrived: a school, a restaurant... Still, it
was a beautiful ride to it. There were some resorts
along the way to it. I really wondered - who stays there and
how do these places find customers? Obviously nobody ever
just bumbles in off the street in a rental car.
I got back in called Rudee about 5:00. She didn't answer.
I called Gordon to make sure I could - I hadn't been able
to call him with from Japan with Skype out and I hadn't called
him from with Thailand, either. I got Gordon, and he tried
calling her, too, but she didn't answer for him, either. I
thought I should give Rudee some time, so I went to check
my e-mail. When I got back there was a knock on the door and
a message from the hotel that she had called. Finally, we
connected and she drove over a little later.
Rather than drive somewhere, we just walked to a place called
the "Antique Restaurant" or something like that.
I had
walked past it that morning looking for motorcycles and hadn't
even noticed it. It was set back from the street and there
were tables both inside and outside. We sat outside and there
was a gazebo type of stage
with a two-piece traditional band playing. A lady was playing
what looks like a gourd with a long, round rod of a neck sticking
up. You play it sitting on the floor with it upright on the
floor in front of you. It has two strings and you play with
a bow like a violin. To change from one string to the other,
you rotate the instrument. The other member of the band was
a man playing a rhythm or drone instrument that looked like
a guitar. I thought they would play all night, but afterward
there was Thai guy with long hair back in a ponytail who played
the guitar and sang mellow songs, such as James Taylor favorites.
He was great.
There was a special - buy two Tiger beers and get one dish
free. I got spring rolls. The two tiger beers went down pretty
easy, but they gave me a headache the next day. I took a couple
of pictures of Rudee in front of the stage before we left.
Since we were only about a block away, we walked over to
the Night Bazaar. I'd
seen the words "Night Bazaar" all over
the guidebooks, websites, and maps, but I couldn't really
imagine what it was. What it comes down to is that every night
vendors pull carts up to the curb nose-to-toes on both sides
of the street on one of the main drags, so that the sidewalks
now have two sides instead of just one. Walking down the sidewalk
is like walking down the aisle of a store. You can buy just
about everything, but most of the merchandise seems to be
clothing and of course there are a lot of handicrafts and
souvenir T-shirts. I guess this picture here on the left sums
it up about as well as any.
There were ladies in Hill Tribe
dress selling trinkets to the tourists, and one thing
that seemed to be putting their hopes on was a carved, 2-headed
hollow frog. Along the backbones of each continuing onto the
heads is a ridge of knobs, and when you pass a little rod
over them it makes a croaking noise. I took a picture of them
as people jostled all around, and I didn't know how it would
come out because I'm still used to film and how difficult
it always was to get a night exposure. In this picture you
can see the lady's right hand is a blur as she shakes something
to make a sound, but it doesn't look like a carved bullfrog.
The Night Bazaar didn't hold too much for me, and it always
puts me in a bad mood when touts continually come up and touch
my arm, but Rudee was looking for a new purse and I followed
her around and approved or disapproved of purses when
she looked at me for an opinion. There was a short but heavy
rain that send us into some of the permanent shops for cover,
but when the rains cleared I headed back for the hotel, past
the German and British beer bars and live music clubs to the
Tawan Court Hotel for the end of day two.
I woke up on September 28 to leaden skies again. I took my
motorbike back to the guy across the street. After he returned
my damage deposit and made sure I returned the helmet and
lock, he gave me a wei as a thank you. There were Chinese
bicycles, the ones with the unusual rods in place of brake
cables, for rent for 65 baht across from the hotel. I wanted
to rent a bicycle, but, remembering my experience with one
in Beijing, I passed on them. I walked down towards McDonald's
and a Night Bazaar area. I saw hotel and I realized it was
the "Downtown" which I had almost booked on the
Internet. It was at a reasonable price, and now I know it
was in a convenient location for the Night Bazaar and nightlife
in general. It was maybe 8:45 in the morning, but McDonald's
was still closed. Subway, next to it, looked closed, but there
was in a girl in it listening to blaring music and she motioned
that it was OK to come in.. I had the girl turn down the loud
music and had a tuna sandwich for breakfast. She put WAY too
much mustard on it, and when I protested she scooped some
off with a pickle.
