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As I walked down to wait for the bus yesterday, I saw a black cockerel and wondered it it was the alarm c(l)ock. It was just the same as other male chickens except that it was completely black, comb and all. Then, as I was waiting, I saw a strange creature that I thought might have been a centipede or millipede. Only it doesn't look like either of those as pictured by Wikipedia. I tood a picture of it, so I may be able to find out what it was. I asked a young boy who was sweeping the place up what it was but he just indicated that it could give you a nasty sting (or maybe make you very itchy in some other way). Actually, I think maybe it was a millipede.
The bus was a quarter of an hour late and was already fairly full up. I hadn't been looking forward to this journey but the bus was much better than I'd expected. It was realy like an air conditioned coach. It was a bus, though. It stopped at bus stops in each town through which we passed and the conductress walked backwards and forwards taking fares and giving tickets.
One of the passengers was a monk in his bright orange costume. I was surprised that he had some luggage with him that had to go in the hold. Thai monks are only allowed eight possessions and I think two of those relate to the bright orange costume, so you wouldn't expect them to have much luggage. But he was probably taking some stuff to his monastery (wats are monasteries as well as being temples).
I had a seat by a window and spent much of the journey looking out at the countryside. There were some odd looking sheep - bony and thin with no fleece. They looked like pygmy cows and, perhaps, that's what they were.
Most of the passengers on the bus were only going from town to town, not all the way to Chiang Mai, so the make up of the passengers continued to change. Nealry all, though, seemed to be Thai. There were only a few who looked western. The Thai who were going to Chiang Mai did look as though they were tourusts, not commuters.
The way to Chiang Mai was marked on my Thailand map and I followed our progress along Highway 12 to
Tak (I misread this place name as Tax at first) and then along Highway 1 to Lampang, before turning onto Highway 11 which led to Chinag Mai. The bus stopped for about twenty minutes in Tak and Lampang, so passengers could refresh themselves and buy water or other drinks.
I'd meant to bring a bottle of water with me, but forgot and left it in the guesthouse. It worked out right I suppose, because I'd taken a roll of toilet paper from them just in case, so that will have been my payment.
The bus actually arrived a few minutes early in Chiang Mai, getting there at about quarter to two. So the journey time was actually just over 5 hours, rather than five and a half. It really hadn't been a bad journey and I'd managed to doze off a couple of times and found the rest of the journey very interesting.
As soon as I got off the bus in Chiang Mai, even before I'd had a chance to retrieve my luggage, I was besieged by several tuk tuk and taxi drivers wanting to know if I had a hotel. I did, so I showed one of them the brochure - BMP Resident, standing for Backpackers' Meeting Place.
I tried to follow where we were going but found it too confusing. I did notice a couple of Starbucks and a McDonalds as we drove through the town. It was quite a long ride and we ended up going down some quite narrow alleys before he found the place.
I showered and changed and went out for a walk around the town. Central Chiang Mai is quite easy to navigate because it is completely surrounded by a moat! The walls are only there in a few places but the moat has been restored and, effectively, serves as a barrier on a dual carriageway that goes round the old twown centre. However, the roads on either side of the moat are, in fact, treated as though they are separate and given different names.
The old town, marked out by the moat, is about a square mile, so similar to the city of London.
Walking more or less randomly through the town I saw many beautiful wats, and also many shops, restaurants and cafes. There are a great many second hand book shops with English books on sale.
I was running a bit low on Thai money so I tried to get some more from an ATM. BUt it wouldn't give me any and I realised that there was a problem. So I phoned First Direct and sorted it out. I had already told the I was going to Thailand! I was a bit annoye dwith myself for getting upset with the bank - Thailand hasn't sufficiently chilled me out yet!
By then it was starting to get dark, so I walked over to the night market which is outside the city moat. This was very interesting. It is left over from the days when Chiang Mai was a place where caravans from China would meet before exporting goods via Chiang Mai to Burma and the west.
I bought a couple of t shirts for 200 baht (GBP4) but was mostly just looking around at the ornaments and magic tricks and clothes and foodstuffs and what nots on sale there. The market is very big and extensive and is covered in part and is really a sort of bazaar like the one in Instanbul. There is a lot of bargaining that goes on.
I was looking at a sign offering a Happy Hour for Thai massage, as that struck me as unusual, when someone came out and asked if I wanted a massage. I had been thinking of waiting until after my trek but I was quite tired from walking by then, so I went in.
I ended up getting the massage, which lasted an hour, and also my feet and hands manicured and pedicured too - first time someone else has cut my nails for me since I was a child.
At the end of the massage my masseuse brought me over a cup of ginger tea, very strong, to drink. I hadn't seen any other clients getting that. Maybe she'd identified a ginger deficiency in me in the course of her work!
Then I went back to the hotel to sleep.
This morning I went on a walking tour of the city as advised by my guidebook. Wat Chiang Man, the oldest wat in the city, then the Three Kings Monument in the centre, with the Chaing Mail City Arts & Cultural Centre next to it. The Arts & Cultural Centre was really good and explained a lot about Chiang Mai and Lanna culture.
I'd been surprised to read in a book in Daunt Books that north Thailand had been a separate kingdom until the 20th century. It seems that north Thailand fell under Burmese occupation a couple of hundred years before the big invasion when the temples in the south were all destroyed and the Ayutthaya kingdom was ended. When General Takhsin (King Takhsin as he became) drove the Burmese out, he also liberated northern Thailand but did not claim it as his kingdom, setting up a king there who would pay tribute to him. This continued when, a few years later, the present line of Thai kings took over.
But in the late nineteenth century, when all countries in South East Asia had been colonised apart from Thailand, the king decided to unite the kingdoms. This was done gradually and only iin 1939 was the process complete when the last native Lanna ruler died.
Then I walked onto Wat Phan Tao which is built of teak wood and to the neighbouring Wat Chedi Luang. Finally I walked down to Wat Phra Singh where I again freed some birds. I wonder if they are homing birds and the vendors get to charge several times for the freedom of each bird.
This evening at the hotel we will have a meeting about the trek tomorrow. I'm getting a bit worried - I don't mind walking for three hours, but three days! We'll see . .
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Tara
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Trek!
Can't wait to hear how the trek went!