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Published: December 24th 2007
Merry Christmas! Hopefully the holiday season has found you all safe, happy and with family. Shannon and I are fast approaching our Christmas in Thailand with very few plans, other than to call our family members. And funnily enough, that seems ok with us, as much as we miss everybody and what we are missing back home.
The past 6 days have as always, been fun. With Shannon usually waking up before me, excitedly sitting on the edge of the bed with her shoes on, watching me as I stagger out of bed. Shannon is always ready, with shoes on, to move on to the next sight, activity or event!
A few nights ago we went in search of an evening out, maybe some dinner and see a show...a Thai show. We ended up at the Old Chiang Mai Cultural Centre. They served us a great dinner and we saw a number of traditional dances, performances and knife shows. My nephew Jordan would have loved it! (the knife show)
The next day we headed out for our much anticipated Thai cooking course! It was great, although to be honest, I'm sure a Chimp could've done as well as
any of us (Shannon strongly disagrees). For me, it felt like a cooking show. All the ingredients washed and cleaned and ready for us. Somebody telling me to do this and then do that and then this and then that. And Voila! I was able to turn out a dish that looked and tasted like every else's in the course! Although, it was good because now I do understand some of the basics...We learned how to make Hot and Sour Soup, Coconut Chicken Soup, Cashew Chicken Stir fry, Spring Rolls, Pad Thai and of course Curry (Red and Paenang)! We got to eat all the food we made and it was good. They gave us a cookbook of all the recipes so we can re-create our magic back in Onoway!
Which leads us to our latest adventure. Currently, I am sitting in an internet cafe in a town about an hour south of Chiang Mai called Chom Thong, which translates into: No white people. Seriously, Shannon and I have been here two days and we are the only tourists in town. The only ones. And I been lookin'. Nobody speaks a lick of English. The only restaurants we can
find are outdoor kiosks where we just point to what we want to eat and they make us something totally different. Thankfully we found the ONE hotel in town and the only English words the owner knows is 300 baht (the price) and "check out". This, of course, also speaks to Shannon and I's inability to say more than 10 words in Thai. Anyways, Chom Thong is the community located at the base of Doi Inthanon, the highest mountain in Thailand, and that is our reason for being here.
Our mission to see see Doi Inthanon has been nothing short of epic. As usual, we stubborningly refused to book the more expensive "Pre Packaged" tour to Doi Inthanon on the air conditioned bus that picks you up at the hotel in Chiang Mai, shuttles you around, feeds you, explains everything to you and drops you back at your hotel in time for the night market. That same bus, also, for good reason, blasts right through Chom Thong on the way the Doi Inthanon!
But we decide to do it cheap (translation: hard). So we think we'll leave the day before, take the "Local Bus" with the "locals" to
Chom Thong for 34 baht ($1.02CDN), find a place to stay and take a local taxi up to Doi Inthanon the next morning. Good plan, eh?
So, in order to do this we need to leave our hotel in Chiang Mai and get to the "Local Bus" launching point, called Pratu Chiang Mai. I knew where this place was but it was about a 15 minute walk from our hotel. So we decided to take a Sangtaew (a taxi pick-up truck with benches in the back that can carry up to 12 people) to the bus stop. I tell him "Pratu Bus Stop" He doesn't speak any English and looks at his "co-driver" and they yak in Thai for about 30 seconds, way too long, in my opinion, for a 5 minute trip to the Pratu Bus Stop. Eventually, they nod and we are off. And off and off. Since we are getting to know Chiang Mai, Shannon and I are both thinking...this is definitely not the way...but other people are also in the Sangtaew so maybe they are getting dropped off somewhere else first....35 minutes into our 5 minute trip I am about as close to SNAPPING as
I have been on the trip. "Where the $##$%# is he taking us?"
