So after we arrived home from Phuket, we discovered two things: 1) that our school was being delayed yet another week and 2) it was now possible to see the water visibly creeping over the canal and onto our campus grounds. Yikes! We really didn’t want to get stuck in a flood, or be forced to traverse through flood waters on our way out (as you might imagine, it doesn’t smell very wholesome), so we hurriedly booked a trip to Chiang Mai and prayed that the floods wouldn’t prevent us from getting to the airport in the next days. In the meantime, we got some much overdue work done—I worked on some grad school applications (3 down! 3 to go!) and reviewed some lesson plans. At some point, we got a call from Suwadee, who asked us if we would like to meet some of the students who were living on campus already, and we said sure, we’d be happy to meet them the next day.
That evening, we were heading over the cafeteria to get some dinner when a boy around our age stopped us and asked us, ‘Are you Sam and Emily?’. Fair enough, I guess it’s pretty obvious who we are, since we are the only farangs living on campus. As a result of this, we tend to get stared at quite a bit, and even occasionally recognized, as was the case here. It turns out that this was one of the students Suwadee had wanted us to meet. He told us he’d call us tomorrow so we could meet his friends. He and his friends were very nice (most of their names escape me, but I do remember the boy we met was named Sam), and spoke English very well. We talked about where they were from, what they were studying, what they thought about the floods, and they asked us the same kind of questions in turns. Then they asked us if we were here on exchange. Emily and I shared a look, and then said, no, we were here to teach English. A startled look came over their faces. ‘Ajarns?’ (the word for university teacher in Thai). Yes, we replied, we were the new ajarns. They started laughing and performing the wai (standard Thai greeting, usually performed by the lower rank to the higher rank, and then back again), which was pretty funny. They were surprised we were ajarns, because we are so young, I guess. To be fair, I’m surprised we’re ajarns. When we told people from the CIEE program we were teaching at a university, most of them said, ‘Oh, so you guys have some teaching experience then?’. Umm, no, as a matter of fact, we do not. I can’t help but feel a bit intimidated by this, but I’m hoping I will get used to it quickly.
Anyways, the students asked if we wanted to have lunch with them, but we were incredibly exhausted and in desperate need of naps, so we declined, but told them we’d very much like to hang out with them again. They seemed to like this idea as well, as they were excited about improving their English with some native English speakers.
Our hostel even had a pool!
After this, we went back to our rooms and packed to get ready for the next day, when we were leaving for Chiang Mai. By this point, we were practically pros at the Bangkok airport, so we breezed through without a problem, except I got some of my liquids taken away because they were over 100 ml. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t live without though, so I didn’t care too much. We got into Chiang Mai and took a taxi to the MD Guesthouse, so named because the family that runs it is comprised entirely of doctors. This place had come highly recommended by the girls we met in Phuket, and it lived up to their descriptions. It was easily the cleanest place we had stayed in so far, which was wonderful. It had two single beds, instead of one large one, which was ideal, and air conditioning and a lockbox, although it was one that required a padlock, which they did not provide. The woman who showed us up there suggested that we go to 7-11 to buy a lock, which we did, only to return and find that it was much too large to fit in the opening. Sigh. Well, we were able to padlock the front door, so we figured we would just do that instead, and then hit the town to explore. First however, we wanted to buy a tour. If there was one thing we learned from Koh Phi Phi, it’s that you definitely don’t need to book these tours ahead of time—there are plenty of shops set up around the tourist areas that are more than happy to sell to you the day before, or even the day of. We looked around a few places, searching for a tour that had elephant riding, rafting, and a jungle hike for a reasonable price. Most of the places were offering one particular tour for 1000 baht, but we got it down to 750 by telling the woman we had ‘seen it for 750 somewhere’, which was sort of true (we had seen something similar for 750 but not the same) and she sold it to us for that price. Sweet! Then we decided to wander a bit.
One of the market decorations
We didn’t have to walk very far before we found a burrito place, which was very exciting because Emily and I are quite fond of Mexican food and miss it dearly. It was still too early for dinner, so we made a note of it and moved on. We soon stumbled upon a street market that was just getting into the swing of things. It was fabulous—there were stalls everywhere, selling clothes, bags, jewelry, etc, like all the other street markets we’ve been too. You’d think I’d be kind of over them now, but they’re somewhat intoxicating, and they don’t just sell the same stuff everywhere, they’re kind of localized. So like, all the stalls at Koh Phi Phi might sell similar things, or the stalls at another market, and so on, but each market is different. This one had some particularly beautiful jewelry in a pretty aquamarine color, but I was determined to stop buying every beautiful thing that I saw. At least, I was, until we stopped by this booth. I might have had the will to keep on past it, but Emily stopped to look at some pants, and while waiting for her I was awestruck by a particular dress. It was a light blue color with darker blue accents, with gold embroidered flowers and leaves. Blue if my particular weakness when it comes to clothes; I love the color and it usually goes nicely with my eyes. So my resolve was officially broken BUT I did manage to not buy anything else for myself for the rest of the night.
