Totally Thailand - Thursday, Nov-19

I’m up again at 5 am, unable to sleep anymore. I might as well get up and do something, anything, until the kitchen opens at 7 am and I can get a cup of coffee. I sort through my gear yet again and wash some things in the bathroom sink. Traveling requires regular organizing, arranging, re-arranging, packing and repacking. It’s easy to misplace things, even when you have few personal belongings with you. The last thing you want to do is lose your passport or worse, a pair of undies when you’ve only got 4 pairs.

The kitchen opens, and I’m the first in line for a hot cup of coffee. Toby, a young fellow from London, and Renate from Austria join me at my table. They’ve been traveling together, having met along the way. Renate has been on the road for several months. I’m always impressed by folks who take three or four months to travel, or even longer. I’m curious how they finance a long trip. Most long-term travelers seem to be younger people in their 20s who do not have many obligations, like career or family. They sell their possessions, store what they can at their parents’ house, strap a pack to their back, and travel until the money runs out. The other demographic of long-term travelers are retirees. They are usually more solvent, have the time, sublet their home, and can afford to flash-pack from one destination to the next.

At 8 am I meet Eleanor from New Zealand. It’s an easy 10- or 15-minute stroll past the outrageous clocktower to the Morning Market. The food court is located on one side of the large arcade, and we soon find a soup vendor who serves us an appetizing chicken soup full of fresh vegetable and noodles. Chicken soup is by far my favorite breakfast food when I’m in Southeast Asia.

We part ways after breakfast, so I head over to Fat Free Bikes and rent a one-speed city bicycle. I’m going to pedal my way around this town and see what I discover today. I head toward the northeast section of Chiang Rai, past a nice residential area crisscrossed by khlongs (canals) choked with water hyacinth. Chiang Rai is flat and easy to get around in, with little car traffic and lots of places to stop and grab a drink or a snack. I find a nice promenade on the banks of the Mae Kok River, as the Mekong is called here in northern Thailand, and I ride past well-manicured gardens and playful statuary of elephants. In the evening, the big pavilion on the bank is transformed into a bustling beer garden, which must be a pleasant place to hang out and have a cold one.

I have a simple map of Chiang Rai and somehow find my way to Wat Phra That Doi Chom Thong, a hilltop temple with good views of the city. Even though today is overcast and much cooler than when I arrived, I work up a good sweat pushing my bike up the steep hill. There is no one at the wat today except for a young monk doing concrete repairs. Being a monk requires a lot of physical work; it’s not all chanting and meditation, apparently. I pull out a bandana and wet it in a cistern. It feels very refreshing to wear it around my neck, and I do this periodically during my bike ride to stay cool. The ride down the hill is exhilarating, and I enjoy the cooling breeze as I coast down the road under a dark canopy of teakwood trees.

There are signs pointing to Chiang Rai Beach. I vaguely remember reading about this place online, so I pedal my way in that direction, stopping briefly for an iced coffee and a rest. After passing a business district, the neighborhood becomes far more rural, the road flanked by huge banana trees and colorful bougainvilleas. I ride under an arch announcing I’m at Chiang Rai Beach. The road runs parallel to the Mae Kok River, and on the banks are many bamboo platforms for rent, each one shaded by a thatch roof and outfitted in rugs and triangular axe pillows for lounging upon. There’s hardly anyone here and a few of the food stalls are closed, but I’m sure it gets quite busy on weekends and holidays. On the opposite bank of the river is a large limestone cliff completely covered by greenery. It rises up suddenly from the landscape, reminding me of those Chinese silk scroll paintings with their exaggerated vertical perspective. It turns out the land really looks like that, so it’s not just the artist taking liberties with his interpretation of the terrain.

My bike ride takes me past the beach and down rough rural roads, where I encounter lop-eared Brahma cows noshing on the rich greenery, their large bells clanging under their chins. I ride until the road ends, so I turn and head back the way I came, stopping at Wat Maharaj, another hilltop wat where I am the only visitor. My route back to town is not the same one I took to get here, but all main roads lead to Chiang Rai and I eventually end up at the south end of Jet Yod, less than 10 minutes from Baan Bua Guesthouse.

My ride today lasted 4 hours, and I’m overdue for a beer, a meal, and a shower, though not necessarily in that order. I return to the corner eatery near the Night Market, called Muang Thong, and this time I order garlic chicken, which comes out crispy and covered in minced, fried garlic and tastes superb. It won’t be the last time I eat this.

Back at Baan Bua I meet Monika from Poland, who is sitting on her porch reading The Lord of the Rings. She looks adorable in her Amélie haircut. We talk about the books versus the films, and how much sexier — I think I used the word fuckable — the film’s protagonists were than the book characters, who seemed so chaste as to be sexless.

“Those films provided many a sexual fantasy,” I confess.
“Legolas or Aragorn?” she asks playfully.
“Neither. I’m thinking more of a sweaty gangbang with Orcs Boromir and Faramir.”

