Welcome to Disneyland - Thai Backpacking Style

January 12, 2008

The minute we arrived in Chiang Mai we knew we’d found the well-travelled backpacker’s haven – the train station is the “end of the road” and yet absolutely huge. It was a bit overwhelming walking off the train and having tuk-tuk drivers accost you immediately. Unfortunately our packs are like a huge, red X over our heads that screams “tourists. We need help”

After getting to our hostel, called the Smile House 1 (not done purposely, even though I did make our reservations this time around), we found a pub around the corner to sit and eat at and just watched the crowds walk by. Chiang Mai is an ex-pat’s paradise, and much bigger than we’d expected – bright lights all night long it seemed.

We woke up on Friday and took our time walking through the streets on our own “Walking Wat Tour” courtesy of Lonely Planet. We saw a Wat that was made of completely of intricately carved Teak wood panels. It was absolutely gorgeous and we all just stood staring in disbelief.

We THEN made out way to another Wat which had ruins from an ancient stupa that was stunning, and these two memorials to deceased, highly revered monks. HOWEVER, they had wax statues of these monks in their respective buildings that were the creepiest things I’ve ever seen, considering they were ridiculously lifelike and in glass cases. It seriously took me a few minutes to convince myself that they were in fact wax and not real monks that had to take turns sitting in a glass box for shifts throughout the day.
Oh, and then, aaaand then we went to our monkchat. A few temples throughout Chiang Mai had advertised times during the day where you could go and speak with monks – it helps them with their English conversation skills and enables them to answer questions about Buddhism you have. We sat down with Manit, a middle-aged man who’d apparently been ordained about 18 years ago. The conversation started out slow, but he was soon very impressed with our lovely heather and Flynn as they were asking pretty intricate, detailed and intellectual questions. At one point we had to rephrase one of the questions a few times before he understood and Manit looked at us and pointed at me saying, “she is good at explaining.” So maybe my teaching ESL for 12 weeks has helped a little…and I won’t find myself completely up a river without a paddle in March.

After our conversation came to an end, Manit insisted on taking pictures with us. Thai Monks though are prohibited from coming in direct contact with females so the pictures are priceless (and well as it having taken a bit for them to explain to me that I couldn’t directly hand my camera to the younger who was acting as our photographer).

Overall, Manit had a great sense of humor, provided Heather with the name of deity that she’s been looking for for weeks and was generally awesome to talk to. Very cool experience. AND as we were leaving he asked, “which one of you is going to Bangladesh?”…and then proceeded to tell me, “hope you learn to swim! I hear there’s lots of water!!!”

Oh manit.

However, the afternoon just got better. In our guidebook, there was a ‘quirky places’ section for Chiang Mai and one of the listed spots was the Women’s Prison Rehabilitation Services --- there was a spa (for massages and herbal therapies), a small crafts and goods shop and a bakery. Pretty much, it seems like the women inmates are rehabilitated through skills training that they can use after they leave the prison, and are usually given jobs at these locations to start over. So we decided to head over and check it out, and really wanted to get a massage and treats from the bakery if at all possible. WELL, the massage parlor was full for the rest of the afternoon, however, the woman at the front informed us that there was an affiliated parlor down the road that we could check out. She ran outside and let us know that she got a car to literally drive us two blocks. We told her we’d be fine, however, the police outside ushered us into this van while repeating, “free!free!”

Our thai massages from ex-convicts were fabulous and we all left saying that we felt great. It was probably the best thing we could have done for our bodies after a week of constant travel. We found some food (unfortunately the Women’s Prison Bakery was closed at that point) and then headed to the infamous Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. There are literally thousands of stalls of people selling everything from “Chiang Mai Starbucks” shirts to small antique Buddha statues. The Bazaar spans the streets as well as inhabits several buildings within the Bazaar district. While I didn’t end up haggling with vendors for anything, it was amazing to experience. And I did get to watch the other girls fight with people as they pushed prices down --- they were very thrifty. And when it got down to the bare bones of everything, 10 baht here or there is equal to about 33 cents…and hopefully some cute little kids get a meal the next day because of it.

On the way back we got to see a bit of the night culture. A stand that we’d stopped by earlier to get Rotee from (flattened dough cooked with a large variety of options…for example – with egg, or bananas and chocolate, or bananas and honey, etc.) was rather busy when we walked back to the hostel around midnight. It was also at a pretty busy intersection with a large number of bars lining the streets nearby. There were huge numbers of ex-pats and college-aged backpackers crammed into the bars. We also saw a good number of transvestites in the general area.
Needless to say, we were happy that our hostel was set a ways away from this scene, and was a bit away from the closest main street.

We’re now waiting for our bus to Pai (pronounced “Bye” apparently). We’ve been shocked at the bus system in Thailand. It’s very orderly, runs on time for the most part, and unlike other countries we’ve all visited, only sells the number of seats that they have. In Uganda, in my experience, they would allow you to sit in the aisle or stand when all the seats are full, never wanting to give up a potential fare. Flynn said similar things of Sri Lanka and India. Apparently, though, Thailand is a bit different. We arrived at 9:30 this morning to catch the 10:30 bus, but it was full so we were put on the 12:30 bus. We’re excited to get a bit further into the country, away from the bright lights and crazed bar scene of Chiang Mai, especially with the prospect of hiking awaiting us.