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Published: January 31st 2013
Learning from my experience in Kanchanaburi, I decided to pre-book my accommodation in Chaing Mai. I went for the Parami Guest House, which is the only place I've stayed where you have to cross a pond to get to your room. There are stepping stones but these were tricky to negotiate after the 14 hour journey, as I was still swaying to the motion of the train.
For someone used to British weather, the climate in Chiang Mai is more pleasant than Bangkok (where it is constantly hot) and even drops below 20°C at night at this time of year. The city was originally contained in a square, with walls and a moat forming the perimeter, but it has since expanded significantly. It has a cosmopolitan feel, with bakeries, coffee shops and Italian restaurants, and plenty of Western residents.
I spent the first afternon walking inside the old city square, stopping for a beer at Yes! Pub, one of the few places I've seen in Thailand that sells draught (as opposed to just bottled) beer. It was still the usual Thai lager but made a refreshing change. The barman, who was from Myanmar (Burma), told me that his country
is opening up to tourism and that he had come to Chiang Mai to learn the bar trade with the aim of running a place of his own back home. Later, I watched the Man United v Liverpool match in the 100 Pipers bar. The time difference means that afternoon matches are on in the evening here and it seemed that every football hooligan who happened to be in Chaing Mai had descended on this bar. In places like these, the usually friendly Thai staff tend to become a lot less friendly and with good reason. I sat next to a Swedish guy called Linus who had been in Chiang Mai for a few days and knew where the nightlife was, so I accompanied him to a courtyard with bars and loud music. Most people there were much drunker than me, who had only sipped two beers. I did my best to catch up but didn't quite manage to get into the spirit of it.
The next morning I had a strong craving for a full English breakfast and found a place that lets you 'build your own'. The sausages were disappointing and the baked beans were the nasty
sweet American type but otherwise it did the job. I then went back for a nap and to book a place on a 3 day jungle trek starting the following day. In the afternoon, I found my way to the stand for the shuttle bus to Doi Suthep, a Buddhist temple in the hills. The bus usually waits until 10 people arrive, but it was getting late and potential customers were scarce. Eventually I was joined by Paco and Kim, a Mexican/Chinese couple living in Japan. Paco immediately went to look for booze, saying that he hates being sober. When he returned with a bag full of Changs, we had been joined by Oscar and Beth from New Zealand and the driver decided to set off with the 5 of us. Doi Suthep was an impressive temple, reached by a dragon-flanked staircase and it gave us a good, albeit hazy view of Chiang Mai. I opted for an early night in preparation for the start of my trek the next morning.
I was the last of 10 trekkers to be picked up, in a party which comprised Michelle and Vanessa from Canada, Stefanie from Germany and a group of
six French people. We started with elephant riding. It was great to get so close to these gentle giants, initially at least. The elephant I was riding was very greedy and regularly raised its trunk above its head expecting to be fed bananas and sugar cane, but if you didn't feed it fast enough you got a face full of elephant breath!
After lunch, we set off on a 2 hour trek to a Lahu village at an altitude of around 1000 metres. Having done virtually no exercise since Christmas, I was keen to push myself, but this wasn't really possible as others in the group were struggling/dawdling. Our guide, Kwan, was from a hill village himself and was a master at working with the jungle's main contruction material: bamboo. He made everyone a drinking cup, which would come in useful that evening. The hill village experience was somewhat disappointing, as we weren't formally introduced to any of the villagers or told about their culture and it seemed there were more tourists than locals and we were all getting drunk (kind of like Benidorm in the mountains). I did however, get my first Thai massage experience, which was painful
but did the trick after the day's exertions. After dinner, we played drinking games, including higher or lower (with playing cards), where you had to drink if you got it wrong, to shouts of "chok dee!" (Thai for "cheers!").
The next day, we were joined by three more Germans and we set off late morning to a waterfall. Kwan had prepared lunch (Thai noodles wrapped in a banana leaf) and used his bamboo working skills again to make chopsticks for us all. After lunch, we carried on to a larger waterfall, where I had a welcome swim to cool down. Later, we reached "Jungle Camp" and played higher or lower again, but this time with the borderline racist twist that Kwan would draw on people's faces with soot from the bottom of a frying pan when they got it wrong. The alcohol was useful in breaking down the language barrier with the French contingent and we interacted more as a group on the second evening. Overnight I was actually cold for the first time Thailand and didn't sleep well.