I learn Monika is staying here in Chiang Rai for the next year. She has a Master’s in Early Childhood Development and was recruited to oversee the kindergarten in one of the schools. She invites me to join her for drinks at Coconuts Bar, where she’s meeting a fellow teacher from Australia named Angie. We settle into one of the front tables near the street and order a couple of beers and a bucket of ice. We’re joined a Heiko, a German expat who looks a bit out of place in grey flannel trousers and a crisp, long-sleeved white dress shirt. Angie and Monika move to another table, as they’ve got some details to discuss about school, leaving Heiko and I to talk. We discover we both love heavy metal, and we discuss our favorite books and films. Angie and Monika are still embroiled in shoptalk, which leaves Heiko and me to discuss other subjects like philosophy, and free will versus destiny, a subject that has been on my mind lately. He’s an atheist, and I’m a philosophical Buddhist, which means I follow the precepts but don’t observe any of the rituals.

One of Monika’s countrymen joins her at the other table, so Heiko and I go to the bar next door for another round. He orders a strawberry roti to share from a street vendor who passes by with his cart. I’m not sure why, but this climate kills my sweet tooth, and I find the roti too cloying for my palate.

Heiko tells me he’s starved for intellectual conversation. “It’s rare to have these conversations with Thai people. Most of the ones I meet here are undereducated. These subjects just never enter their heads. And to have this kind of dialogue with a woman? Impossible.”

He’s animated, and a touchy talker like me. I cannot resist the urge to touch another person during conversation. It satisfies a compelling need to connect to another human being on a level that transcends the intellectual, as if our chi is making contact. Or perhaps it’s because I grew up in an extended family that had no notion of personal space. Watching TV on the sofa was always a tangle of feet and elbows, with cousins piled on top of cousins for the best seat to watch our grandmother’s “color” TV: a sheet of red or green acetate taped to the screen.

I’m feeling a bit sassy now. “We’ve exhausted every subject, Heiko, but we haven’t talked about sex.” Ka-pow. Our conversation starts mildly, but I steer it into the gutter before too long. “All Germans are kinky, aren’t they?” Ka-POW!

I’m never going to see this person again, and being a San Franciscan, meaning we’re used to talking about sex like Midwesterners talk about corn, I have no qualms discussing SF’s Folsom Street Fair leather festival and my politically incorrect fetishes.

It’s midnight, and I make a move to leave but can’t figure out why Heiko won’t just come out and ask me if I want to fool around. His body language is telling another story altogether. Why can’t people be more direct? The worse that can happen is your intended object of lust says no. Big deal. Seize the moment. Grab the bull by the cojones. Life is too short to pass up on opportunities, blah, blah, blah….

“Can you walk me to my guesthouse?”
“Why? Are you afraid of the dark?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“Just walk me home, you big doofus.”

The rest I leave to your imagination, dear reader. Suffice it to say that I stimulated his mind, and he reciprocated by stimulating the less intellectual parts of my constitution.

Tags: Chiang Rai, Thailand

Totally Thailand - Wednesday, Nov-18

It’s 4:30am and I can’t sleep, so I get up and organize my gear and read the Lonely Planet Guide in lieu of a good book. The Chiang Rai section is pretty limited. I fall back asleep an hour or so later, waking up after 8am.

Baan Bua serves breakfast in the garden. I order coffee and croissants with butter and jam, but it’s pretty uninspiring. I obviously didn’t order the right thing. Over breakfast I chat with a couple whose room is next to mine. Giuliano and Stella are from a town near Venice, and today they’re going to the Hilltribe Museum. I ask if I can tag along. I’m not shy about insinuating myself into other people’s plans.

We take our time browsing all the exhibits. There’s an interesting timeline that details the history of opium, and I learn how much influence the US has had in stemming the production and export of the drug. I’m learning as much as I can about the Akha, Lisü, Hmong, and Karen. The Karen are those women who wear many brass rings that push down their collarbones and give them the impression of having unusually long necks. The Karen who live in Thailand are refugees from Myanmar, and because of their non-citizen status, they are unable to legally work in Thailand. The only option they have is to wear the rings and be on display for busloads of farang, making money by posing for photos. The tradition of wearing heavy brass rings on the neck and legs was an old practice that fell out of use a long time ago. I’ve heard that the rings were used to make women unattractive to rival tribesmen, or else it protected the neck during an unfortunate encounter with a hungry tiger. But now the brass rings serve no other purpose but to act as a photo opportunity to voyeuristic tourists. As a visitor, I face a moral dilemma. Do I support these artificial villages created by Thai entrepreneurs, knowing a small portion of the pricey admission goes to support the Karen? I do not begrudge them the right to earn a decent wage, but I do not need to be a spectator in the human zoo.

The exhibit ends with a documentary about Putao, a region in a remote part of northeastern Myanmar, a place only accessible by small plane. The film covers the efforts of a British/Birman couple that have been working with the local tribespeople to bring a small number of visitors to the region. They have been collaborating with tribal leaders to bring some responsible ecotourism, leaving as little impact as possible but offering the tribes some sustainability. Toward the end of the film, we are introduced to the plight of the Karen. The filmmakers, as well as the curator of the Hilltribe Museum, take a very strong stand against supporting these artificial villages, but they offer little viable alternatives.

