North to Chiang Mai

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Chiang Mai is much like Bangkok but better and without the crowds, the language slower and softer sounding; we were now closer to the “real” Thailand. The hotel we were booked in (for one night only) catered to large western tour groups and was not for us. The hotel we really wanted is called River Ping Palace. I found it on the tripadvisor.com website. This is the best travel website I have ever found. We have used it to find good hotels and restaurants all over the world. River Ping Hotel was full according to the travel agent in Bangkok so we ended up at the Chiang Mai Gate. This hotel gave us our first experience with traditional Thai bathrooms. The shower stalls in Thai bathrooms are the entire bathroom with a handheld shower on one of the walls. You have to be careful and move the towels and toilet paper out of splash zone or you’ll be sorry. The nicer hotels had “American style” bathrooms.

Chiang Mai is famous for its night bazaar. Each night, around 7pm, the sidewalks are taken over with vendor’s large push carts and tables, selling all kinds of goods. Chiang Mai, being in northern Thailand, gets lots of crafts brought in from the nearby mountain tribes and villages. It was like going to Pier One and Cost Plus, but 100 times better, and much cheaper with most of it being excellent quality. The bazaar just goes on and on and on. We were there most of our nights in town and we usually stayed 4 hours each time. Now remember we are not big shoppers, so if you are, just figure you would be there from 7pm until they close at 1AM and still only see about ½ of it.

So, our first night in town and we were anxious to check out this “Night Bazaar”, but we were also starving. Once we got a quick look at how overwhelming and huge the night bazaar was, we decided we needed some food before we tackled it. We had walked down one of the side streets and found some German and English restaurants. There was actually a German beer garden type place that looked pretty good. The staff were in traditional German costume and the place was decorated authentically. It was strange so see the Thai staff wearing lederhosen (the leather shorts) and a Buddha statue next to a Black Forest cuckoo clock and a beer stein. Once we saw the menu it became even stranger. It was very international with dishes from different countries. I ended up eating pizza and drinking fresh coconut juice from a coconut with an umbrella sticking out of it; all in a German restaurant. After that it was time to stroll and shop. We had already decided what we wanted to buy so it was just a matter of finding the right piece for the right price and the right merchant.

The next morning, we gave Noot (our spunky, little Thai travel gal that picked us up at the airport) a call to see if she could help with some travel plans. When we met her at the airport we took an immediate liking to her and decided she would be our best friend in Thailand. We gave her a call and she came right over and met us in the lobby. We gave her a list of what we needed and she had us completely hooked up with reservations for everything inside of 15 minutes via her trusty cell phone. That girl was impressive. She booked all our airplane tickets, arranged for our hotel in Pai and Krabi and got us booked into our first choice hotel in Chiang Mai for the rest of our stay. We packed our bags and headed to our new hotel; the River Ping Palace.

This place had gotten such glowing reviews from other travelers on tripadvisor.com I knew it would be a sure thing. It only has 10 rooms and is a 150 year old teakwood 2 story home turned into a hotel and restaurant. The owner, Esther, not only runs the hotel and restaurant but also has a cooking school on the premises. It is located right on the banks of the River Ping, across the water from the Chiang Mai Sheraton hotel. Very traditional Thai rooms but the best part (to Mike’s delight) was the strong air conditioning. There was a 4 poster bed (hard mattress as usual) and everything was teakwood; floors, ceiling, walls, doors, everything. We decided to take the afternoon off to nap and relax. While Mike cranked up the a/c unit I went outside to take in the quiet, catch up on the journal and watch the river; a silky muddy color with occasional pieces of bamboo and other stuff floating downstream, insects buzzing around and fish snapping at them. As I sat at the small table and bench outside our ground floor room, I was surrounded by huge palm fronds, bamboo and greenery and kept company by the 2 resident dogs, who pretty much ignored me. I knew we were in the city but couldn’t really hear anything; the river setting was so peaceful that I started feeling lazy so I laid back on the bench for awhile. I was watching all these small birds up in the sky, darting around and crossing over each other. As I paid more attention, I realized that they were closer than I thought and were actually dragonflies, not birds. Amazing! 100 or more dragonflies about 20 feet above me, and they were huge. I guess they are the Thai version of sparrows.

That evening, we enjoyed a wonderful dinner at our hotel. Our table was on the river bank and we shared a dish of pork, stewed for hours over a charcoal fire with fresh vegetables added at the last minute, Thai steamed buns and finished off with Esther’s famous mango cheesecake. Oh man, it was heavenly. After that, it was off to the Night Market (Bazaar), for another round of shopping.

