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Published: December 3rd 2009
Patsy in Chiang Mai Chiang Mai, Thailand We took an overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. An overnight train is where you sit on a seat until bedtime, and then someone comes and makes the seat into a bed and puts down a top bunk so you can sleep on the train. The beds were comfortable enough. We didn’t sleep great, because it was kind of jerky, but it was better than without beds.
At 6 in the morning or so, the train stopped for an hour and sat still. Then it went back and forth on land we had already seen. Finally it went forward.
When we got to Chiang Mai, we took a red pickup truck taxi. It had a cover over the back and benches along the back of the pickup.
We’ve been in Chiang Mai for five weeks. Chiang Mai is really fun.
Here are some thoughts about Chiang Mai:
What I liked best. The apartment we’re staying in. It has two bedrooms, a little kitchen, and a living room. We haven’t had a house-like thing yet this trip. Instead we’ve had hotel rooms. Most of the hotel rooms
have been about the size of a bed, but the apartment is a lot bigger. It’s huge, compared to where we’ve stayed before.
I sleep in a bedroom with Ella and Jordan. There are very comfortable beds with thick blankets. There is a desk where Jordan can write on her computer. There is a big dresser where we can keep our clothes. There are lots of windows.
The living room has a very comfortable couch. A couch is a big luxury, whether you realize it or not. It has a TV, but most of the channels are in Thai or German or some other European language. They have cartoons that are at home, like Scooby Doo, except they’re in Thai usually.
The kitchen has a sink and a stovetop where we can make pasta, and a fridge and a microwave.
The apartment has two porches too, and the doors open up so the air can come in. It’s beautiful weather, so that’s fun.
What I liked least. Ooh, that’s a lot harder. But probably the visa run. It’s not bad, but it’s a full day of driving.
We have to make a visa run
because you have to have a visa to get in a country. And the visa runs out of days, and you have to go to another country to renew it and get more days on your visa so you can spend more time in Thailand (or whatever country you’re in).
For our visa run, we had to go to the border of Burma (also called Myanmar), which is a 4 ½ hour drive from Chiang Mai.
We drove in a minibus. It was a very nice minibus, and the roads were nice getting to Burma. It’s in the mountains, so the roads were curvy, but they weren’t bumpy, so it was alright.
When we got to Burma, we crossed over the border and walked around in a market on the other side. It was crowded with stalls and people, and we didn’t stay there very long. We crossed back over to Thailand, and walked around the market on that side, which was much less crowded, with less people coming up to you and saying, “Buy this or buy that” or whatever.
We walked around for about 2 hours, then got back in the minibus and drove
back to Chiang Mai. We’re having to do this twice, to be able to stay in Thailand as long as we want.
It wasn’t really bad, but everything else in Chiang Mai has been really fun.
The most fun I had. I don’t know, because it’s all fun. I really liked when we went to this save-the-elephant camp. We got to feed mommy and baby elephants, and ride elephants.
We sat on this bench that had been harnessed to the elephants and went on a ride. It was very high up and kind of jerky, especially at first until you got used to it. It kind of gave you the feeling that you were on a roller coaster, except that you weren’t going as fast (and you were on an elephant).
We went on a trail through the jungle in the elephant camp. There was a guy sitting on the elephant’s neck who was somehow steering it and making it go. Purple Cows find riding on elephants very fascinating. We did not see any Purple Elephants.
The most like home. Eating in at our apartment. We haven’t been able to eat in any, because nowhere
we’ve been has had a kitchen. The most common meals we eat in our apartment are pasta, omelette, and bread and cheese and cucumber.
It’s really fun to be able to make the meals and eat them at a kitchen table, instead of in a restaurant. It’s completely normal at home to eat at a kitchen table, but having not done it for 2 months, it’s really weird in a really fun way. It’s something familiar at home, but after you travel for a while it becomes a special thing.
The cutest thing I saw. On the first night we were here, we saw a dog in a baby carrier on someone’s belly. It had bows in its hair, and it was wearing a little sweater. It had a very spoiled look on its face. It was adorable.
There are lots and lots of dogs that are princesses. They all look like they’ve just been groomed, and they have sweaters and bows and poofy fur. Most of them are Shih-Tzus, but there are a good many Pomeranians.
Another princess we saw was wearing a sweater, standing on a table, and had the only fan around blowing
at it. It looked as if that were the right thing to be done - like it certainly deserved to have the only fan around blowing on it. It was a black Pomeranian, at a night market stall selling dog sweaters and dresses.
We also went to the Chiang Mai zoo, and saw a baby panda. It was about the size of a very chubby, very furry, medium-sized dog.
There were four panda keepers and a wooden playground for the panda. It was not a very good climber, but it tried, and with the help of the four panda-keepers, it did manage to get up a ways - and then had to get lifted down. It was very clumsy, and it would fall over and flop down. It needed the help of four people.
It was named Ling Ping, and it was born at the Chiang Mai zoo. It was the first panda born in Thailand - all the rest of them come from China.
The best food I ate. Everywhere else, my favorite food has been eating out somewhere. But here it’s been eating in.
I really like pasta with butter and parmesan and
Too Many Sweaters
This lady was taking a fleece sweater off her princess.tomato sauce. Either that or bread and cheese and cucumber is my favorite.
Bread and cheese and cucumber is best when the bread is still warm. One time we got bread and it was so fresh that it was still warm.