After shopping around some, we were starting to get hungry. Around this time, we happened upon the food section of this night market and it was excellent. It had fried chicken, noodles, fried rice, meats on sticks, spring rolls, banana pancakes, pretty much the best of Thai street food, which is generally pretty fabulous. We decided to save the burrito place for another night and dig in here, because this seemed like a Sunday night market, meaning it wouldn’t be around again while we were here. We got spring rolls, fried rice, and I got some pork on a stick (it’s SO good here). We were looking for a place to enjoy our food, but were having some difficulty finding something open as most of the tables were taken. I spotted an open chair and started to pull it out when I saw a woman at the table looking at me a little funny. I asked her if the chair was taken, and she told me that husband was sitting there but that we could use it anyways. We got to chatting about this and that, and it turns out that her and her husband were also from the States (I forget where, something that started with an M, either Minnesota or Michigan), which was cool. We talked about the places they had been and where they were going, pretty much the standard conversation we have with other tourists, but somehow it’s always interesting to hear. In the course of the conversation, she mentioned that she was looking for a place to get another rechargeable battery for her camera, because it had died and she didn’t have a proper transformer. I told her that actually, most electronics made in the States work perfectly well in Thailand, you just have to check that the voltage range includes 220 volts (most American made electronics are 100 – 240 V). She was very appreciative of this information, and I was really happy that we could help her.
There was another woman at our table, a Swedish woman, who we asked about her reasons for coming to Thailand. She told us that she was going to volunteer at one of the elephant parks around Chiang Mai. Awesome! Emily and I thought this was pretty much the coolest thing ever. Emily told me afterwards that ‘volunteer’ is a little bit of a misnomer, since you actually have to pay for the privilege of volunteering at such places, which seems to defeat the point a little to me. But I guess if you didn’t, everyone and their dog would be volunteering at the elephant parks and the Tiger Kingdom.
After dinner, I was seriously craving a coffee, but I couldn’t find any of the coffee shops that had previously seemed so ubiquitous around here, so I stopped by a Starbucks and bought an iced latte. Interestingly (and annoying), Starbucks is just as ridiculously priced here as it is at home. I hadn’t really been paying attention to the price when I bought it, but it was 30 baht MORE than my entire dinner! Ridiculous. We kept wandering around the stalls for a while until we realized that the market extended beyond the little area where we were. Curious to see how far it went and what they were selling, we pressed on. It quickly became apparent that it was HUGE. I mean, absolutely massive. It went on forever. We kept walking and walking, and then all of a sudden, music came on over the loudspeakers and everyone stopped. I checked my watch: it was 6 PM, time for the second daily dose of the national anthem. I had mentioned this in a previous blog post, but this time, in this crazy crowded street market, it was so weird, and more than a little eerie, to see everyone just stop and stand still, like time had frozen. I desperately wanted to take a picture to show you all, but that seemed incredibly rude, so of course I didn’t. But you may take my word for it, it is quite odd.
We shopped around for quite a while, and then just looked for an even longer while. It really was the most astounding market I think we’ve been to yet, at least in terms of size and variety of wares. I bought a few more souvenirs (for other people, not for me) and then we just looked around. There were beautiful paintings, lovely clothes (of course), more and more food, and all kinds of souvenirs and other items, like soap flowers, beautiful lanterns, lit up flowers, and then all sorts of decoration. It was lovely.
Mmm burrito
At some point, we realized that we were hungry again, and still craving burritos, so we headed over to get some Mexican food. We decided to split a bean burrito, because we weren’t that hungry, but we also got free chips and salsa in addition, which we were completely thrilled about. They were corn chips instead of tortilla chips, but whatever, they were still tasty, and the salsa was pretty good, especially compared to the nachos we had in Koh Phi Phi. Of course, I should have been suspicious of those, because they were right next to the bruschetta on the menu, and quite frankly, I’m pretty sure the ‘salsa’ there served as both salsa and bruschetta topping. This place had real salsa, which was very exciting. The burrito was good too, although like everything I’ve had here that isn’t Thai or Indian food, I’m quite sure the people who made it have never had a real burrito in their lives. But that’s okay, it was reasonable facsimile.
After our second dinner, we were very tired from walking all over the place, so we decided to get a beer from 7-11 and retire to watch some bad TV in our hotel room. There are 4 main types of beer I’ve seen sold here: Leo, Chang, Tiger and Singha. Singha is my favorite, but that didn’t have that, and I noticed a type of beer I hadn’t seen before: Siamsato. Also it was by far the cheapest, like 25 baht compared to 44 baht for the next cheapest beer. In retrospect, that should have set off an alarm in my head, but I was just like ‘ooh a cheap beer I haven’t tried yet!’ So I bought it, and had the check out guy open it for me. While I was waiting for Emily to finish her purchases, I took a sip and practically choked on it. Okay, definitely NOT beer! Somewhat alarmed, I started examining the label. The guy behind told me that it was some kind of rum. I was a little skeptical of this, because as far as I know, most rum does not cost 25 baht (under a dollar) for a huge bottle, nor does it have al alcohol content of 8%. I looked it up later, and it turns out that Siamsato is a kind of rice wine. But of course. It actually wasn’t bad, in fact it kind of reminded me of like a very thick Riesling maybe, but I wasn’t really in the mood for it so it was a little disappointing. You live and learn though, and on the whole it was a fairly amusing experience.