We had a list of personal maintenance tasks we needed to take care of while in Thailand that we couldn’t do in Iraq. We had already gone to the salon for our hair while in Bangkok and the next thing on the list was to get our teeth cleaned. We asked Esther to recommend a dentist and she gave us the address of her own dentist, not far from the hotel. They flagged down a tuk-tuk, gave the driver directions and off we went. Most Americans are hesitant to visit health care professionals in a foreign country but I had done my research and felt comfortable with our decision, plus it was only a teeth cleaning. How bad could it be? The dentist office, small but very clean, was busy and told us to come back in 2 hours. What to do? We decided to get a bit of temple visiting done and asked our driver if he wouldn’t mind taking us. He didn’t speak much English, except for a few phrases he had written down in a pocket notebook, but we understood each other enough to get by. He took us to a very old wat (temple) built in the 1200s. Over the centuries it had been added on to and I’m sure it looks much different now than it did when it was first built.

We noticed several monks in their gold robes, including a group of small boys, and Buddha statues inside the temple. As you can see in the photo you couldn’t go inside this temple, it was designed much like a pyramid. There was a pulley and bucket system that allowed you to put your offerings (food, flowers, incense, etc) into the bucket and pull it the top of the temple (about 3 stories up). We wanted the background about the monks so we asked Noot. She told us it was a rite of growing older for the boys to spend time in religious training; they would shave their heads, wear the robes, attend religious training and pray. How long you are a monk and what age you take your training depends on you and the wealth of your family. Most times it is just for a few months but sometimes the very poor families send their sons to live and work at the temple for a year. At this wat we saw boys as young as 8 years old. Noot’s little brother was going into training in just a few weeks. It is astounding to reflect on how long the Asian civilization has been around; in the 1200s our ancestors were living in hovels.

It was back in the tuk-tuk and back to the dentist. A teeth cleaning was only 500 baht which is less than $15. They weren’t as meticulous as they are in the states and it was the dentist who did it (no dental hygienists over here). Mike went in first and I started talking with our driver and this is when I found out about his little phrase notebook. He read the phrases out and we worked on his pronunciation. Using a charades type game he asked me to teach him more words like stomach ache, headache, and hospital. It was all phrases that would help him be a better driver for the tourists. When Mike came out and it was my turn I heard Mike doing the same thing with him. He got a great English lesson that day. He was a great guy and we gave him a good tip. He waited with us at the dentist and then took us back to the hotel.

This evening, we headed downtown early to walk around before the market got underway. We found a small restaurant and had pork curry with rice, spring rolls, Pad Thai noodles and vegetable soup. All for about $5 total. Food is very cheap there along with just about everything else. We decided not to put too much effort into bargaining for our merchandise tonight. No matter what price we paid it was still much cheaper than we could get it anywhere else.


We strolled around for another ½ hour to work off our food and headed into one of the numerous massage places. There is some kind of rule they have that you shouldn’t get a massage within 30 minutes of eating. Like the eating before swimming rule, I guess. We chose a small storefront massage place and settled in. Mike got a ½ hour foot massage and I got a ½ hour back massage. She did the entire massage with me sitting up on a stool. She massaged everything on my back from the base of my spine up to include a scalp and hand massage. A ½ hour massage costs about $3 and that’s with tip. Now we were ready for another night at the bazaar. We had found the big ticket items we wanted to buy; a hand carved teakwood Buddha statue and there are many different styles of Buddha. Mike’s favorite is the fat, laughing Buddha; my choice is the more traditional style. We found one of each at the same shop and knew right away they must belong to us. Each night at the bazaar, we went by to look at the carvings and discuss price with the merchant. It was time; we bargained hard and came to an agreement, then our Buddhas were wrapped up for shipping, $25 each.

One of our evenings was spent at a show. Thailand is known for it’s shows featuring transvestites and Chiang Mai is no exception. We asked Noot about attending the show and she arranged our tickets. When we first mentioned we wanted to attend the show, Noot leaned over to Mike, placed her hand on his arm and whispered “you know Mike this show is “lady boys”. It was a Las Vegas type of musical review show. Good production and sets but BAD BAD performances. We thought one of the “lady boys” wasn’t going to make it thru the show without collapsing. The show included some comedic performances by a couple of “ladies” mostly in Thai but comedy needs no interpreter if done well. The heavy one came into the audience and decided Mike needed a big juicy kiss. When the lights came up after the show I noticed she had left behind a large amount of bright red lipstick in Mike’s moustache. It took quite a bit of rubbing to get his moustache back to its natural color.

This was our last night in Chiang Mai and in the morning we would be heading off into the mountains and very close to the borders of Cambodia and Burma. Our destination was a small town called Pai, located 3 hours north. It was highly recommended by a friend and sounded like a must see place while in Thailand.

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Photos

Temple in Chiang Mai
Another view of this amazing temple.

Ping Palace Hotel
This was our hotel in Chiang Mai.

Supper on the Ping river
Enjoying another wonderful meal at our hotel.

Night Market
So many choices, so many tourist.

Chiang Mai Night Market
The night market has a restuarant section with lots of fresh (still wiggling) food.

Chiang Mai Night Market
Christmas lights are not just for Christmas anymore! There were so many different string lights! They were all fun, colorful and beautiful. Wish we could have taken some home.

Offerings for Buddha
Flowers, money, incenses and even candy are offered to Buddha.

Golden Buddha
Close up view of the Buddha.