Kendra Goes to Chiang Mai

Lured by cheap overnight bus prices, Bailey (a new volunteer) and I decided we'd leave town on the eve of the first day of Songkran and head north, to Chiang Mai, where the festival is legendary. We took a 12-hour bus to Bangkok from Khao Lak, where we crashed with Step Ahead's CEO and his family for the day. We had some new fruit for breakfast (red with green hairs, pictured below, called Rambutan, and very sweet "grapefruit") an unbelievable dinner (quiche! mmm) with their friend, who is a tailor, and her husband. No rest for us - we ran around the whole day, learning that because the holiday is very popular for traveling, we couldn't get back by Sunday and we'd have to wait until Wednesday to return. Kim took us to two bus stations and finally we landed return tickets home (we were really winging this trip) and tickets to Chiang Mai.

That night, we got on another overnight bus, and ten hours later landed in Chiang Mai, drugged from sleeping pills that didn't do their job well at all, and somehow managed to wake up enough to get ourselves to a cheap guest house. We paid $5 apiece to share a room at Mountain View Guest house and had no air conditioning and rock-hard beds, but somehow the experience made this feel like a real backpacker's dream. We slept for 6 hours. After playing a bit of catch-up, we headed out on the town to experience Songkran in the city that does it best. The canal out front was lined on both sides with giddy Thais on Holiday, scooping river water out with their buckets and hitting anyone foolish enough to come near. The water wasn't, *cough*, very clean, so we walked by in the street.

We wandered around town, getting water gunned down by every ten year old and grandfather in sight, and people have an extra sense of humor, it seems, when they slowly pour ice water down your back while you stand there, helpless. Where can you go? If you run, you're only running towards another kid with a hose! So we spent the day soaked through, wandering through the streets with a makeshift parade. We would steer clear of the crowds when we'd find an interesting temple to see- a statue of Donald Duck out in front of one made for an entertaining picture. In Chiang Mai, there are more Buddhist temples than in any other city of Thailand (300+). We did visit Wat Phra Singh, the center area for the Buddhist part of the Songkran festival (see Derek's blog previously on the history). Even at the temple, we were not safe from the water.

We wandered around the whole day like this, stopping for ice cream and ending at El Diablo's Heavenly Burritos. We sat far inside the little restaurant as the crammed street outside held overly-excited citizens loaded up with water, which they had no problem shooting inside the shop. By now, my thighs are getting rashes from the wet clothes and all the walking, so we headed back and slept...well, Bailey slept. I wanted to sleep.

The next day, the streets, to our surprise, were almost deserted. We had expected from all we had heard of this festival in the south, that Chiang Mai would throw down for a week after the "official" holiday had ended, and found that everyone was suddenly MIA. Not sure what to do with our time, we wandered out to get water and ended up in a Song Tao (Means "two rows") headed up into the mountains to check out the cities best-known temple, Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep. We got the driver to agree to a low price if we'd only stay an hour. "This temple dates from 1383. By tradition, its site was chosen by placing a relic of Buddha on an elephant's back and letting it roam until it trumpeted, then circled and died." (Wikipedia) Of course, in the true "European" style, the temple was under construction during peak tourist season, so we got our pictures next to it covered in cloth and bamboo scaffolding, but this is what it looks like when it's not compromised.


We headed back to town and headed to the east side of the city, where we enjoyed some Indian food and met some boys at a local spa. They were having their feet treated with...fish. You stick your feet in a fish tank and let the fish eat the dead skin off. Mmm! This is not unique to Chiang Mai, and is quite popular throughout Thailand, but I hadn't mentioned it and thought it was high time to share!

We stopped at a few shops and had a drink at a local bar, called Kafe.We hit the night market where I found nice silver earrings for $2 and bartered for boxers. We decided to check out the night life and followed the Lonely Planet's directions to a night club for young adults, called Warm Up. The place was crawling with "rip roi" (well-dressed) Thai kids, the girls all sporting high high heels and short skirts, the boys with their popped collars and spiked hair. Bailey and I were disgusting, as we hadn't been back to the hotel all day. We danced in our street clothes with our backpacks, and attempted to make our hair not horrific in the bathroom with the other primping girls. We were the only foreigners there. There was no dance floor - the barely legals had little tables that they all crowded around, bounced up and down in place (since they could hardly walk in their unreasonable shoes), and sent text messages. Everyone was texting...texts in Thai symbols look funny. 

We did find some other foreigners to cling to, but it turned out the girl (clearly the alpha-female) from Texas was a jerk and we decided we'd be better off alone. We danced in place to the American music after grabbing a Coke at the bar. Alcoholic drinks were too expensive, and we're too cheap anyway. We danced with some Thais for awhile until the band came on, and they were so horrible that we turned in early. Besides, we had to be up early...we had signed up that morning to leave the next day on a three day trek through the Mae Tang Mountains! To be continued...