Our final day of trekking was mostly a frustrating affair with lots of waiting around when we could have
been doing more activities. Kwan made bamboo clamps for holding slices of bread so that we could toast them over the hot ashes from the fire, but this took time and we didn't set off until almost lunchtime. After a short trek, we reached the white water rafting centre, where we had to wait well over an hour for the rafts to arrive. The rafting itself was fun and quite intense at times. We then hopped onto a bamboo raft and coasted down to the place where we had lunch before we were driven back to Chiang Mai.
Before the trek, I did some scouting and found a hotel a bit closer to the city centre with fan rooms for 150 Baht a night (just over £3). It was literally dirt cheap, as the paint was flaking off the walls and the ceiling was mouldy but I had been spending more than I'd hoped so I booked it for my last two nights in Chiang Mai. I planned to have an early night to catch up on sleep but then I discovered how bad the soundproofing was. Someone was snoring incredibly loudly in another room and I was frequently
woken up by motorbikes outside, as well as someone having a very loud phone conversation at 4am, seriously!
I had considered using my last full day in the north of Thailand to visit either Chaing Mai zoo or a village called Pai, both of which I had heard good things about. However, I wanted to catch up with the outside world and plan what to do and where to stay at my next destination (Koh Samui), so I spent most of the day in an internet cafe. My final evening in Chiang Mai was by far the most interesting. I set out with the intention of finding Yes! Pub again, however, when I stumbled upon it on my first day, I didn't have my bearings and when I went back to where I thought it was, I couldn't find it. I searched for around an hour, but to no avail, so I decided to investigate a large monument which had caught my eye. I walked in a large square, occasionally glimpsing it between buildings but couldn't work out how to get to it, until I got back to where I started and found a narrow passageway and an open
gate that led straight to it. I talked to a friendly young Buddhist Monk who told me the monument was Wat Chedi Luang and that it used to house the sacred Emerald Buddha, which
I saw at Bangkok's Grand Palace.
I resumed my search for Yes! Pub but was getting thirsty, so I stopped off at a guest house with a rooftop bar, where I got chatting to a Polish guy who lived in London. He told me about an alternative therapy he was using which involved meditation and herbal remedies. He said the aim was to feel "connected". He also talked about "Chi" and how ancient wisdom had been lost in Atlantis, at which point I finished my drink and decided to move on. The good news is the therapy seemed to have sorted out his heartburn, although I suspect medical science (which he didn't think much of) would put it down to reduced stress levels and the placebo effect.
Nobody at the rooftop bar had heard of Yes! Pub and I was ready to abandon my quest when I bumped into the barman who served me there last time. He was working in a different bar, which he said he ran
in the evening following his afternoon shift at Yes! Pub. The bar was empty and given how pleased I was to see him he probably thought I was going to stop for a drink rather than ask for directions. But it was getting late and I had decided to have my last beer in Chiang Mai where I had my first.
Yes! Pub was close to where I thought and I can't really understand why I couldn't find it. There were two guys, Joshua from Australia and Eric from the USA, who were talking to the two Thai girls running the bar. I had my draught beer and a delicious Massaman curry, which they made for me after they'd officially stopped serving food. I also had an interesting conversation with Joshua, who said he wasn't convinced by either creationism or evolution but thought it likely that aliens had something to do our existence. Unfortunately, I felt I had to call an end to the night around midnight, as the manager of my hotel went to bed and I would've had to wake him up to let me in. (He said he didn't mind but I wanted to be polite.)
With my time in South East Asia limited (due to plans to meet people in New Zealand), I decided to pre-book a flight to Koh Samui to minimise travel time (the alternative was a gruelling 26 hour journey by train, bus and boat). However, I was sad to leave Chiang Mai, as I didn't really feel I had done it justice and could've easily stayed longer, as so many others have. I can certainly see myself returning one day.
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Neil
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Great update Graeme and pics, what's the total pics so far?