Mountain Trip

We decided to go out for the day and Joy who works in the antique shop next to my work had given me the number of a taxi driver and friend (Mr. Chai) who she knows in Thailand .So I gave him a call to see if he would take us on a trip.

Over the phone I could not communicate to him properly that I was a friend of Joy & Mike from England and that was why I was calling because he had been recommended to us. It was not for want of trying though. So I thought I would use him anyway and chat to him in person on the day of the trip.

At 9.00am we met Mr. Chai in the reception of our hotel, he said everybody called him Sanky he did not seem to have any recollection of Mike or Joy which I must admit I felt for sure he would, he just smiled and nodded his head and asked us whether we wanted any music on. His English wasn’t up to much so I was happy to leave the small talk for now and listen to some tunes.

I had a vague idea of where we wanted to go so I told Mr. Chai the king’s Palace, Doi Sutep temple and the national park for a spot of bird watching and I said I was not too keen on any elephant camps or Hmong villages.

We left Chiang Mai centre and soon started to climb a big mountain. Luckily Mr. Chai (Sanky) had a nice air con car and he seemed to be getting up the mountain with some speed and a Zen like philosophy that he could take over anything on any corner and not come a cropper.

Mr. Chai seemed to pass all the attractions that I wished to visit, saying we would call later on the way back so god knows where he was taking us. By the time we reached the top I felt very sick from going round and round the mountain. Then all of a sudden he started going down. I thought this guys having a laugh everything I wanted to see is on the other side of the mountain what’s he playing at I thought and then I convinced myself he was taking me bird watching first so I perked up a bit and got a bit excited it’s not the order I would have liked but still…

We finally arrived and he said “Hmong Village I wait for you in car park.” I was gutted, but I was so desperate to get out the car that I could not be bothered to argue.
The Hmong village as it is called was everything I feared it would be. The village is supposed to give you an idea of how the Hmong tribes live and survive in Thailand.
On the way up the hill there were lots of shops selling all the goods we had previously seen on the Chiang Mai markets, the odd person had the Hmong gear on trying to make it authentic. Mark wandered though all the shops admiring the precious things while I sipped water trying to recover from the journey up.

When at the top we paid a fee of 20 Baht to get in to the Hmong village there was a bit of a shed which had museum pieces in and quite a bit of information about the different hill tribes in Thailand. We spent quite a bit of time reading through everything because we figured this would be the extent of it.

When we emerged from the shed we entered a lovely hill top garden full of different flowers and quite a few Thai tourists had hired the traditional Hmong dress and were posing for pictures. Mark took some pictures for them and then they wanted a picture of themselves with Mark, most odd.
There where Opium poppies growing in one of the flower beds and every one was taking photos of them. To me they looked just like the ones in my parent’s garden and they are definitely not growing Opium. We wandered around for a while took a few photos then we went to the man made waterfall- everything about this place is false. Then we strolled back to meet Mr. Chai and on the way back I did manage to take a picture of one girl in Hmong dress she was probably no more Hmong than you or I but still I seized the opportunity.

We got back in the car and climbed the mountain again to go back down the other side .Well I did not really feel enriched by visiting the Hmong village but I had got over my car sickness. It was not long before we reached the King’s palace which he uses to holiday in. He was not there today though because he was getting ready for the birthday celebrations in Bangkok. When he does come however he arrives by helicopter and I can see why.

Mr. Chai left us outside and then went to park up and said he would meet us in an hour or so. When we went up to the entrance we where not suitably dressed Mark needed to have longer shorts and I needed to have a long sleeved top on. So we decided to sack it off you could hire clothes but I have heard that they can sometimes be old seventies gear with very little style so we did not think that would look too cool on the photos either. So we tried to find Mr. Chai we of course had no luck outside the palace was heaving with tourists and taxi drivers.

In the end I decided to phone him but he did not seem to understand me at all, he just kept saying he was with other clients at the moment and when I asked him to pick us up he said about 4pm. The time then was only 11.30am so I was rather confused. I kept saying I was outside the palace and we could not go in. He still said he was with a friend and could not pick us up until 4pm.

We were mystified and stranded on the top of a mountain .We tried looking around for him in the baking sun, getting a bit frustrated so far we had managed to see a Hmong village that was not on our agenda and now we were stuck for the rest of the day outside a major tourist attraction

I tried ringing him again and his phone was switched off this has got to be a wind up.
Eventually Mr. Chai called us and said he is coming now and as soon as I said good bye he emerged. Something did not add up he greeted us like we had not even had any conversations. We said are you Mr. Chai? Have we just spoken to you on the phone? We did not get a straight answer to that. This led us to believe that he was not Mr. Chai and he was just pretending to be and they call him Sanky because that is indeed his real name.

We put all this aside and asked where the national park is for bird watching it turns out the mountain is the national park. So we stopped some where on the way down so I could look for birds but unfortunately did not see one single bird.

Onwards and upwards or in our case downwards, next stop Doi Stuiep. I was a bit concerned about this one because it was red hot in the morning when we set off and I absent mindedly put a vest top on and as this was a temple where the correct clothes is a long sleeved top. I purchased a top from one of the shops outside the temple it wasn’t the best and had an elephant on but never mind.

We paid our fee of 50 Baht each and took the chair lift to the top. The temple grounds were beautiful and there was a good view of Chiang Mai city. We wandered around taking it all in and had a spot of lunch in the coffee shop while many people chimed the large bells around the temple.

After lunch I put on my silly elephant top its just like all the ones I refused to buy on the markets in Chiang Mai but never mind and we went inside the temple which was almost completely covered in gold and very elaborate we spent considerable time inside because it was so stunning. Many people had come to pray and chat to the monks which was nice to see.

We then came out of the temple and back into the grounds. We wandered around a little while longer then took the chair lift back down to Sanky. Overall an ejoyable day out.

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