Thailand Part 2 began with a ferry ride back to Koh Samui. I grabbed one last lunchtime rotee, purchased a joint ferry/van transfer ticket, and plastered myself with all the proper stickers designating both my person and my luggage as Koh Samui bound. I hopped up to the upper deck of the ferry, in an attempt to separate myself from a bit of the crowd and enjoy a bit of fresh sea air; but, should have known better after a few of my fellow passengers started taking bets on how long it would be before people started throwing up. Answer: 30 min.
Luckily, that joyous experience was not my own (though it was a close call) especially since I still had over an hour left on the ferry. [Un]fortunately, shortly after my neighbor started losing her breakfast. the torrential downpour that had plagued us on Koh Phangan finally caught up. I decided to escape to a lower deck, where I planted myself on the floor, popped a few Dramamine, and focused on calming my own internal rebellions for the remainder of the journey.
After a quick evening on Koh Samui, which included: realizing my last min guest house reservation had been made for the wrong night, the most delicious [street car] green curry I ate the entire trip, and a beautiful sunrise on the beach, I was back to the airport and on my way to Chiang Mai.
Before my departure to the Land of Smiles, almost everyone I spoke to had voiced the same advice, "You have to go to Chiang Mai!" So, while I wasn't quite sure what to expect, I was excited to see what the Northern city had to offer.
My first two days in Chiang Mai, I stayed on the West side of the Old City, in a hostel I selected upon arrival, from an airport internet kiosk. Even with the help of sites like hostelworld.com, you never quite know what to expect in a hostel/guesthouse; but, the Green Tulip did not disappoint. Situated a fair (yet walkable) distance from most tourist attractions, the guesthouse was remarkably clean, and offered both aircon single rooms and 6 bed dorms (as well as other options, I am sure) at only slightly above dirt cheap prices. After dropping off my pack, and rearranging my day bag, I decided to wander the area around the hostel and see what I could find.
As luck would have it, I wandered straight into Wat PhraSingh, one of the most beautiful and well known Buddhist temples in the city. This being my first Wat experience, I was awestruck by the sheer quantity of glittering gold and colored glass adorned surfaces, delighted by the ornamental dragons guarding the entrance to each building, and enchanted by the hoards of monks in blaze orange robes. I wandered in and out of buildings, large and small, and found that each contained some sort of Buddha altar, most often clad in gold and surrounded by a beautiful array of figurines and offerings. One rear chamber contained what became one of my favorite Buddha statues, a small but beautiful jade figure, seated in the lotus position, and adorned with a gold crown and dressings. I later discovered that this is actually a replica of the famous Emerald Buddha, which currently resides in Bangkok.
After taking my fill of pictures, I found a patch of floor space that I deemed the most out of the way, in the largest temple room. I sat eavesdropping (though I obviously understood nothing) on a Thai woman consulting a seated monk, and set to sketching the large altar before me. After fifteen minutes or so, my sketching and spying were interrupted by the sound of a band playing outside. Wondering if is was some kind of performance, I wrapped up my drawing, and walked outside in search of the source of the music. What I found, in my opinion, was even better. Beating drums and trumpets led me around the side of the temple complex, where I found myself in the side yard of an adjacent school. I stumbled right into what seemed to be a semi legit school soccer match. Organized in the sense that both sides wore uniforms (yellow and flamingo pink) and the blast of referee's whistle, form some unidentified source, could be heard regulating every few minutes. As far as I could tell, however, the only spectators besides myself and a few other curious tourists, were small groups of the players' peers clad in street clothes and monks' robes alike, intent on cheering on and enthusiastically heckling their peers. I personally like to think the monks refrained from heckling; but, really, it's hard to say. I spent a lovely twenty minutes listening to short bursts of music, which turned out the be the product of high school band practice, watching the game, remembering my own years of school-side soccer games, and thinking the other side of the world is not so different after all.
Later in the evening, after returning to Green Tulip, organizing my next days adventure, and changing into some less travel/sweaty clothing, I stopped by the front desk and asked where I should walk around for the evening. My very helpful hostess pulled out a map, circled a destination and essentially forced me on a fellow traveler, who was headed in search of food in the same direction. Thus began my evening with Jesse, who was making a[n extended] stopover in Thailand, before diving into the Spice Islands and Borneo. Our destination turned out to be the world famous Night Bizarre, on the other side of the old city. The Night Bizarre, or Kad Luang (Royal Market), was historically the place to buy anything and everything in Thailand, and was once largely controlled my Chinese traders. Today the market is distinctly Thai, and has morphed into a square kilometer of shops and stalls dedicated to selling everything from clothing, to hand made crafts, to weird chatchkies. I am not talking Thai chatchkies either. As Jesse and I weaved through the crowded tables and stalls, attempting to take in the visual, auditory, and tangible stimulation from all sides, I couldn't believe the global span of market crap. Those weird stress ball face things that are shoved in your face every two seconds, while trying to enjoy the Trevi Fountain. Check. Those sand filled lizard things made out of patterned fabric, that were all the rage when you were nine. Check. Weird varieties of T-shirts having nothing to do with Thailand. Double Check. After deciding that neither of us really required a hat made out of PBR cans, or an electronic, light up t-shirt, we settled down in an outdoor seafood restaurant and, after an unnecessary amount of difficulty, ordered some delicious squid salad and TomYom Soup.