After the film, my Italian companions and I do a little shopping in the museum gift shop. I buy a Hmong bag and a couple of Akha pillowcases for about $15 USD, knowing that most, if not all, of the proceeds will support the tribes.

Our entrance ticket includes a complimentary beverage at Cabbages and Condoms, a restaurant located on the lower level of the building. Cabbages and Condoms is a Bangkok-based NGO whose mission is to provide family planning and HIV prevention in response to each community’s individual needs. They’ve been instrumental in giving villagers economic alternatives to the commercial sex industry, especially for young rural women in the north who are often targeted by big city recruiters.

While we enjoy our drinks in the courtyard we meet Eleanor from New Zealand, a jolly, ruddy-cheeked woman who just returned from three weeks in Myanmar. I had seen her at Baan Bua earlier, so I invite her to join us. She talks at length about Myanmar, a destination I’m extremely interested in visiting, so I press her for as many details as she can pass along. I had originally wanted to make Myanmar the focus of my trip, but I think it’s a journey best shared with another traveler, if only to defray some of the costs of getting about and hiring a guide. Eleanor suggests a very doable three-week itinerary that includes Yangon, Mandalay, Bagan, and Inle Lake.

Giuliano and Stella excuse themselves. They’re leaving tomorrow and don’t have much leisure time to simply hang out and do nothing. I ask Eleanor if she wants to join me for a lunch of khao soy, followed by some picture-taking at the market. At the lunch place we meet Micheal Chang who is visiting from Malaysia and is also an art director. We dish about the usual things freelancers dish about (e.g. “make the logo bigger”) while enjoying our 30 baht meals (about $0.92 USD) I really like Micheal, and he invites me to stay at his home in Johor Bahru should I ever find myself in Malaysia. That’s entirely possible.

We part ways with Micheal after lunch, and Eleanor and I wander the market, a huge arcade of shops and stalls selling, well, everything. I watch a pile of live crabs all trussed up and stacked one on top of the other. One of them is blinking wildly, which I find slightly disturbing and wonder whether this creature is trying to send me an SOS signal the only way it can. I entertain the idea of buying him and releasing him into the river, but it is probably a ridiculous idea anyway, though one PETA might applaud me for.

We wander out the back entrance of the market, past the Indian-owned textile shops selling bolts of gold lamé fabrics used for draping on the Buddhas. We come upon a great teak temple, passing a long row of idle rickshaws painted in bright floral patterns, each one awaiting their next fare. This is Wat Phra Keo, home of the Emerald Buddha, or one of the Emerald Buddhas. I’m not clear how many there are, but the real one originated here — maybe — and is now ensconced in Bangkok. The great teak building is also a museum, with immaculate shiny floors and glass cases displaying ceremonial bowls, religious figures, and other art objects. An older monk sitting by an open door asks where I am from, I wai him, placing my hands high to show respect. Monks don’t wai back because they’re a little higher up in the social hierarchy. As I understand it, first comes the Thai royal family, then the monastic body, then everybody else. Even in the “everybody else” group there are certain norms. A service person like a waitperson or concierge would wai me, but it would be inappropriate for me to wai them back.

Eleanor needs to return to the guesthouse by 4pm to receive some tailoring, so we part ways and I continue my exploration of the wat, eventually making it back to Baan Bua by 5pm. At 6:45pm I meet Eleanor in the garden to watch the clocktower’s nightly spectacle. At 7pm, and also at 8pm, the golden clocktower in the town center lights up and changes colors while music blares from the surrounding loudspeakers. It could not be more Thai, which means it’s covered in gold paint, spiked, and lit up like a Christmas tree in Las Vegas. There are quite a few people, mostly Thai, gathered around to watch the extravaganza.

“It’s so OTT!” exclaims Eleanor. Indeed it is.

By now we are both pretty hungry, so Eleanor takes me to the (presumably) best noodle shop in Chiang Rai. All the signs are in Thai and there’s no farang menu, so she pulls out a slip of paper with a dish written on it in Thai, and we each end up having one very tasty bowl of soup for 30 baht. We make plans to meet at 8 am for breakfast in the Morning Market.

After dinner, I wander by myself to the Night Market and really look at the different scarves so I can buy one for my mom. She wants one “the color of autumn leaves,” and it should be easy to find among all the different vendors plying their textiles. I’ve only 100 baht in my pocket, so I find an exchange counter that’s still open at 8:30pm. There’s one guy in front of me, and I can tell by his accent he’s a Spaniard. We chat briefly before he speeds away on his motorbike with his boyfriend, but not before he gives me the obligatory kiss on both cheeks.

My scarf mission accomplished, I make my way to the Peace House for a cold beer and some friendly conversation with Ot, the owner. I meet a nice couple of travelers, Gail from Paris and Henry from London. They are spending two months traveling around Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and ultimately ending up in Beijing before returning home. We swap travel stories and itineraries and I give them some Vietnam travel tips, but by 11pm I’m ready to call it a night.

Tags: Chiang Rai, Thailand