Once we got back, we started trying to work out what to bring on the trip the next day. It transpired that we were both rather nervous about not having our stuff locked in a lock box. Sure, we had the padlock on the door, but we were both worried that might make it look like there was something really valuable in here, thereby increasing the chances of having our room broken into. So we decided to hit up another 7-11 and get a smaller lock. Once we exited the hotel, Emily looked up and said, ‘Hey! There are stars here!’ Now, we had been hoping very badly to see some stars in Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai, because there are no beautiful stars in Bangkok as it is such a big city. We were hoping to see some here because it is slightly smaller, but thus far we hadn’t been so lucky. This star, however, was big and bright and….moving. ‘Oh,’ Emily said, sounding disappointed. ‘Is it just a plane?’ I was about to say that I thought it was when I suddenly realized that I could see the edges of the thing, very clearly. And then Emily got really excited. ‘It’s a lantern!’ she said. And she was right; it was. Now, there are two big light festivals in Thailand: Loi Krathong, where they send out lanterns onto the water, and Yeepeng, where they send them into the sky. They fall at more or less the same time. And then we realized that it was Yeepeng, and that was probably why the Sunday market was so particularly amazing tonight. We started walking to the 7-11, hoping to find the place where the lanterns were released, which we thought might have been where the start of the night market was.
We made it there, bought the lock and then waited for a while, but we didn’t any lanterns being released. Oh well. We were both excited that we had gotten to see them. By the time we made it back to the hostel, however, we saw several more in the sky, so we just sat and watched them for a while. Emily took a few pictures with her nice camera. Satisfied, we headed off to bed to get ready for our adventure the next day.
After our free breakfast from the hotel, we sat outside waiting for our transportation. Several songtaos and trucks came in to pick up tourists, but by far the most interesting one was a truck that had the words ‘Farang Transportation’ on it. We thought that was hilarious. Soon enough, we were picked up in a songtao to be taken to our destination. We also stopped to pick up some Irish girls about our age who were traveling through what seemed like all of Asia. They told us about some awesome parties they had been to on Koh Samet, and we told them about the beautiful views on Koh Phi Phi. Once we’d picked everyone up, we headed off to our first destination, the orchid farm.
Just one of the many gorgeous orchids
It was stunning. I was still learning to use my camera, and at the orchid farm I discovered that by putting my camera on the ‘macro’ setting, I could get some truly stunning pictures of the orchids. They were really fantastically beautiful. Then, my camera died. I was shocked. Early in the morning, the battery had been flashing at the half-way point, which apparently means ‘CHARGE NOW’, not ‘battery half-full’ as I had been interpreting it. Emily and I hadn’t brought another camera, either. It was hard to describe my level of disappointment at this, but it was quite bad. Nearly as hard was having to give Emily the bad news. We tried to figure out what to do. The orchid farm was selling a disposable camera, but it was selling for 550 baht, which was not only a total rip-off but also the vast majority of the money we had brought. Eventually we asked the Irish girls if they could email us the pictures they took. However, they took pity on us and did us one better: since they all four had cameras, one of the girls, Sinead, gave us her camera and let us switch out her memory card for hers for most the trip. We were incredibly grateful, and promised her she’d get some seriously good karma from this.
After the orchid farm, the next stop was the elephant farm. The elephants were chained inside the pen, but the owner of the place assured us that it was quite safe just to go up to them and pet them, which we did. They were very sweet, and seemed to enjoy being scratched under their chins. Then our tour guide, Panny, informed us that it was time for our elephant ride. She told us that it was going to be 3 people to an elephant: two on the elephant’s back, where there was a little bench carefully strapped, and then one in the ‘driver’s seat’, or basically riding the elephant bareback. In addition, each elephant had a REAL driver, who perched rather precariously on the elephants’ head. Emily volunteered to take the driver’s seat on the first elephant. The rest of the people were either couple or in pairs of some kind, so I also took the driver’s seat on the second elephant. Panny told us to hold onto the metal bench behind us for support, and off we went.
Elephants!
WOW. I had not really conceived how difficult it would be to ride an elephant bareback like that. It reminded me very much of the third Harry Potter book, where Harry Potter rides Buckbeak and then compares the experience to riding a broomstick, finding it to be quite a bit more difficult. Every step the elephant took made my ‘seat’ lean down and then back, down and up, making me feel like I was constantly falling. Worse was when the elephant stopped to eat, which was pretty much every other step, and he was leaning down or reaching up for some leaves. This would usually leave me practically falling off one side, holding on to the metal bench for dear life, legs and arms shaking from the effort of holding myself up. I talked to Emily about it afterwards and we both agreed there were several times we both thought we were going to fall off and die. AND I still managed to take pictures while this was all going on, so you better appreciate them, that’s all I’m saying. Anyways, despite all of this, it really was quite good fun, and I could see why elephants had been used for transportation for such a long time in Thailand. They can really get through practically any terrain, even if they are very slow and methodical, and stop to eat every three or four steps. Because they would eat forever if not discouraged, it was up to our driver to get the elephant to move on when necessary. To accomplish this, he used an instrument disturbingly reminiscent of a pickax to discourage the elephant from eating—not that it worked much at all. The driver of Emily’s elephant just whacked the elephant on the head to stop it from eating, which seemed to work slightly better. Both of the methods were a little hard to watch at times, but I’m not sure how much it actually hurts the elephants. They do have very thick skin, after all.