Since
I didn't have a motorbike, I went for walking tour from the
Riverside to the east wall which is about 15 minutes. I went
through the Tha Phae main gate
into the old town area. I saw a bicycle outside a travel agent
and asked how much. It wasn't for rent, so I kept walking,
reaching all the way to the main temple, Wat
Phra Sing. There were some nice pictures to be had
there with lots of young, middle school aged monks walking
around and dogs sunning themselves on the walkways. I then
continued over to the moat on the west. By that time, the
clouds had disappeared the sun was strong. Since I was already
burned from the motorcycle ride the day before, I really wished
I had brought my suntan lotion.
September 29th 2006. 9:55 AM Chiang Mai International Airport
I
followed the moat around counterclockwise, reaching the southwest
corner, I think. There was a
park there that I had noticed the day before on the
motorbike, but I had just passed it by. I reminded myself
that that was one reason why I was walking, that I wanted
to be able to say that I had seen the old Chiang Mai inside
the walls and had not just ridden a motorbike around the outskirts.
I went into the park and stopped on a bridge over a the pond
for awhile. There was a man using hedge clippers on a flower
bed on the edge of the pond. In a distance was a pavilion
in the center of the pond with people lazing on it.
I stopped and took a picture of a cart with a pot on it that
was there, I suppose as a decoration. Unusual. At the park
gates there was a bar at shin level you had to step over to
get in or out. I guesses it was to keep out wheeled vehicles.
I next came upon a market that was obviously for locals,
not tourists. I went in to experience the unusual sights and
smells but forgot to take any pictures to remember it. There
wasn't too much there that I felt I could have eaten without
worrying about waking up sick the next day. I turned in toward
the center of town at that point and wandered around half
looking for Julie's Guesthouse that I'd leaned about on the
Lonely Planet Blue Pages. I never did find it. I ended up
on the heavily touristed eastern face of the wall and decided
to have another mango lassi. The same girl was cooing
on the radio. This time, maybe because of the sun, I didn't
have anything to eat.
Just
down from the Bier Stube was a travel agent with a bunch of
bicycles, some of them mountain bikes, out at the curb. They
rented for 30 baht per day plus 1,000 baht or a passport as
a security deposit. As I was flying the next day, I gave the
1,000 baht. I used the bike to go back to the hotel for some
sunscreen and started back again out towards the northeast
corner to complete my tour around the wall. Ironically, I
was just thinking how the weather, though often threatening,
was not ruining my vacation when it started to rain. From
under a tree, I watched the raindrops on the moat on the right
to and the red and yellow Chinese
jewelry shop on the left.
After a while, I continue down and rounded the northeast
corner. The wall really only
exists on the corners and at the gates, which appeared
to be recent reconstructions. If you're riding a bicycle on
the sidewalks, as I was, it's a good idea to keep to the inside
sidewalks for two reasons. For one, the sidewalks disappear
at the corners, and the berm
from the wall slopes down to the street, leaving no shoulder
at all and putting you right in traffic. Second, on the outside
sidewalk you continuously come to U-turn opportunities, places
where the cars going counter clockwise on the inside can go
clockwise on the outside. The problem is partially the steady
streams of cars and but mostly the fact that there are high
curbs and rain gutters there which are not bicycle friendly.
By the time I rounded the northwest corner, where I thought
I would find some electronics stores I had gone past several
times in Rudee's car, the rain got really heavy. Earlier,
when I had arrived at the wall on foot, I had wanted to get
a picture of the moat,
but it had a mud bottom and only a stream of water down the
middle - not exactly picturesque. However, we were getting
such a cloudburst that the moat filled up to the brim. I came
to realize that the moat had flood control functions beyond
its historical significance. As the rain made
riding the bike crazy, I took shelter under the awning of
a store. There were two beauty shops side-by-side. One had
the owner sprawled out asleep and the other was just finishing
up with a farang customer. The customer was a twenty-something
guy whose hair was still long enough to need a haircut although
he was just getting out of the chair. I asked how much and
he told me 40 baht. He said she was pretty good and he used
her several times, so I sat down. The walls were adorned with
pictures of people like David Beckham, Ayumi Hamasaki, and
other people I'm not hip enough to who they are. She began
by showing me pictures of pretty boys to see which when I
wanted to look like. I waved her off and showed her with my
fingers that I wanted about 1 cm off. Soon she told me I was
done but I tugged on the hair on the back of my neck to let
her know she wasn't. Unlike Japan, there was no shaving cream
and razor, no weird little electric clippers for ear hair.
