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Published: February 2nd 2018
So on my first morning I wandered into the kitchen, a large space with two or three large fridges and open to the elements. It’s a Thai kitchen, so no oven but a job for cooking and toaster and microwave. I helped myself to tea and toast and sat in the communal space under the house to eat it. A chance to meet some of the other people staying here. There’s an American who is learning Thai as he plans to come and live here. He sets out his cards on the table -Thai consonants and vowels and Kong takes great delight in testing and correcting him. Good natured banter on both sides, and I admire him for tackling the reading and writing as well as speaking. There’s a sweet shy Indonesian teacher who is teaching Indonesian at a university in China. She looks about 16, but I dare not ask and she’s probably about 40. She’s here for a three week holiday in the warm as it’s also cold in China.
For some disorganised reason I hadn’t booked my return flight to Singapore, so I set about looking for one that would work well with my flight from Singapore to
Birmingham. I realise now that I hadn’t taken the effect of Chinese New Year into consideration when I booked my flight home and prices are four times higher than during the week before and the week after. And economy seats are going fast so I have to bite the bullet and book a flight. Quick -pay-forget-get onnwith the day!
I had a slow wander along the street to see what’s new ( reassuringly mostly the same) and walked down along by the river to Rimping supermarket, where I bought a few things for breakfast and took a slow amble back. I stopped off at one of my favourite places -The Meeting Room, an art gallery and cafe. Joe and his wife were both there and I had a warm greeting and a cup of coffee ( coffee probably unwise) A young girl was talking to Joe about the gallery, and in her white blouse and pleated black skirt I assumed she was a schoolgirl. But when she engaged me in conversation and asked if I would take part in her survey, I found that she was a 21 year old postgraduate student from China, doing a language programme exchange at
Chiangmai university. After answering her questions as best I could, she rewarded me with a packet of Pocky stick biscuits and invited me to come along to a Chiangmai Swing Dance meeting tomorrow night. I was flattered that she could think me capable!
I went back to Baansong Jum. Penn went out to buy a takeaway for anyone who wanted one, and I sat down to eat with Nui and Kong. We chatted with the French couple Michel and Marie-Noelle, and were offered a glass of wine from their wine box. I went to bed quite early to read ........ and was shocked when I woke up next morning to find it was already10.30am -so I’d had a good 10 hours sleep. Next morning at breakfast I talked to Phillip the dog-psychologist ( a bit of an expert on every subject under the sun -or so it seems!) and to a very chatty French woman who’s here on a massage course. She gave me loads of advice on diet and health with no dairy or wheat while tucking into two eggs and eight slices of white bread toast. She was full of stories, for example when teaching Art therapy in
Chine she had an accident and broke her arm and shoulder in four places. As she wasn’t near medical help she curled up in bed and fasted for twelve days. When she eventually reached medical help they were amazed at how she had mended her bones without painkillers. I could only think about the twelve days without eating.
I’m the afternoon I had a two hour massage from the lady masseuse who comes to see Nui. I loved having my massage upstairs in the wooden house on the balcony. Up there with the leaves and trees crowding over and the bird song really drowning out the traffic noises from the main road.
That evening I slipped out and along the road towards a little restaurant by the river. I had to pass the Meeting Room, where people were arriving for a poetry evening. Joe had invited me, but I didn’t feel like going. He spotted me and came out to invite me in. When Iexplained I just wanted to eat, he insisted on showing me a little alleyway down to the river where there were several simple eating places and they were very cheap. So dinner, rice, vegetables and soda
water cost 80 baht ( less than £2) it’s good to sit on the quiet side of the river and see all the activity going on in the flower market on the opposite bank.
