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Published: April 20th 2005
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Doi Suthep Temple
On a mountain, just outside of Chiang Mai Last week I went up to Chiang Mai and Pai in the north of Thailand for a week. Chiang Mai is a very popular city on the backpacker circuit, though I reserve judgement. It’s terribly polluted, just like Bangkok, and its kind of like Khao Sanh but bigger - ie. lots and lots of backpackers with braids and fisherman’s pants and a few Thai people. I wasn’t that taken with it during the day - due to pollution and prevalence of ugly buildings - but quite liked it at night. However, I didn’t leave the touristy areas of Chiang Mai city and three days is too short a time to judge a place. Apparently the pretty areas are the parts of town where the tourists don’t go… go figure.
The first day I went up to Doi Suthep, the mountain outside Chiang Mai city which has a wat (temple) on it and one of the Royal Palaces. It was wonderful. I could breathe! When I got there I realised that all I really wanted from my holiday was some relatively cool, not sticky air and fresh air. (Hence why Chiang Mai was disappointing.) I looked around the temple and palace
with a Japanese girl, Ai, and went so slowly, because I wanted to bask in the gloriously cool and non-polluted for as long as possible. I gulped down the air.
The next day I went on a one-day ‘trek’ (ha!) which was a bit crap really. I booked with Ai and she really really wanted an elephant ride, so we got this crappy easy touristy trek… and then I wasn’t even on the same minivan as Ai! So I sat on an elephant for an hour, which is remarkably uncomfortable, but it was pretty cool to see the elephants badgering us for bananas and bamboo sticks - one elephant continually swung its trunk back onto the top of its head, asking the tourists on its back for more food, and wouldn’t move till it got some! Then we sat on bamboo rafts for an hour, and passed at least three other ‘trekking’ groups on elephants crossing the river. Then we ate and then we were driven to a Karen village where we got to stare at the tribal peoples in their huts with their pigs and chickens and one woman obliged us by being all ethnic and doing some
weaving. It was awful, walking through their homes and just watching them live, as though they were live museum exhibits. Thailand has not recognised its hill tribe communities as Thai until recently, so they’ve been stateless, without citizenship, and thus incredibly vulnerable to violence and abuse. Moving between villages has been difficult as you are obliged to carry an identity card in Thailand and so those without ID - which many hill tribe people still are - are vulnerable to arbitrary detention by the police, beatings, rape, extrajudicial killings etc. They also have not been able to access the Thai education or health systems. They’ve had no representation in Parliament. Etc. etc. In response to international outrage and international and national campaigns, the Thai government has started registering hill tribe people as Thai citizens, and thus regularising their legal status and allowing them some freedoms… but of course, this has been patchy and many hill tribe people remain without papers. Our annoying perky tour guide with a dreadful sense of humour made a big point of showing us that these villagers had been registered so I suspect that most of the hill tribe peoples who have been registered as citizens
are those most likely to come into contact with tourists. I guess there is an advantage to being a living museum exhibit after all. Anyway, after staring at the Karen people, we looked at a waterfall, then looked at some more Karen people, and then went back to Chiang Mai. It was a thoroughly inspiring experience. Not! Much more inspiring was the VW Combi van bar I found that night with Fiona, an English woman I was hanging out with - it was set up on the street, with just a few bar stools couple of tables. We were drawn by the loud hip hop music but remained there due to the friendly (and cute 😉)Thai bar staff and the cheap cocktails ($2!). Unfortunately they didn’t play us any Thai hip hop.
Pai was great. Unfortunately I was only there for just over 24 hours, but it’s this tiny little village, with cool, unpolluted air, mountains and fields surrounding it, lots of waterfalls nearby etc. I stayed in a bamboo hut by this LOUD river. It’s really struck me here, the volume of water - rivers, waterfalls - they’re so loud. It’s amazing what a bit of water can
do! Nothing like our drought-stricken Australia where the noise of birds and insects is louder than the trickles of water which usually passes for waterfalls.
I also ate fabulous food. That is one plus of huge numbers of backpackers - that there is a market (and supply) of yum Thai vegetarian food. I also met wonderful people. I met a Swiss Nina who’s really sweet, and two men who believe that prostitution is inherently exploitative and violence against women!! Oh my giddy aunt. I spent a lot of time deep in discussion with intelligent, interesting people. It was great.
Next week I’m going to Cambodia for work and my mate Soph is coming to stay for almost two weeks this Friday. Plus I’m starting to get friends and discover cool places to go which is so exciting. On the weekend, Carin, my Swedish friend, and I went to these art galleries which were so Berlin. The galleries were in converted houses, so it was really interesting to see the insides of these ex-Chinese style shophouses - we probably spent more time looking at the buildings, and the views from the balconies and windows, than at the art! It
already seems like I don’t have that much time left here. You know it can be really frustrating, and its so polluted here, and it can be lonely, but for some reason, I walk around with a smile on my face all the time.
xxx
Nina.
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