We rode in a large, clearly marked out circle (clearly marked by elephant footprints) for about an hour before returning to our starting point and hopping off, or in mine and Emily’s cases, wobbling off. Our legs were shaking from the effort of riding the elephant, but fortunately it was time for lunch after that. We had a tasty yellow curry with rice and fruit for lunch. After that, Emily and I looked around the camp for a bit. We played with a super adorable kitten and saw it nurse from its mother. We then bought some banana bunches and fed them to the elephants. There was a very cute baby elephant that was strangely chained very far from the fence, so we had to throw it bananas and hope it could get them before the adult ones. We wandered into the pen to pet the elephants again, and then decided to try and pet the baby. We were very careful because we didn’t want to upset its mother. We had almost made it to the baby when Panny shouted ‘No no no, don’t go there!’ We were rather startled by this, and quickly exited the pen. Panny was laughing and said, ‘Don’t go near him, the baby is very naughty’. Ohhhh, so that was why he was chained so far from the pen. How interesting. I was curious as to how exactly the baby was naughty, but didn’t ask, because then it was time for out jungle trek.
Glorious views and hot sun
We started walking, and the views were simply glorious. Lots of hot sunshine and trees as far as the eye could see. We hadn’t gone far when I felt a sharp, tingly sensation at my ankle. I looked down and there was an enormous ant on my foot. Gah! I wiped it off quickly. Yikes, not 5 minutes in the jungle and I’ve already got huge bugs on me. Not exactly promising, but it was too late to turn back now. I hadn’t gone much farther when I felt another sharp sensation on my legs, but this proved to be not an insect but rather a very prickly plant that was everywhere. Seriously, it was ridiculous. Emily and I were soon bleeding, and we could hear the people behind us crying out in pain every so often. Panny seemed immune though, and forged on ahead. She did her best to clear a path for us, but it mostly futile.
She showed us some really cool things on our trek. She showed us some coffee beans before they were roasted, and they were a kind of reddish color. She also plucked some Thai cherries from a tree for us to try. You can’t eat the skin, so you have to suck the insides out. They were delicious, and Emily and I were actually pretty sure we’d had them in a Thai drink before. Tasty.
Not long after, we arrived in hill tribe. There are still several hill tribes in Thailand, but they took have been affected by civilization, so it wasn’t quite as exotic or foreign as you might imagine. We even saw some boys playing with a soccer ball. The houses though are still built with bamboo and they clearly don’t have internet (whoa!) so it was still pretty fascinating. We even saw a Methodist church, also made of bamboo, and were allowed to peer inside. There was pretty much nothing in there, just a pulpit and bare floor. How interesting. Panny explained that missionaries had come here some time ago and converted many of the hill tribes to Christianity.
We kept walking past the hill tribe and saw an even more amazing view, with lots of corn and banana trees. It was super cool. I really enjoyed it. We then walked to another hill tribe, which somewhat disappointingly was filled with stalls selling more and more tourist stuff, which I had had quite enough of at this point. I did buy a bag of apple guava with sugar though, one of my many weaknesses for Thai food. We then hopped on a truck waiting for us and went to our next activity, white water rafting.
Our truck met up with another truck, and we were instructed to grab some life jackets and helmets, and ditch our stuff in the songtao so that it would be safe from the water. While we were waiting for everyone to get situated, an ice cream cart came by, selling ice cream for 10 baht. We decided to get some, and were looking at the flavors with Panny. They were selling chocolate, and another flavor we weren’t sure about, so we asked Panny. She asked us if we had ever heard of durian. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned durian on this blog yet, but it is supposed to be quite smelly, and many Thais I’ve talked to have told me it is delicious. I had mentioned this Elliot, and he assured me that it is as quite as bad as it smells. Well, let me tell you Elliot, that prior to this, I had tried something called a durian mooncake (an experience I intend to recount when a do a post on Thai food), and I have to concede that you are correct. Anyways, Emily and I opted for the chocolate and told the man selling it ‘thank you’ in Thai (kawb kun kaa). Panny was extremely impressed that we knew this. I also told her that the chocolate ice cream was aroi (delicious). She asked us ‘how we know to speak Thai a lot’, which cracked me up because ‘a lot’ seems like just a slight exaggeration of my Thai skills. I was, however, completely tickled that someone would use those words to describe my Thai, despite the inaccuracy of it. We explained what we were doing there, which she found quite interesting. She asked us if we could understand her when she spoke Thai, which made us laugh again. Nope, not even a little bit, we told her. But she still seemed quite fond of us after that. She told us that hearing foreigners making an attempt to speak Thai makes Thais very happy and more welcoming towards us, which made us glad we knew at least the small bit that we did.
After the ice cream break, we got on another truck with the rafts and paddles, and were driven to the river. We still had to carry the raft down to the river bed, unfortunately. This would have been painful on our feet even if they weren’t injured, as the route to the riverbed was full of brambles and branches; with our injured feet it was pure agony. Emily was in even more pain than I was. It was pretty bad, but we made it. The rafting was fun, although I would hardly describe it as ‘white water’ rafting. I think we saw white water maybe twice. It was still great fun to be out on the river, and we had several water fights with the other rafts. One of these resulted in us slamming quite hard into a rock because we were distracted; this was probably the most exciting part of the rafting experience.