I’ve already lost track of the days now...... so I’ll have to keep saying ‘the next day’. Ah, but I knew it was Friday because I was meeting Dorothy for dinner and I’d got her a bottle of gin in Singapore duty free. I needed to find tonic water to make the gift complete, and the little store across the road from Baansong Jum doesn’t have any this year. Nui and Kung were going supermarket shopping so they offered to get some for me..... which was great because then I didn’t have to carry it.So morning nstead I was able to wander across to the other side of the river, weave through Wararot market, and take a slow walk up towards Thapae Gate, one of the old entrances to the old city. I stopped at the Raming Teahouse for poh pia ( see the photo -very healthy!) and a Hurricane -a refreshing drink made from ginger tea, fresh pineapple and peppermint. Some more wandering around to
see if places are still there!
(Now at the point I have to confess that it’s a struggle to get this blog written. Maybe the WiFi is intermittent, and I don’t save what I’ve written often enough....... but I keep losing it (haha more ways than one) and so this will be the third time I’ve written about the following two days!)
Dorothy came over to Baansong Jum that evening and we celebrated by having a couple of G+T’s from the duty-free I’d bought for her in the communal space under the old house. Then we crossed the road and went down to the riverside restaurant Samsen Garden just at the back of the condominium. We shared a massaman curry and morning glory while catching up on the past year’s events. Dorothy’s big news is that she is soon to be a grandmother. Her first grandchild is due at the end of February and she’ll be flying to Tokyo to help out.
On the next table to us an extended Thai family, all generations, were celebrating a birthday. There was a lot of laughter and excitement, and one of the men came over to apologise for their rowdiness. Not at
all ...... it was great to see a family having fun together like that. And we joined in with their rendition of the universal Happy Birthday song, loud enough to raise the roof. We were handsomely rewarded for our efforts with some huge slices of the birthday cake.
Next morning ( the days are already blurring into each other) I had some very sad news for home and heard that a dear friend had passed away in a hospice. I walked along the road to Wat Ket, and sat in the peaceful gardens for a while, thinking about the great holidays we’d shared with Jon and Helen when the children were young, and all their anniversaries, birthdays and wedding celebrations we’ve shared too.
I spent most of the day at ‘home’ downloading Dorothy’s book group book onto my Kindle so that I can make some contribution to the meeting on Monday evening. It’s a book by the Korean author Sun-Mi Hwang, ‘The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly’.
In the evening Penn when out to buy supper and brought back some Thai rice porridge for me. It felt like a good healthy option. I’d been invited to the opening of
an exhibition by six Myanmar artists at the Suvannabhumi gallery, so I made a bit of an effort, and walked the few yards down the street. The paintings were full of symbolism and anger( not surprising) . I’ll go and look again when it’s not so busy.
The next day was Sunday (ah-ha I know what day it is!) and I had a leisurely morning. Chatted to Nanna, the a Indonesian teacher who works in China and Nui entertained us with tales of her Serbian/ Danish husband ....... always in places of upheaval and trouble ........ in Indonesia and Bosnia for example. As a young student in Bangkok she’d also been involved in demonstrations. Always ready to stand up against unfairness and tyranny. Her sister used to read the newspaper every day to see if her name was amongst those injured or arrested.
I walked down to the Meeting Room and had a coffee and a slice of Joe’s wife’s lemon pie
( delicious) and chatted about the trials and tribulations of running a gallery and having to ship artists’ work overseas.
The Chiangmai sculptor, Luka, has some music boxes here. There are a few I really like but they’re
made of metal, and to prevent the music workings getting damaged I’ll have to put them in my hand luggage and hope they are not perceived as dangerous metallic weapons. Hmmm. Put some pictures of them on the blue-ginger Facebook page and got some encouragement to bring some back.
Having an arty day, so I next went to the Dragon and Phoenix exhibition. It’s always on at this time of the year, at an old wooden Lana style house. A Thai man and his American partner are collectors of textiles and travel around the world to add to their collection. They are both at hand to offer information and the robes and hangings are beautiful. This year they had some gorgeous little baby suits with embroidered feet.
