Chiang Mai is an interesting city. It is strategically located east, and well within sight, of a large mountain and sits in a warm, fertile river valley and the city has been trading with many SE Asian empires for many centuries. Now, it is a large city of about 100,000 composed of Thais, expats from Europe and Australia, and other international students as well as a diverse variety of travellers old and young. You can get any kind of cuisine in the world (for the right price), spoil yourself with cheap Thai massages and shop ‘till you drop in one of Chiang Mai’s many markets. In many ways, the city reminds me of Santa Cruz in so much as it is largely a college town, a popular tourist destination, the weather is mild and there is excellent mountain biking and a sizable artist community.
We have met more people in this city than any other thus far: many Chinese students on winter break, Germans, Australians, French, Canadians, Californians, British and even shared a room with an Indian man, Raj, who lives in Florida working as a flight instructor. We’ve befriended our roommates Marco and Fran, two cousins from London. Marco is a young telecommuter working abroad in Thailand and Fran is travelling along with him for the time being. A soaking wet adventure ensued when we all decided to try to beat the encroaching storm to the night market bazaar. Thinking we had enough time to make the 15 minute walk and find a restaurant before the rain set in, we set off on foot and started to feel drops after a few minutes. Then, when the rain really started coming down, we hailed a tuk-tuk as the wind whipped the rain into the little taxi crammed with five naive farang. Already drenched, we quickly leaped out at the night bazaar into an inch or two of water to find dozens of stalls frantically setting up tarps over counterfeit goods. Finding refuge under a tarp, we were trapped between rising water on the street behind us failing to drain and a wall of water gushing from the sky. After about ten more minutes of waiting, we bolted towards the nearest overhang outside of a mall and waited another ten minutes for the most powerful rain I have ever encountered to let up. Once it did, we found a good, covered restaurant to eat soup and noodles and had a good time laughing about the insanity of the 30 minute storm. The rest of the evening, the five of us toured the extensive night bazaar finding a few silk treasures, stingray leather, and a stunning display of gifted painters.
The next day was a thrill of a different kind. I thought it would be fun to ride to the top of Doi Sutep, the 5,500 foot mountain hugging Chiang Mai to the west. We rented scooters, filled them with petrol and climbed the 20 km mountain road with caution finally reaching the campgrounds and trail head to the summit in about an hour. A lovely lone woman cooked us up some delicious fried rice at the entrance to the park and we walked around for a bit, surprised that it was actually free to enter for anyone. The trailhead began in a steep seemingly relentless climb until it leveled off about 500 feet up. There wasn’t any spectacular scenery up at the top as we had hoped for but there was a gorgeous, fog coated dense forest to marvel at through most of the hike. Descending was a bit trickier and some steep muddy sections were quite difficult to navigate without some bum sliding. After making it back safely, we took our scooters to a Hmong hill tribe village about 3 km down a narrow, rough road. Jake offered a ride to a monk whose final destination, we later learned, was Chiang Mai city. Luckily, Jake got let off the hook near the campgrounds 3 km back. By the time we cooled down after our hike and Jake returned from his monk taxi ride, we all realized how cold it was at this altitude in the Hmong village and we warmed ourselves up with an amazing cup of locally grown and roasted coffee. We were greeted to the village by a colorful, charming but incessant horn player. He was a Hmong and apparently well known to go from tourist to tourist playing the one note his custom plastic horn could belch, collecting baht and laughing with a large, one tooth grin. Going down the mountain road, we quickly reached warmer temperatures which we were all grateful for. We stopped at Wat Doi Suthep, located about halfway up the mountain with commanding views of Chiang Mai. The three of us parked our bikes and ascended the hundreds of stairs to the top and wandered around the perimeter of the wat. Riding down the road was fun but the real fun started when we hit rush hour traffic in Chiang Mai proper. I finally got a good feel for the sensitive throttle on my bike and discovered the secret middle lane in between cars, making our commute to the rental shop faster and a lot more fun! Jake and I spent most of the evening drinking Chang and meeting nearly all of our hostel, including our new roommate Raj (he told us to pronounce it Rage), who left for Pai early the next morning.
We awoke the next day to cannons firing, signaling the beginning of Chiang Mai’s annual flower festival on the first through third of February. After a late breakfast, we walked about 15 minutes from our hostel to find the cultural center and spent about two hours getting schooled on Chiang Mai’s history as well as past and present culture. It was informative about Chiang Mai and the surrounding hill tribes, interesting and air-conditioned. Later, we found ourselves touring the opening ceremonies of the flower festival where young girls were dolled up and performed a traditional Thai finger dance to pounding music. We wandered among the food and artisan vendors, stopping frequently to sample everyone’s dishes. In the evening, we walked through a street of bars, massage parlors and hostels to the night bazaar once again to purchase a few gifts. We were drawn into an incredible blues performance at an intimate upstairs bar called the boy blues bar. There was a talented Thai threesome playing songs and jamming, even hosting a farang harmonica player who blended in well. The lead guitarist and singer had excellent feel and reminded us of a Thai Jimmi Hendrix. The night ended very well at this bar.
The next morning, Saturday, we all took our time getting to the other side of the old city to the flower festival parade. We found ourselves walking in step with a great high school marching band towards the public park on the corner of the island. On a separate avenue, we toured a long stretch of covered stalls filled with thousands of varieties of plants competing in competitions ranging from succulents, flowers (mostly orchids and roses), bansais and beyond. Further down, there were vendors selling much of those same types of plants as well as gorgeous flower arrangements.
The parade was incredible. There were about ten or so floats representing different organizations or companies, decorated lavishly with a bright, extensive palette of everlasting flowers (everlasting because they only require watering once every month or two). Women dressed up in traditional Thai garments and smiled until it hurt. Most of the floats incorporated a Buddhist theme into their floats as well but all of them did a spectacular job of arranging the flowers so intricately and carefully. Towards the end of one avenue, in front of a group of talented blind musicians, we witnessed the collapse of the tail end of one float. What a disaster! The tree branches proved too much for the styrofoam body of the tail which was only kept in place by glue and small wooden stakes. We felt rude taking pictures of the mishap so we quickly moved on to the public park where we sat in the shade for a while, admiring the beauty of the only public park on the island and soaking in more Chiang Mai culture.
For dinner, we ate good pizza and drank a few Changs and even met an old California hippie who was from Mill Valley and was 72 years old! Later on, Jake and I went out with a group from our hostel to a complex filled with bars, clubs a tattoo parlor and a Turkish man who looks like a pirate and sells Kebabs. We were treated to a free rock and metal show at the pentatonic club where the band covered songs from Nirvana, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers and more. On Sunday, we relaxed around the hostel and decided to go to Pai, up in the mountains close to the Myanmar border, on the following day after the somewhat disappointing Superbowl, which we woke up at 6 am to view live.