Me and a waterfall
Once the rafting was over, we were tired and dirty and sort of just wanted to go home, but we were taken a waterfall, and it was really beautiful. Lots of people were going down into the waterfall to shower off and just be there, and Emily suggested that we go. Of course, once I made down into the fall, she decided that she didn’t want to make it down. Whatever, I got to stand in water and get a little bit clean at least, although it was freezing cold. Afterwards, we went back up to the truck and Panny took a few pictures for us. We headed home after that, tired but satisfied.
We got home, got cleaned up, and had some very cheap, tasty Indian food and beer for dinner (this is quickly becoming my favorite kind of meal for dinner). Afterwards, I was extremely curious to try one of the little coffee shops that are everywhere around our hotel. I ordered a latte for 50 baht (a little less than $2), and it was delicious, well made and had a beautiful leaf design etched into the foam. That’d definitely run you more than $2 in Santa Monica! We then decided to poke around into one of the fabulous secondhand book shops they have here, where I purchased a Bill Bryson book I hadn’t read yet. I know that I’ve read a ton of his books already, but I wanted to read some more travel writing, since it is becoming increasingly clear to me that by the end of this trip, I will have written a small book. I’m hoping to improve my writing skills a little.
We then decided we wanted to get a massage, Thai style. I had heard rumors of Thai massage (no, not those rumors, get your mind out of the gutter), about how it is more like being beaten than massaged, but my muscles ached from everything that we’d been doing and good beating sounded pretty nice. Good thing too, because that was more or less what I got. Not only that, but she cracked my back too. The whole experience was only 30 minutes, and was terribly painful, but afterwards my muscles felt completely loose and limber. Perfect. We went back to our hostel, satisfied and exhausted, and planned our trip for the next day.
We had decided that we were going to spend one more day in Chiang Mai, to see all the temples, and then head to Chiang Rai. Now we were also wondering if it would be possible to go to the Tiger Kingdom as well. There is also a Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi, a place we wanted to visit that is only a 3 hour train ride from Bangkok, but after a bit of research, we decided that the Tiger Kingdom in Chiang Mai would probably be a better bet. Most of the comments I had read by people who’d gone to the Tiger Temple indicated that they thought the tigers might have been drugged. Now, how one would tell that an adult tiger had been drugged, I have no idea, but these people said that even the young tigers, which should be happy and playful, were drowsy and seemed unresponsive. Given the choice, I’d rather give my money to someplace that doesn’t drug their animals.
The next morning, we discussed our transportation options with a woman at the hostel whose sole job is to help us farangs with our sightseeing needs, which I was quite grateful for. She told us she could get us a songthao to take us to the Tiger Kingdom, and the two of the temples we wanted to see, Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, which was on the top of the mountain (Doi means mountain), and Wat Umong. The third temple we wanted to see, Wat Chedi Luang, was within walking distance, she informed us, and we could see it after we had returned. She hired us the songthao for 600 baht, or 300 baht each, not a bad deal since it would take us everywhere we wanted to go, wait while we were there, and then take us home.
Our first stop was to the Tiger Kingdom. There were various packages you could get with different ages of tigers, but Emily and I decided to go for the adult tigers, because they are so regal and majestic. After a few minutes of waiting, we were called in, given some instructions on how to behave around the tigers (no flash, approach them from behind) and allowed in with a guide.
We're petting a tiger, OMG!
It was amazing. The first tiger we met was named Lucky, and he was just lying on the ground, stretched out like a big kitty. They were so much bigger than I thought they would be. I mean, I knew they were big, but really, they are larger than life. Their paws are easily the size of my face. It was incredible. I bent down to pet him while Emily took pictures, and I could feel the large muscles under the fur. The guide told me to ‘plank’ on him (I don’t feel like explaining what this is, just Google ‘planking’ if you are curious), which I thought was ridiculous, but whatever; I just did what he said. I cuddled with Lucky for a bit after that, and at one point he stretched out his legs, kind of kicking me, which made me laugh in a rather startled sort of way. I’m sure you’ll notice from all of my pictures that I pretty awestruck by these animals.
Then it was Emily’s turn. Our guide told Em to pretend to bite Lucky’s tail, which I also thought was ridiculous. We then moved on to the next tiger, Jackie Chan (yes, really). More cuddling and awesome pictures. Our guide even took a few of us together, which was really nice; he got some very good ones. Then the next tiger decided she was tired of waiting for us to come to her, so she started wandering over. Her name was Sunflower, and she was gorgeous. Our guide told us that the females tend to be a little more active, and based on my 10 minutes there, I can say this was so. She came over to us and started making a peculiar kind of groaning/growling noise. It wasn’t angry or anything, but more brought to mind the sound a teenager might make when roused from bed by their parents. I found it quite amusing. We took some pictures with her once she sat down (or more collapsed in one big heap on the concrete). The guide told me to ‘bite’ her tail, too, but she kept flicking it out of my hands, which was really funny. After that, our time was up, but we were allowed to survey the rest of the park at our leisure. It was quite small, but we got to see some tigers of other ages, including the young tigers and also the baby tigers. The baby tigers were sleeping, but I’m happy to report that the young tigers were as playful and happy as kittens, so I think I can safely put any worries about drugged tigers to rest, at least at the Tiger Kingdom. We stayed and watched them play for awhile, then decided we had to get a move on if we ever wanted to see all the temples, so we headed back to our songthao.