In a rage, I ring the stop bell, jump out and confront the driver, shrugging my shoulders
and pointing in the exact opposite direction we are going. "Pratu Bus Terminal", I spit. The drivers look at each other and say, "Pratu?? Ohhhhh". Now they understand. They point to were we are going, "More bus here". Apparently we have almost arrived at another bus terminal. "Ok", I relent, that should work. The drivers drop us off at the Grand Central Station, LRT after an Oiler Game, Riot on Robson Street crush of humanity titled "Chiang Mai Bus Station-Main" - where even the Information lady doesn't feel like explaining anything to you.
So there we are trying to find the bus, any bus, to Chom Thong. We find a man who looks like he works there and can kinda understand English. He tells us to wait for Bus 13, its leaves at 11 and all we have to do is buy the ticket from the driver. Perfect. We waited till 11:45. No bus. Although 50 thousand other buses seem have left to somewhere else.
Finally, Shannon
gets up to ask somebody else about this apparent bus to Chom Thong. The lady behind the glass says we actually have to buy a ticket at Gate 47, not from the driver. GATE 47!!?? Huh?? Shannon sets out to find Gate 47 as I guard our back packs. 20 minutes later, Shannon returns and says that all the tickets are sold out.
At this moment bus #13 pulls up and the driver hops out and I accost him. "Is the bus to Chom Thong sold out or can we still squeeze in?" He looks at me and says, "This bus not go to Chom Thong this bus go to Pai." Whatever. We decide to ask another lady at another information table about the next bus the Chom Thong and she says there are never any buses that leave the main terminal to Chom Thong, instead we have to go to Pratu Chiang Mai!!! We're so screwed we can't even get onto the wrong bus at the wrong time to the wrong city at the wrong station!
Fully SNAPPED, we take another Sangtaew BACK to Pratu, still a 15 minute walk from our hotel. 3 hours after we
View from Doi Inthanon
Doi Inthanon is the highest peak in Thailand and is actually part of the Himialayan Chain of mountains. It felt like Edmonton up there....chilly! left for to Pratu we arrive. In about 6 seconds we find the right bus and its leaving now. And there's another one in 5 minutes, and another.... We hop on and see the 12 person Sangtaew is jammed with no less than 14 people. Squeezed like sardines we head out for the hour long trip in the blazing heat with 12 of our closest Thai friends. Raging inside, I stew about how I can somehow blame this..on Shannon! After correctly keeping my mouth shut and simmering down, I realize that this is not about blame, it is simply about lack of communication and won't it be funny on the blog!
Anyways (As my Grammie would say), we finally arrived in Chom Thong and had a spectacular next day visting Doi Inthanon, which is of course, the highest peak in Thailand. Surrounded by Tourists in their air conditioned vans, we saw some amazing waterfalls, did a great mountain-top hike that overlooked a huge valley and grasslands. (we had to have a mandatory guide for the hike and our guide only spoke Thai. It was so funny, we would arrive at some meaningful point on the hike and our "Guide"
would just point to a picture in a Thai brochure that was the exact thing we were looking at. I'm like, "Thanks." At one point he pointed at something and said, "Three." And Shannon I are like "Three? Three what? The trees are 3 thousand years old? Three trees? What?" He just nodded and smiled. Three.) We ended our day at Doi Inthanon by visiting another spectacular mountain temple. That night in Chom Thong, the beers were cold, the food was great and the air conditioned vans whizzed past us on their way back to Chiang Mai. We spent the night and headed home in the morning.
Travelling is certainly unpredictable and I suppose like a lot of things, sometimes, the more you struggle, the more you think you just may have won in the end.
Take care, we miss you all and we hope you have a very Merry Christmas!!!
Love, Greg and Shannon
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Chris
non-member comment
good attitude
I enjoyed reading about your adventures getting to the Wat in Chiang Mai. I lived in Thailand for 3 years and had similar experiences. I was there long enough to learn passable Thai, which helped quite a bit. Have a very wonderful holiday and keep your good attitude.