Over the next few hours I learned the following: Spicy squid salad is delicious. Jesse is originally from Virginia. He has a graduate degree in biology (I think) and, while deciding whether or not to go back for a PhD, has been dividing his time between traveling, teaching semester university courses and specialized summer programs, riding produce trucks to hidden organic farming compounds, and dreaming up his current project. The first stage of the adventure will apparently involve rounding up some hipster, film maker friends from Brooklyn, and carting them off to Borneo. (On that note we spent more than a few minutes laughing and imagining a few skinny-jeaned, blackberry deprived, NY documentary film makers, trekking through uninhabited regions of Borneo. I invite you to do the same) I learned more about evolutionary science than I thought I ever thought I would, on any given evening, and made a mental note to keep tabs on the blog and see how this writing/science/photography/documentary film/personal journey goes down. (It's actually amazing what a quick Google search of, "Jesse, Blog, Darwin, Borneo" will turn up.) After finishing our dinner, we wandered back through the market and towards are guest house. I was glad to have a companion at this point, as the street we walked down to reach the market had, in a few short hours, transformed into the second most flagernt example to the wide spread sex industry, I came across in Thailand. (The first to be addressed in my Bangkok post) We walked quickly through the street, trying not to gawk in disgust at the bars teeming with pot-bellied, middle aged, creepy, white guys surrounded by scantily clad, young Thai girls, played a quick game of live Frogger across the large streets marking our return to the Old City, and made our way back to Green Tulip. I wished him luck on all the thinking, writing, and figuring out he was planning to do in the following week, briefly meditated on the figuring out my own life would soon require, and there we parted ways, bringing to an end one of those lovely evening friendships, that so often pepper a few weeks (or a lifetime) of travel.
The next morning I woke up excited, rolled out of bed, packed my day bag, and shot out the door for a quick cup of coffee. My stomach was grumbling and I was in desperate need of some toast; but, as I had been warned not to eat breakfast, I refrained. You may be asking (or maybe not, because you have seen my photos) "Why would I be given such horrible instructions?" The answer is this; on my second day in Chiang Mai, I signed up for an all day Thai cooking course, at the Siam Rice Thai Cookery School. For those who don't know me that well (if there are any of you actually reading this) I LOVE to cook, almost more than I love to eat. And I love to eat. And I REALLY LOVE to eat Thai food. So, this one was really a no-brainer. I was picked up from the guest house by my instructor, Pad .. or Pot ... or Pod... really unclear, and shuttled, with my classmates, to a local market, where Pot/Pod/Pad introduced us to some of the main ingredients in Thai cooking. My Mom, and Miss Perla, would have been very proud, as I was the only one who recognized Kaffir lime leaves by smell. After some time at the market, we climbed back into the truck and were whisked off to the outskirts of the city to Pad(as he will now be know)'s family home/school facility. We were each instructed to choose 6 items from a list of course options, before donning our aprons, washing are hands, and getting down to business. For the next six hours we chopped, pounded, sliced, fried, lit on fire, and boiled to our hearts content, pausing every two courses to feast on our creations.
My menu included: Lab Kai (Spicy Chicken Salad with Mint), Pad Kra Prao (fried chicken and holy basil), Nam Phtik Kaeng Massaman (handmade massaman curry paste, later turned into delicious Massaman Curry) , TomYam (hot and sour soup), Pad See Eaw (Fried Jelly Noodles), and finally Khao Neeaw Ma Muang (Sticky ride and mango --yumyumyum). While I can never fully describe in words the sounds and smells of the kitchen, please feel free to feast your eyes, and try not to get too jealous.
Siam Rice was a wonderful, and highly recommended, experience, that was capped off with an evening of Thai feast induced food comma spent reading and relaxing on an outdoor patio.
On CM Day 3, I woke up and wandered down the street in search of coffee and eggs, eventually finding a cafe ready to brew me up a delicious latte. This outdoor coffee shop was located precisely across the street from Wat Dubphai, a small temple down the street from my guesthouse. I spent a lovely hour sketching and taking in the scene, along with two enormous cups of coffee, before heading back to GT to grab my bag. I had (very)tentative plan to meet up with Amanda during my time in ChiangMai, and had found a different guesthouse with availability in another part of the city. We had communicated mostly through a series of wishful brain waves and a few chaotic facebook messages; so, after a quick tuktuk ride to the Eastern part of the old city, I spent the day exploring the near by market, having my plans to visit Wat Doi Sutep thwarted by a group of seemingly helpful travelers, and playing hostel tag with Miss Win.