The next stop was the temple at the top of the mountain. Now, the songthao could really only take us so far, because to get to the top of the temple, you have climb in excess of 100 or so stairs. Originally, we had been planning to do this in the early morning or the late afternoon, so that it would be less hot. Unfortunately, that hadn’t worked out exactly and it now appeared we were going to be climbing these steps during the hottest part of the day. I don’t know how we managed that so well, but there you have it. Fortunately, it was cooler here since we were up north and also high in the mountains, so it wasn’t too bad. Once we made it to the top, I stopped for a second because there was a sign that said that foreigners had to pay 30 baht to get it. I pointed this out to Emily, but she told me she was pretty sure it was a scam, and that if we just went in she doubted anyone would stop us. She was right, of course. She told me that she’s pretty sure that in China, there are government sponsored scams, so I guess she knows one when she sees it.
Once we’d made it in, the temperature seemed to rise about 10 degrees. The area around the temple was beautiful and shady and forested, but the temple itself wasn’t. Like the Grand Palace in Bangkok, everything seemed encased in gold. There were people everywhere, tourists and natives alike, burning incense and candles in front of various Buddha figurines. We entered one of the worship houses, where we sat in contemplation of a large Buddha. Nearby, a monk was blessing some worshippers by sprinkling them with water. I wasn’t participating in the worship, but he splashed me anyways. I had to try really hard not to laugh at this, as did Emily. I was grateful though, because I hoped it would bring me good luck, and that this luck would translate into our school not flooding. I donated 20 baht for the service.
We went back out and wandered around some more, eventually arriving at a balcony overlooking the city and offering a rather stunning view. Even though the air here is cleaner, you could still see quite a bit of pollution hanging out, which was sort of sad. We took some pictures and then wandered by some eternal flames, where people pour oil in the flame bowls to keep them going. One guy poured oil directly on the flame, however, which ended up putting it out. Again, I had to try not to laugh openly at this; I didn’t want to embarrass the guy.
We decided we had seen enough, and headed back down, where there plenty of shops selling more tourist stuff. I bought a Buddha figurine, which I had been in the market for, and Emily bought a meditation bell. She’s getting to be quite a good bargainer, a skill I still haven’t mastered. We then had some lunch in another of those tiny cheap restaurants that are always so good, and I also bought a cup of strawberries, which were delicious but made me miss home, where thanks to Mom I always had a pretty much limitless supply of berries.
Next stop was Wat Umong. This involved going down the mountain rather than continuing upwards, as we had been doing. If the drive up had been curving and crazy, then the drive down was absolute insanity. More than once, we found ourselves on the wrong side of the road. It seemed that here, as in Bangkok, driving rules and regulations are regarded more as suggestions than anything else. But fortunately, we didn’t crash into any approaching cars and made it safely to Wat Umong.
Ancient Buddha statues at Wat Umong
Wat Umong was everything that I had been hoping to see in a Thai Buddhist temple, that all of the other temples so far had not delivered. Most of it had been built in 1400 (1400!), and was ancient and crumbling. Emily and I both agreed that we infinitely preferred this look to the ornate and glittery temples that were so popular with tourists. Wat Umong was not nearly as touristed as the other temples, so we had the place almost to ourselves. It consisted of small tunnels that led to Buddha statues, where a few devote souls were praying to the Buddha. On the other side of the temple, there were some stairs that we could take to the top, a cobblestoned area with a towering structure on top. This was also mostly empty. A mother and her two little girls were there, the girls happily tromping around in the cool forest. Some chickens jumped up and wandered around, crowing all the while. It was really lovely. We stayed for about an hour before deciding that we’d seen enough, and that besides we really wanted to make it Wat Chedi Luang.
Samantha Shelton: Tomb Raider
Once we were back at the hostel, we freshened up really quickly before stopping to ask the woman at the hostel for directions. By this point, I was tired and seriously ready for dinner, so I wasn’t sure how excited I was about wandering up and down the streets of Chiang Mai looking for this temple. Emily seemed determined though, so we pressed on and eventually arrived. It was pretty—really pretty, actually. The temple had a large glass pattern on it, which was sparkly and playful in its coloring, but honestly, I wasn’t that impressed. Then we kept walking, and I saw the real Wat Chedi Luang. My mouth fell and my forehead furrowed in awe. Emily actually laughed out loud at my face. I’d had no idea.
It was enormous, and rose up in an extremely high angle. The crumbling steps that led up to the top were almost Mayan in terms of steepness. At the top of the stair was a huge golden Buddha. You weren’t actually allowed up the stairs, since I’m sure if everyone did that, they would completely worn down, but it was still amazing. There were four sides, and each side housed a huge Buddha, but only one side had stairs leading up to it—the others just had a steep slope. I felt a childish urge to run up just to see how far I could before sliding back down, but I resisted. On one side, there were some elephants simply sticking out the walls. It looked especially striking in the fading afternoon soon. I was awestruck. It was excellent, just really amazing. Possibly one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in my life.
Completely satisfied now, we headed off to browse in some secondhand bookshops. We were looking around when Emily heard a guy ask the owner if they had Game of Thrones for sale. Emily and I are both huge sci-fi fans, and are quite excited to meet any others. In addition, Emily happened to know a bookshop that was selling Game of Thrones, so we introduced ourselves and offered to take him there, as it was near our hostel.