Sunday in Chiangmai and the old city turns into a huge craft , souvenir and food market, turning the Old City into a pedestrian only area. It’s an indication of how Chiangmai has become a popular tourist destination. It now gets so crowded after 6pm that it’s only possible to shuffle along and move or stop with the flow of the crowd. Not a pleasure. So I went early, because I wanted to
find the man who sells Thai cutlery, so I can add to my blue-ginger cake forks and look for some additional cutlery for Julie at the Clover Mill. I walked the whole length of the street, but I couldn’t find him. Walking along with smells of cooking, then hand carved soap, the sights of bags, hats, baby clothes, blown glass and leather.
At 6pm , when I was nearly out of the street, there was a tanoid announcement and everyone stood silent and still for the Thai national anthem. Amazing really, when there were so many international tourists there, that everyone realised what to do.
Monday - and I’ve finished’The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly’ It’s Actually very short . After breakfast Nui was off to her acupuncture. Howard , a retired landscape gardener from Australia, told me how good the acupuncture was and how
It had helped him with health problems last year. So Kong made a quick call to Nui and she’s booked me in with an acupuncture appointment at the same time as her next one on Wednesday.
I wrote to Helen and the girls and walked over to the post office to send them-I
wonder how long they will take to get to the UK.
Stevie texted from Japan to say that he’s passed his N2 Japanese exams ...... and now on the way to the highest level. And my friend Kathy from Singapore kept up a message conversation with me while she was waiting to see a consultant at the eye hospital. She has an operation booked, and I would have liked to be there for her for a couple of days after after her general anaesthetic, but the operation is booked for 1st March. Kathy assured me that she’d got lots of people in Singapore offering to keep an eye on her.
Monday evening was Dorothy’s Book Group. They always meet in a restaurant, and this month it was ‘Why Not’ , an Italian restaurant near Nimmenhaeman, on the other side of the old city. I decided to take a slow walk and stop along the way. It’s a good way to understand the city better, as taxis and song taews have to duck and dive along the streets , turning back on themselves and it makes the street plan in my head very confused. I arrived in time for our 6.30pm
get ogether, just as the light was fading( the sun sets very quickly at about 7pm every evening) We all ordered our food and drink from the menu. I recognised some of the other thirteen women from my previous visits to Chiangmai: Valerie ( who winters in Chiangmai every year, leaving her home by a frozen lake in Canada), and Jo( the young librarian in an International school) On one side of me sat Polly, who’d grown up in the North of England, married a Hungarian and lived in Canada for 25 years. She’s just about to teach a course in ‘Laughing Yoga’ and was preparing to head further north for the weekend to take part in a Japanese hippy music festival. On the other side of me sat a tall, elegant lady ( another Dorothy) from San Francisco . It was her first visit to the Book Group. She and her husband stay in Chiangmai for three months every year, as her son is married to a Thai chef and between them the run a Thai organic farm and cooking school. There’s now also a little grandchild to lure them here-and amazingly she’s staying at Rimping Condominium, the superior
apartment block opposite Baansong Jum. We can share a lift home.
We split into two groups to discuss the book, which was very interesting because my group liked it and the other group didn’t. Can’t help thinking we were influenced by the strength of feeling within the group. I liked it anyway. It’s a bit of an allegory for all sorts of things , and has an Animal Farm feeling to it. The illustrations at the start of each chapter were delightful.
So I shared an Uber car home with American Dorothy as she is registered with Uber. I offered to pay my share but she told me that the cost on her account was 29baht ( about 70p) I was quite embarrassed and appalled.......... how much does the poor driver get?
So now I’ve been in Chiangmai for nearly a week. How fast the days are slipping away. I’ll stop now and upload some photos.
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Jill
non-member comment
Nostalgia! So glad you are having a relaxing time there - it all sounds lovely. Here it has continued to be cold and grey but tomorrow we fly to Barbados for the Caribbean cruise so life cant be so bad! Would love a little hilltribe suit if you have room - they look sweet! Are they aKa?