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Published: February 5th 2023
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Arriving and getting through the airport on a domestic flight took no time at all. Landed at 17.10 and was in my accommodation 40 minutes later, which is a record. As you go outside there are 2 choices of taxi, metered and a flat rate of 150bt to anywhere in the city. I chose this one and showed the guy where my sort of home stay was, as it’s down a little back street . He found it easily. It’s called Pissamorn House, after the very well presented lady who owns it and lives next door. Her English is brilliant. As she is 70 she couldn’t help me carry my case up the 2 flights of stairs, which was a pity since my back is wrecked after going headlong in someone’s garden on Koh Mook. I’d asked for a quiet room and it so is, if a bit dark. The wallpaper is something from the 1940s but the aircon and lovely bathroom are such treats. £25 a night and I slept so well.
Pissamorn told me that it was a festival day, and showed me where I had to go to see it, in the park in the SW corner
of the old town. It was nearly dark by the time I set off and I had no real idea where I was. The streets were insane with traffic and it was such a struggle to walk along with hardly any pavements and loads of scooters. It was very disorienting, very grateful for google maps. I did find it and it was a flower festival with amazing floats which had paraded through the town, all made of flowers and some planted displays with very familiar (to westerners) arrangements of tulips, hydrangeas etc. There were some street food stalls and I had a crispy mussel omelette. We are very far from the sea here so I wondered if it was a good idea and it was delicious, 80bt. I thought I’d go in a bar for a beer on the way back but I am so in the wrong part of town for that, it is really just a restaurant area. I was very put off by the crowds and confusing streets.
This morning the roads were very quiet at 08.30am and google helped me out with where to take my laundry. There are a lot of coin op launderettes
but the instructions are not easy, even in English. Again, there’s a lack of the usual we do your laundry places. I found one for 40bt a kilo and dropped off my foetid garments, ready in 24 hours. Then I had breakfast in a cute cafe and booked onto a tour for tomorrow to see the long neck tribes and Hmong market in the mountains. I’m not sure what I’ll think about it. I definitely didn’t want anything to do with elephants, they can feed and clean themselves without any help, and the Chiang Rai temples I can see when I’m there later in the week,
Google was also helpful with where the best place is to get a songthaew to Wat Doi Suthep so I walked to the gate in the walls in the north and it was easy, people were waiting until we had 10 and it was 120bt for a round trip. The road is very windy and up the mountain, takes about 35 mins. The driver said to be back in 90 mins, which was the perfect time. You have to climb up loads of steps and it was heaving with people. At the top
you pay 30bt (foreigners only). There were many monks and I queued for a blessing and a bracelet. You could buy flower offerings and one lady presented a monk with a gift basket of 3 ornately wrapped bottles of water. The monks even had their own qr code for donations!
There is a viewpoint but there was so much haze you couldn’t see the city at all, which was a shame. A group of girls in their 20s were wearing gorgeous traditional clothes and taking pics of each other. When I asked what the clothes were for (didn’t seem to be a wedding) the6 said they’d hired them in the town for 380bt for 4 hours, just for photos. After going back down and then into town I went to the cool and trendy Fern Forest Cafe. They have live jazz on a Sunday lunchtime and I sat outside in the garden. It had a long queue outside when I left, I guess it was the most popular time to go. I had lemon juice with butterfly pea flowers and cream coconut pie, yum. I walked back and there are temples everywhere you go.
Now for a rest
before the night market.
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