On the way there, we got to talking and discovered that he was a Muay Thai boxer. Neat! It’s so interesting to hear about everyone’s life story here, because they are all so different. Anyways, we dropped him off the right bookstore, went back to the hostel to change (you have to wear conservative skirts to enter the temples, and we wanted something a little more casual) and then headed out to get some dinner. Afterwards, we played pool at a bar that had 70 baht mojitos (a little over $2), browsed some more books and then headed home.
The next day, we headed off to the bus station with all of our stuff to go to Chiang Rai, which is about a 3 hour bus ride from Chiang Mai. We had been told that the buses left on the hour, so we got there at around 9:20 AM, hoping to get a bus at 10, only to be informed that the next bus left at 11:30.
‘But I thought they left on the hour’, I said in dismay. The woman didn’t understand what I was saying though, so we just bought the tickets and waited. It turned out that there was a bus leaving at 10:15, but it was full. Oh well, such is life I guess. We got on the bus at 11:30 for our first ever bus ride by ourselves, which passed uneventfully. We stopped at a rest stop where I used a bathroom with a squatter toilet, which I encounter occasionally and am still trying to get used to. I also got an ice cream cone, and Emily got 2.
We arrived in Chiang Rai and checked in, then set out to find a tour for the next day, the last day on our trip. At orientation, we had learned about this place called Doi Pu Chi Fah, a mountaintop where you are up so high you can watch the sunrise OVER the clouds. It looked insanely beautiful, so we were looking for a tour there. Interestingly, it’s not a very popular tourist destination. The tour shops went there, of course, but they didn’t advertise it at all, you had to ask. We found one for 1000 baht, which we figured wasn’t too bad, then went back to the hostel to rest before meeting some friends of ours from CIEE for dinner.
It was great to see them, and they took us to this ‘food court’ at their local night market, which had pretty much every kind of food you can imagine for incredible prices, including Mexican food by a woman who had actually BEEN to Mexico. Fantastic! I got spring rolls and fried chicken, and Emily got a burrito. The girls then took us to a bar, but we restricted our drinking, as you have to leave at 3 AM to get to Pu Chi Fah by sunrise. We then went home and tried to fall asleep around 9. Shortly after we got to the hostel, however, there was a knock on the door.
I opened the door with the deadbolt on (see Mom, I can be careful!), but my guard lowered when I realized that it was the guy from the tour. He had come to tell us that we were leaving at 4 AM the next day, not 3, and that there would be two other people on the tour with us. He then told us to tell them that we had paid 1300 baht, if they asked. Since the first thing I usually say to other people on these tours is something along the lines of hello, rather than ‘So how much did YOU pay for this tour?’, I wasn’t that concerned about it. I did think it kind of hilarious though. So we tried to go to sleep after that, but with paper thin walls and live music playing outside until around midnight, it was tough. Then the guy next door started watching TV at 2:30 AM. UGH. So we didn’t get much sleep that night.
The next morning, we awoke bleary-eyed at around 3:30 AM, got dressed and headed out to wait for the car. I ran over the nearest 7-11 (there’s pretty much always one within 20 feet of oh, you know, ANYWHERE) and grabbed a bottled latte, which I swiftly downed along with a banana cake. This was my breakfast for the day. At around 4:10, we were starting to get a bit worried about making it to Pu Chi Fah on time, but at that point a car swung around, and our guide, who looked quite apologetic, ushered into the car before heading off to pick up the others on our tour. They were an older couple (well by older I mean older than us, I would guess they were in their mid-30s). This made me feel a little bit better about the fact that they were charged more than us; I can guarantee they had plenty more money than we did.
We drove for two hours, all the while getting more and more nervous about missing the sunrise. The sky was clearly getting lighter and lighter. When we finally made it, all four of us pretty much bolted from the car and started running up the path to the top of the mountain. Unfortunately, we had to stop about halfway up, panting and wheezing. It had not occurred to us that the air would be thinner here, as it certainly was. My heart was pounding, and my lungs ached for air. It felt like I was breathing in ice shards, it was that agonizing. Trying not to piss off my heart any further, we slowed our ascent a bit, but were still breathing hard once we got up there. Luckily, we made it just in time to see the sunrise.
The view was…well. It was awe-inspiring. We only stayed for an hour, but I could have stayed forever. It looked like we were in an ocean, an ocean of clouds, and all the mountaintops were little islands in the ocean. I could almost believe that you could swim to them. I won’t say much more, because what else can I say? I’ll just show you the pictures.
See? Beautiful.
After that, we piled back into the car and headed home. I had just started to pleasantly doze, when I realized that we had stopped, far short of Chiang Rai. I was puzzled, but then Emily pointed out that there was a waterfall there. Now, I love waterfalls, and this was a lovely one, but I was tired and grouchy and just wanted to get back to the hostel to take a nap, not stop for views. I was tempted to just stay in the car, but got out anyways, grumbling to myself the whole time. But it was really was lovely. Then our guide started leading us up some steps to the top of the falls. Here again, I protested in my mind that I was tired, etc, but I went anyways, and I am so glad that I did.