She whipped out the electric clippers and I was done in a
flash. I had only one 20 baht bill and one 100 baht bill in
my wallet. I gave her the 100 and she returned two 20s. I
protested, and mimed that the other guy had been charged 40.
She stood pat. Maybe 40 baht was the price of the trim.
Even
with a haircut behind me, it was still raining to beat the
band. There was a clothing shop next door. I noticed the mannequins
for pants have the torso cut at an angle across the stomach
there, so you have to put his shirts on the angle-cut stomach.
The next mannequin was a full body type where the blouse.
had a vertical split from the neck line to belly revealing
the breast bone. Seemed nearly impossible to wear such a thing
and not have some revealing moments. Next there was a wooden
casket shop. Most were white with gold Buddhist motifs. I
rode down the sidewalk from awning to awning to where a car
garage was digging what appeared to be a pit so they service
cars from below. A rectangle of asphalt had been removed and
the exposed soil was being excavated by hand with a single
shovel. Thing was, there was a guy laid out on his back asleep
and one of a group of ladies doing the shoveling. She was
throwing the dirt toward the sidewalks where I was stopped
on the bike, so I decided to move on. The next shop was a
7-11. The only lights on in the store were what looked to
be emergency lights on the ceiling, so I wondered the power
was out. From the front of the 7-11 I
watched people handle the downpour in different ways.
Young girls in school uniforms, one driving and two riding
sidesaddle behind, were just getting it out, getting drenched.
Some people rode motorbikes with umbrellas in there left hands
and their right hands on the throttle. Some motorized carts
with large umbrellas, carts made to be mobile stands for selling
edibles on the sidewalks, had a rope tied to the leading edge
of the umbrella to keep it from bending back in the headwind,
were rolling along down the road.
As I had lost over an hour and it was late afternoon, I decided
to tough it out and head to Pantip. I needed some shopping
time before my six o'clock meeting time with Rudee. Although
I was wearing a poncho, I body from the waist down was getting
soaked. I realized I hadn't eaten, so I went into a restaurant.
I was the only customer. I ordered pad Thai and soda water
which cost 40 baht and 15 baht respectively. As I was finishing,
a couple came in and sat down in a table next to me. They
had just met while traveling. She had gotten a TEFL certificate
and was looking to set up in Chiang Mai teaching English.
He was a lawyer from New York. I warned her that she probably
wouldn't make much money, but she said she only needed enough
to live. A told her that may change as she got older. She
agreed. I thought maybe she should hook up with the lawyer
and go to New York.
Rudee
rang my room and 6:00 and we went out for a Kan Toke dinner.
The place was out of town, the kind of place you need to bus
the tourists to. I didn't see any tour buses, but we were
early. The parking attendant was putting us into a parking
space that was a pool of water from the afternoon rains. Rudee
graciously told me to get out before she parked. I told her
to pull in backwards as most of the water was at the curb.
That worked.
As we were early, vendors were setting up their tourist trinkets
when we arrived. This was a pretty elaborate place with a
lot of atmosphere. We checked our shoes outside and had pretty
much our pick of seats, but we got a table near the door,
one step down on the dance floor. Bad idea, as the floorboards
were not so firm and the footsteps of everyone who came in
and stepped down onto the dinner show floor area made my booty
bounce. Low, Japanese style tables. My knees were already
aching by the time I realized the area under the table was
cut out for you to put your legs down in. In the middle of
the table was an assortment of
dishes. My favorite was the pork in a brown, curry
like gravy. There was fried chicken, but it was band-saw cut
with no thought given to the natural sections of the chicken,
so it was hard to eat. Next came a spicy sauce that tasted
of tomatoes. Next was a dish of rice noodles stuck together
with the sweetish glaze. More like a desert. Next was a dish
of floppy, glutinous vegetables, Last was pork rinds, which
we ate after dipping them into a jalapeño sauce. We
had two kinds of rice. One was long grain Thai rice and the
other was sticky rice. Interesting the way they treated it.
It was long grain, not short, put inside a cellophane bag,
and hidden way in a rattan container. It was really overly
sticky and chewy and hard to eat. Speaking of hard to eat,
the pork was delicious but they gave you only spoons and forks,
no knives. To forks were those super cheapos with the bent
tines - like we had in our high school cafeteria - the kind
that no one would want to make a souvenir. We were probably
the first served, but after everyone had bounced over to their
seats the band began to play. The stage had a great and impressive
carved backdrop depicting Thai historical scenes. As the band
played, the dancers came out
one step at a time and in a solemn yet graceful promenade.