The grocery store that we buy bread at is beautiful. It is fancy and clean and you can find any Western food you would ever want there. A grocery store might not seem like a big deal, but it is. Because we haven’t really needed a grocery store yet, and this is a particularly nice one.
We also ate some good food out. We ate Thai chicken rice, which I’ve described before.
We also ate at a Mexican restaurant called Miguel’s. We haven’t eaten Mexican food any, and this was really good Mexican food, as good as Mexico or the US.
For Thanksgiving, instead of eating turkey, we went to a place called The Sizzler. It had a salad bar you could go back to unlimited times. It was very fun.
The weirdest food I ate. At a night market we got a pork dumpling, which was a round piece of bread filled
with flavored pork (like barbecue) and chopped up greens. It didn’t taste like barbecue, but it was the same idea. It was sort of like a sandwich, except with bread all around. It had a filling, too, instead of sandwich stuff in it.
There were lots of weird foods at the night market, but that’s the only one I actually tried. Purple Cows are not huge fans of weird food.
The most interesting thing I did. Probably the elephant camp, because I’ve never really been around elephants except in zoos.
Where we slept. We slept in an apartment, which we already described.
Where we ate. We ate mostly in our apartment, but sometimes we would to a chicken rice restaurant. At the chicken rice restaurant, you order, and the person who takes your order yells across the room to the cook. Your food arrives about a minute later. It’s really fast and loud.
Sometimes we also go to a curry restaurant. I don’t like it, because Purple Cows don’t like curry, but other people do. When we go to the curry restaurant, me and Ella eat in, and everyone else eats out.
How we
got around. Mostly we walked. When we would go somewhere that is hard to walk to, or too far to walk, we take a pickup truck taxi, which we described earlier.
Chiang Mai’s Old City. There used to be a wall that ran around Chiang Mai. Now the wall is gone, but there are five gates that mark the outlines of the old city. There’s also a moat that runs along the outside of the old city walls. We live about a five minute walk from Thae Pae Gate, one of the main gates. It’s a little unusual for a town to have a moat and gates that used to wall it in. The town has extended past the walled city, but the walled city is still the center of town.
Loy Krathong. Loy Krathong is a Thai holiday that happens at a full moon every year in the fall. It seemed like everyone in Chiang Mai was packed into an area of around five blocks.
There were people who would set off floating paper lanterns or balloons that would fill with hot air and take off. You would light a fire ring thing that had metal
wires going out from it so that the paper wouldn’t catch on fire. The paper balloon filled with hot air, and after a while it would take off into the sky.
They looked like fairy lights or golden stars, and there were hundreds of them. They sky was filled with them. It looked magical.
There were other things to Loy Krathong. They had a parade, and put little floats out onto the river. But the lanterns were the neatest thing to me. Purple Cows like light.
Care for Dogs. Twice we went out of Chiang Mai a bit to a place called Care for Dogs, which was a rescue dog place. It had a pen full of puppies that were very eager for love and loving. They were little, the size of a bunny rabbit.
I named my two favorites Frisky and Feisty, because one was frisky and one was feisty. They were brother and sister. Feisty was black. He would chew on you until you loved him. The first time we went, Frisky would crawl all over you. The second time we went, Frisky would sleep on your lap.
The puppies were really cute.
Lots of the puppies came from Buddhist temples or monasteries. When people can’t take of the dogs, they would bring them to the temples, and the temples sometimes call Care for Dogs.
It was fun to go there. I volunteered a couple of hours each time we went.
Walking Streets. Every Saturday and Sunday night, Chiang Mai blocks off a big street and makes it pedestrian. There are stalls selling trinkets and crafts on either side of the street, and people walk down the middle of it.
In Thai temples on either side, there are food courts with strange, unidentifiable Thai foods.
It’s fun to look at what all the stalls are selling, because a lot of it is really nice. There are things like colorful pouches that come from hill tribes in Northern Thailand, which are sort of like Native Americans in the US.
It’s crowded in a fun way, not chaotic but happy, kind of. It also seems very organized. It’s Thai people and tourists both.
One time Ella bought a T-shirt with Chiang Mai sort of sewed on the shirt. Unfortunately, they didn’t have sizes for Purple Cows there. There were
10,000 Monks
There was a gathering of 10,000 monks. lots of stalls for the princessy dogs, though, and some of those outfits might have fit me….
Reading. There is a library here, like there was in Ubud (in Bali). Me and Ella read a lot. It’s nice to have reading choices.
Chiang Mai is my favorite place. Chiang Mai is my favorite place so far, mostly because of the apartment and the fact that we can eat in. And it’s just a nice town that’s neither particularly big nor particularly small. You can walk around it for a day and not have to see the same thing twice, but it isn’t huge.
There are also a lot of alleyways here, and I like that. They aren’t really roads, so you can walk down the middle of them. They’re fun to walk around, and there’s lots of them.
The weather is nice here too. Every day is like a perfect spring day at home - sunny but cool, and blue sky, and often breezy (but not windy). It hasn’t rained yet. Simply beautiful.
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Louisa Goebel
non-member comment
sweaters for dogs
Hello, Purple Cow, It seems strange that sweaters are so popular for the dogs when the weather is not cold. As you hinted, it must be for show! Glad you were able to sit with the dogs for a while, interesting! The elephant ride sounded fun. The panda picture is very funny. I feel like that more and more! Give Ella our love, Louisa and Paul