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Published: March 12th 2012
Panorama View Above: Chinese Temple near Chiang Mai.
At the
Borsang Umbrella Festival, a few kilometres east of Chiang Mai, not only do they hand paint the fans and umbrellas but they'll
also hand paint decorations on your T-shirt, jeans, cell phone or in my case (see photo) eyeglass case.
Just click on the link.
Be sure to scroll down and see all
30 photos in this blog.
Click on any photo to
enlarge.
Chiang Mai Hiking: My hiking boots needed a new sole and the normal shoe-repair shop is a guy on the street corner. They couldn't re-attach my Rockport soles and wanted to replace them with discarded soles that they had on hand. The white running-shoe sole was especially attractive. I got information from a long term resident that there was an old leper colony hospital that made proshetics and would be able to replace the soles properly. Myself and a friend decided to do an urban-hike and find the place.
On
Umbrella Festival
Beauty contestantsour walk to
McKean Rehab Centre, we stopped at a special looking
Chinese Temple (the panorama photo above). Walking into the Tiger's mouth then exiting under its tail to enter into the Dragon allowed one to continue along some elaborately painted walls before exiting his mouth. This is meant to be especially auspicious in this Year Of The Dragon.
When I went back a week later, by myself to pick up my boots, I noticed a Thai/Chinese hotel behind the temple offering an elaborate buffet. At first there was a single table of half a dozen hotel guests enjoying the food. That by itself was pathetic since there must have been tables for a couple hundred people. But then they left and I was alone with a paino player, a singer, half dozen staff...and all the ice cream I could eat (and no one to point and snicker at my large portions).
The old McKean Leper Colony, now
McKean Rehabilitation Centre, is about 5 miles south of where I live.
In 1904, Dr James McKean spent 4 months getting to Siam from San Francisco and 8 weeks
travelling up river from Bangkok to set
Borsang Village
Hand Painting an umbrella up a post. At first he dealt with smallpox victims then
lepers started approaching him on an island that the ruler had offered him. The ruler's white elephant was banished here.
Its spirit is said to still roam about and there is a elephant mount platform on the grounds, I guess, just in case.
Every February for the last 30 years there's been a
Flower Festival parade in Chiang Mai. This year was no exception. (see photo)
Chiang Mai hiking club is getting so popular that they are discouraging new participants in various ways.
It is nice to get out of the city and its pollution.
Another annual event is the
Royal Flora Rajapruek. I went because I heard good things about it, not because I love flowers. It turned out to be worthwhile and I wish I had gone earlier in the season when it was cooler. It is sooo spacious. Not only did they have flower displays but they had exhibits from numerous countries including Ethiopia, Iran and even Canada. Exhibits showed how self-sufficiency is being encouraged in 89 small communities throughout Thailand.
"Why buy propane, when gas is available from your livestock?" Exhibits showed how to grow mushrooms, how to provide fertilizer for crops, and many other cost-free projects. Here also was an international competition for coffee and fruits from neighbouring countries and countries as far away as Latin America. There was a large walk-in butterfly-farm and an insect exhibit which showed the variety of strange and wicket looking insects of S-E Asia.
March 7, 2012
Sala Kaew Ku Sculpture Park, in Nong Khai:
I made a visit to
Udon Thani to say hello to a friend (I travelled with 30 years ago). It's an overnight bus ride to get to the pleasant large flat city. After a day or two we took a day trip to Nong Khai near the Laos border to see a unique sculpture park.
see photos. From the bus station at Nong Khai the hordes of tuk-tuk drivers descend on you offering a trip to the sculpture park. We ended up taking an overpriced bus ride there then walked the two miles back to the bus station.
Udon Thani is quite large with lots of song taews for transport at only 10 Baht per
ride. In contrast to Chiang Mai it has sidewalks...for pedestrians! not for food kiosks or motorcycle parking or businesses. And the rural planners embedded man-made lakes in the city which the various Chinese "clubs" embellished with temples and rest areas to make a really pleasant area. Thankfully the rural planners were largely influenced by the US military which had an airbase there during the Vietnam War.
(Thankfully "were influenced" not thankfully "had an airbase there") If you have a google account you can see a few more of my sculpture park photos at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=MungoStJohn&target=ALBUM&id=5717918621878025329&locked=true&authkey=Gv1sRgCNrezaqyv_WmjwE&feat=email . Then CLICK on "
slideshow" for best view.
Sunday March 25th: Back in Chiang Mai I tried out my new-soled hiking boots on a 13 km hike around Huay Lan 3 Dams Loop. We managed to complete the hike in 4.5 hours. see photos
NEWS ITEMS: The end of February is when farmers start burning their fields. This causes a lot of pollution in Chiang Mai which is in a bowl-valley. There is a daily rating of the small particles (<10
μ) that can go deep into the lungs and are especially dangerous because they stay there. People wear masks and those prone
Hand painting at Borsang Umbrella Festival
For a small amount they'll paint an Asian design,
on your hat, t-shirt, cell phone case etc. On my eye glass case it was a dragon because this is year of the dragon. to allergies suffer a great deal. The smog combined with the hot season mean that this is a popular time for foreigners to leave . Fires are common. A couple of years ago my train passed right through a burning area. (see:
March 2009 blog entry) and some trekking groups tell of running through fields of fire. The pollution and nightmare pedestrian scenario are the worse things about Chiang Mai.
March 2012 www.Thaivisa.com
Nok Air, meanwhile, has cut its five daily flights to Mae Hong Son down to four due to poor visibility from smoke.
...a 76 year-old Lampang native who suffered from severe asthma hanged herself yesterday because she could no longer bear the suffering
CHIANG MAI: -- High levels of a toxin contained in the harmful haze that is currently blanketing nine upper northern provinces have been found in the urine of people who live near areas where burning and forestfires are common.
EXTRAS:
Note: Thailand is ranked third, behind Cambodia and Laos, when it comes to consuming RAT meat. Ther's lots of publicity about saving truckloads of dogs from being sent to Vietnam for eating. But there are so many uncared
for street dogs they do pose a danger and lead pitiful lives.
Note: Beggars and the homeless can be seen at tourist attractions, fresh markets and flea markets. Most are from other provinces and come to Phuket to make a living begging or are forced into the human trafficking trade. They include children, women, the disabled and the elderly and there are both Thai citizens and foreign nationals. Beggars in Phuket earn a good living with some making as much as 500 baht a day. That's more than a teacher makes in Thailand. Average monthly wage of a waitress is about 4,000 baht.
An increasingly common newspaper headline: "Thai traffic kills another Swede":
According to the Swedish paper, Aftonbladet, the Swede was a 60 year old man who was driving a big motorbike as he was hit from behind by a pickup truck. Driver of pickup ran away.
News Item, re: holiday resort of Phuket: "Senators worried about Phuket beating, cheating, intimidating tourists"
March 2012:
Deputy Premier Chalerm Yoobamrung vowed to change the law to ensure that drug dealers who are sentenced to death are executed within 30 days of the final verdict in their
cases.
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