My adventures to Wat Doi Sutep, or lack there of, are a small yet annoying blemish in my travel record in The Land of Smiles (or in this case land of scrunch-browed frustration). Wat Doi Sutep is located a little ways outside of the city, atop a mountain with what I am told are beautiful views looking both out towards the city, and inward at the Wat. I was pretty set on going, however, getting there proved a far greater challenge than I anticipated. On my first attempt, I headed over to a long row of read pickups turned taxis, which advertised round trip rates to a variety of locations. While I knew traveling solo I would likely have to pay a much higher fee slash get ripped off (as it is usually split a few ways), I didn't really see a way around this obstacle. I was just about to hop into one of these overprices taxis, who had actually agreed to drop 200 Baht off the horrifically inflated price, when two other girls came by and asked about the price to the same location. After receiving their answer, these two girls proceeded to totally freak out and say that you could ride from the university for a tenth of the price, and set off in the opposite direction. Now weary that I was being ripped off beyond the usual level, I decided to head towards the university myself. Only problem was, once I got there this secret location you can get Doi Sutep rides from was nowhere to be found (and I had forgotten to grab my lonley planet). To make maters worse, any taxi I found told me it was going to be MORE expensive than the original ride, even though I was already a third of the way to my desired destination. Pissed off, annoyed, grumpy, and sweaty, I said, "the hell with it!" grabbed some dried mango from a local market, and wander back towards the city center. While my DST failure was frustrating, I ended up wandering to a nearly deserted Wat Saundak, where I spent an hour or so, sketching, taking in the visions of beautiful gold and white stuppas set against a brilliant blue sky, a field of white concrete spires and memorials, and the blazing Thai sun dipping low in the sky.
Upon returning to my new, slightly less well kept (yet not with want of character) guesthouse, I found that my early morning game of guest house tag with Amanda had payed off. I read through the note left for me at the front desk, signed up for a one day trek for the following day, and settled in to wait for her with a Chang and my book. (as highly recommended as its predecessor)
Once my flaky, yet wonderful, friend arrived, we filled each other in on our previous weeks adventures over a delicious Thai dinner (both happy to once again have someone to play sharsies with) and set off for an evening of exploring, shopping, and gawking and the Night Bizarre. Amanda, as it turns out, is excellent at bartering, though I think this is largely by accident. Believing her to be playing hard ball, the merchants would lower their price over and over and over again, far lower than you would ever expect. What they didn't realize, of course, is that Amanda cannot make a quick committed decision to save her life (all said out of love, obvi) and was most often just wavering as the whether she actually wanted to buy the item in question. End result, however, is the same. We had an excellent evening roaming the market, window[less] shopping, actually shopping, haggling, giggling, and enjoying ourselves immensely.
Amanda and I parted ways early the next morning to, once again, set off on our own adventures. She had two days left in the city and had signed up for a 2 day trek (jealous), while I myself could afford only one. Trekking trips have become a booming tourist attraction in Northern Thailand, and range from 1 to several days. Most include some portion of hiking, mixed with various combinations of attractions. I spent my last full day in Chiang Mai, hiking in the hills, riding in both whitewater and bamboo rafts, and rambling through open fields perched atop an Elephant with an English dude. Sounds great right? The Elephant riding was really cool and I was happy to be somewhere where they didn't chain up the animals, or tie their feet together. The hiking was sub par, although it was nice to get some fresh air. The rafting, in both cases, was like rafting lite, and unnecessary in my life. Overall, I would not recommend those traveling to ChiangMai to sign up for a trek, if you have only one day to spare. I could have used a bit less rafting riding, a bit more hiking, and a chance to visit one of the hill tribe villages, which seems to be the experience on the longer treks. As always, you live and learn and, incidentally, I learned from my short term English BFF, that there is phenomenal trekking in Laos. So, perhaps a bit more trekking lies in my traveling future.
On my last morning in Chiang Mai, I woke up before the sun, determined as I was to watch the sunrise from Doi Suthep. After coffee and toast, however, I was once again thwarted, this time by my own doubts. I had a plane to catch at 10 and was concerned that I A. would have to head back down before the sun even rose, effectively seeing nothing for my troubles or B. would not make it down in time for my required 8:10 am departure to the airport. Alas, I chalked this one up to fate, and put Doi Sutep at the top of my list for the day I inevitably return to this wonderful city. I instead walked out to the canal to enjoy a sunrise over the city, and weaved through the rows of stalls preparing themselves for the days Flower Festival.
With one last whiff of flowers and incense, and bag of pineapple from the market, I was on my way to Bangkok, for one last adventure.
Anyeong[hikheseyo].
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