The show was a mix of formal and informal dances, predominantly
done by women but with some men as well, including one male
knife dancer who unfortunately lost his concentration at one
point and sent the knives crashing to the dancefloor. Each
dance was different. I don't know if there's a set routine
or not, but as it was my first Kan Toke I never knew what
to expect for the next dance.
Rudee warned me that it was tradition for the dancers to invite
members of the audience to join them at the end, and
asked me what I would do if I were asked. I guessed I'd have
to give them what they wanted.
When
the show was over, we went outside to find our shoes and make
a stop at the restroom. There were toilet slippers with notches
in the toes outside the restroom door. Since I'd put a not
about that on my Angkor Wat page, I asked Rudee about that
custom. She told me the notches were to make it easy to match
pairs. There was a Japanese girl who looked at the slippers
and back at me and said, "Put on?" I thought it
was pretty strange that a girl from Japan, where they normally
have special toilet slippers, should be asking that of a guy
from America, where they don't. So I said, "Yes, just
like in Japan" to her in Japanese. She told me, predictably,
"Your Japanese is very good!" Of course it's impossible
to know if it really is or not just from hearing me say something
like that, but that's the standard thing for Japanese to say.
Anyway, out by the parking lot, as part of an outdoor grande
finale that I hadn't anticipated, they were sending up something
I'll call "fire kites." There is a fire lit in a
cup under a covered cylinder of paper and it becomes a little
hot air balloon. You can watch them going up for a long time,
like the helium balloons kids sometimes lose at amusement
parks. There was a float on the moat that spewed fireworks
for a while, and a lot of the dancers were available for pictures.
I had Rudee take my picture with
some of the girls.
Just next to the place we had dinner was a German microbrewery.
There was an old guy watching the cars out on the street,
and Rudee gave him a coin. Kind of a weird place with a huge
stage, some log cabin style décor, and on the left
side of the stage a sign reading "Let's reminding Chiang
Mai history." There was a live band, but behind the band
was a huge screen showing a soccer game as the band played.
The band was an interesting mix of the traditional and the
modern, as some of the members of the band played traditional
instruments, such as what I would describe as a "suspended
bridge marimba" that I'd seen in Japan in Thai restaurants.
The band had two female vocalists, and during the break they
came down and sat at the tables next to us, but somehow skipped
us. The table across the aisle had what looked like a huge
plexiglas smokestack with a tap in it at the end of the table.
It was draft beer, and the cylinder had graduations on it
to tell you how much remained. Interesting. I had a dunkelsbier
and Rudee ordered cashew nuts. Seems you're never too far
from a cashew nut in Thailand.
Even
though I was flying out on Friday, September 29, I woke up
late that morning. I must have slept through the alarm - rare
for me and probably a credit to the dunkelsbier. I hurried
to get ready and Rudee called at 8:30, on time. I had bought
carrot raisin bread and all fruits drink yoghurt for breakfast,
but I had no time to eat it. A took a quick shower using the
Japanese water heater in the bathroom. During a song at the
brewery the night before, they had showed scenes of old Chiang
Mai. There was an old monument that looked interesting, and
I asked Rudee where it was. Rudee said it was right in town,
so we decided to go see it before heading out to the airport.
However, she just took me back to Wat Phra Sing, where I'd
already been, so we ended up going to the airport
early. I went through the same song and dance of not
checking in my suitcase since I was no longer on an American
carrier, and then, to my surprise, when I went to show my
boarding pass and go through security, I noticed a "no
liquids or gels" sign, so I went back to check in my
suitcase. Once again, my Nok Air plane was painted in purple
with a bird bill on the nose cone.
So,
my three days in Chiang Mai had come to an end. I thought
that I needed to come back when it wasn't the rainiest
month of the year and I could spend more time. Next time
I would need to get a little farther north and maybe combine
it with a trip to Laos as well. These thoughts were going
through my mind as the plane turned to face the south
to fly to Bangkok. Out the window I got a last look at
Doi Suthep and the temple
with its golden chedi on the peak. Although
I could see it clearly, it's too small to pick out on
this small and low resolution image, so I'll put an arrow
pointing to it. You can see it better if you click it
to see the larger image. |
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