How does this keep happening? I don’t understand. Every place we go to is more beautiful and more glorious than the last. This place had a combination of forest ecosystems, a dryer forest area, a rainforest area and then a forest area that had qualities of both. But instead of hiking on the forest floor, disturbing the ecosystem and getting soggy in the process, there was a wooden path built on top of that you could walk on. It was really gorgeous. In addition, there were little signs everywhere explaining the biology of what was happening in simple language, in both English and Thai. As a biologist, these didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t know, but I found it quite encouraging that an effort had been made to educated people on forest ecosystems. I liked it quite a lot. The other couple in our group didn’t seem to speak English (actually, neither did our guide, come to think of it), so they went on ahead of us while we read the signs. Then, at one especially lovely place, I stopped while Emily kept going.
Now, here I was alone, surrounded by nature. At this point, the nature seemed to be making a tunnel surrounding me, creating a little doorway to walk out of into the sunlight. But I stayed in the tunnel for a moment, feeling that little twinge that I have, that maybe everyone has. It’s that little part of you, some little piece of DNA that remembers a time before, before people wore pants and drove cars and couldn’t live without their iPhones and computers. It cries out at sights like this, where it sees nature and wants to run into it, disappear, and live out here in this sumptuous beauty, because what else could you need? But I didn’t do that, obviously, and I never will and neither does anyone else, because I have far too much to lose. Besides the fact that I rather enjoy hot showers and the internet, and could almost certainly not provide for myself in the wild, I have so many people I love (quite possible including you, dear Reader), and that I know I could never live without. So I sighed, tucked that strand of DNA behind a spare histone (sorry, biology joke), and pressed on.
Testing the waters
The next sight I came upon was a hot spring, and you could tell it was a hot spring because there was some steam rising up into the lovely morning air. I read the sign, which provided the relevant information that bubbling I saw was not because the water was boiling, but rather was the result of calcium carbonate, and that the water was not actually that hot. I experimentally dipped my fingers in and found that it was more the temperature of a nice warm bath. How lovely. I would have been tempted to strip down and jump in if not for the fact that the whole of the spring was covered pond scum.
After we finished the loop, we headed back to the hotel, where we decided to rent another night just for the privilege of being able to sleep for the rest of the afternoon. We then proceeded to nap for most of the day, waking up at four PM only because we were meeting our friends for dinner again at 5 and wanted to see one more sight before leaving Chiang Rai: the White Temple.
We went straight to a tuk tuk driver, who offered to take us for 400 baht. Since we were rapidly burning through our money, and had no guarantee of payment for this month, this seemed a bit rich for us. ‘300?’ Emily asked. ‘OK, 350’ replied the driver. Hmm. We stood there for another minute or two, then Em asked ‘300?’ again. This time, he agreed to 300 and we hopped on. Isn’t she a great bargainer?
Totally sweet, right?
Now, Em has been the one doing all the research on these temples, which I quite like actually, because it means I have no idea what to expect from each one. Same with the White Temple. Em had mentioned that it looked like something out of a fairy tale, and she was absolutely right. It brought to my mind the castle of the White Witch in Narnia, partially because of all the sparkling, glittery whiteness, but also because all the animal statues reminded me of the frozen animals in the White Witch’s castle. It was gorgeous, but also kind of spooky, and also just kind of weird. For instance, there were a bunch of hands at one part, reaching up out of the ground, like people from hell trying to get to the surface. At one corner, there was a Predator crawling out of the ground. Why a Predator? I don’t know. It was just there. There were also trees from which stone heads hung. Again, I don’t know why. Emily told me that apparently somewhere there is a wall with a painting of Neo from the Matrix on it, and I believe her, even though we didn’t get a chance to see it. It was just that kind of place. We entered the temple, after having to borrow skirts they have especially for people not dressed appropriately for entering, ie, women wearing shorts, like us. Whoops. We both felt kind of dumb—at this point, we really should have known better, but at least they had skirts for us. We wandered around until 5, when it closed, and we were forced to leave. It had definitely been worth the 300 baht.
So creepy
After that, we rushed to meet Mindy and Jenny, our friends from CIEE for dinner again. After dinner, we went to this dessert cart to get something sweet. They seemed to be selling what looked like crispy pancakes with various chocolate and fruit sauces on them. At one point, we saw them put some white clumpy stuff on one of the pancakes, and we started speculating about what it might be. We had just decided it was vanilla, when some guy next to us told it was pork. We stared at him. Pork? Yup, he told us, definitely pork. Well, when it came time for us to order, we very carefully stated we just wanted chocolate and strawberry sauce, and no pork. ‘Mai moo’, we told him. No pork. We also had a passion fruit smoothie, which was so incredibly fresh tasting that I drained it in big, tasty gulps.
After dessert, we hastily said our goodbyes and rushed off to the airport in a tuk tuk. This tuk tuk told us that it would be 200 to take us to the airport. We were confused, because we weren’t sure if he meant 200 each or 200 total. While we stood there trying to figure it out, he said, ‘OK, 150’. Look, we were bargaining and we didn’t even know it! So we accepted it (it was 150 total) and took off the airport. I think that drive was the first time in Thailand I had ever been cold. And this time we only had to wait at the airport for 1 hour instead of 3! Go us! We were becoming Thailand pros.
We made it home uneventfully, no protests or flooding. Miraculously, our dorm hadn’t flooded (maybe it was the good luck from the monk) and it looked like school was going to start on Monday. I fell asleep that night with a deep sense of relief and exhaustion—a good feeling, no question.
Next up: your guess is as good as mine, but I would guess it’s going to be about my first experience teaching. Stay tuned, everybody!
Travels in Thailand 