Chiang Mai

I swore I would say No to busses
Awaking early on Monday, primarily as a result of going to bed so early as there was nothing for me to do in Sukhothai I head down to the restaurant for breakfast. Clearly way too early, there doesn't appear to be a single other person in sight, so I sit down and wait for a while.

Eventually one of the staff comes running out, apologising profusely for leaving me waiting, and sets about preparing breakfast. It was a pretty hefty breakfast, bacon, ham, eggs, sausages, watermelon, juice, milk, coffee, cereal, toast. Far more food than the average human would ever require for breakfast... I consume it all.

I then head to the front desk to tell them I want to check out early and get a bus to Chiang Mai. At first, the concierge is not keen saying "You stay longer and ride more, bus tomorrow, I book bus for you tomorrow".  Hmmm, message not quite getting through. I insist that I will leave today, and he is kind enough to fully refund my second night even though it was supposed to be no refund within 24 hours! Hooray! He calls a taxi which takes me to the bus station.

Now airports in Thailand are very organised, with most things written in English, making it extremely easy to know what to do. Bus stations are a little more disorganised. I buy a ticket from a bus company for Chiang Mai.  I can't read a word of what is written on the ticket, so I have to presume that it says Chiang Mai on it somewhere. 

There is no departures board telling me which stop my bus will be leaving from, so I stand in the centre of the station hoping to see my company's logo on a bus. A Thai lady starts asking me "You going Chiang Mai", "Yes" I reply, "This bus, this bus" she says, pointing at a pretty uncomfortable looking bus. I note that the busses logo does not match the logo on my ticket. I then start questioning whether she said "Chiang Mai" or "Chiang Rai". I walk over to the man who is collecting baggage and try to ask him, but he completely ignores my question, grabs my bag from my hand and throws it into the bus... guess that makes the question irrelevant now. Whether Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai, I will be getting on this bus!

I was correct about it being uncomfortable, here is a picture of my leg room.

Hard to see exactly, but basically my backpack has to sit on my lap because it won't fit in the overhead compartment, my knees are pushed firmly into the back of the seat in front (you can just see the my jeans on the right of the bag), and I am incapable of putting my seat back due to an equally tall person behind. I feel like I recall an equally horrible bus journey, or six, in South America, at which point I swore that any journeys greater than an hour on a bus I would be flying a plane even if it meant chartering it. Should have stuck with that promise.

I ask the passenger behind me where he is going, hoping to have it confirmed this bus is going to Chiang Mai. He's an American guy, and unfortunately he can neither confirm nor deny whether the bus is going to Chiang Mai, as he is going to Lampang. I take out my lonely planet guide, which shows that Lampang is about 3-4 hours drive away, and sits nicely at the fork where you would proceed to either Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai. Looks like I will have to wait until Lampang to see whether we turn left or right. Four very uncomfortable hours later we reach Lampang. Fortunately most people hop off the bus, so whether I end up in Chiang Rai or Chiang Mai, at least I will get there comfortably, however I'm relieved when I sense that the bus is heading more to the north west than the north east, so to Chiang Mai it is!

Bargaining
Now the bus station in Chiang Mai is a few kilometres from the Old City, where my hotel is located. My lonely planet guide has prepared me well that there won't be any metered taxis, so I will have to catch a tuk tuk or sorng-taa-ou (shared taxi, which looks like a ute with a canopy and a seat in the back). I walk up to a tuk tuk driver and ask how much to my hotel.  She replies "100 baht". This is a rip-off (apparently), so I then offer her 70 baht. "100 baht" she replies... hmm, it seems she has a much stronger position than me, as I am in need of a tuk tuk and she is not. At the end of the day 30 baht is about $1, so I jump onboard my first tuk tuk ride in Thailand!

The first thing I notice about Chiang Mai is that it doesn't smell great. There seems to be a fair bit of pollution from the traffic, and someone had the grand idea to build a moat around the city. The moat is stagnant and for the most part smells like arse. However Chiang Mai has retained more of its charm than Bangkok. The people are much friendlier, and the tuk tuk drivers/locals are not trying to lie to you, force you into a crappy gem store, or tell you that temples are closed. Also once you are away from the main drag, the soi (little streets) are quite peaceful, lined with thai massage parlours, laundrys, hostels, bars and restaurants.

I check in at Smile Guest House, which is to be my home for the next three nights. The room isn't quite as lavish as my previous, but it still contains a queen bed, plasma tv, air conditioning and a private bath and shower. It also appears to be pretty clean.  First up to take a shower. I turn on the tap - it strikes me as odd that there is only one tap. This is what I am greeted with after turning the tap:

That's right, absolutely nothing.  I leave it for a few minutes and eventually I get a trickle of cold water. Apparently this Toshiba device with a 5 year warranty is supposed to be heating the water.

 I'm guessing it is approximately 6 years old.

I've been sitting on a bus too long to care, so I head out to find food and explore the city. Not satisfied with my first attempt at haggling for a taxi, I decide I will attempt haggling with some street vendors again, determined to snag myself a bargain!

Purchase 1: Small backpack
I am tiring of carrying around my backpack as its a laptop bag and far too cumbersome. I spy a small bag which would be perfect.
Me: "How much"
Vendor: "550 baht"
Me: "400 baht"
Vendor: "sold"

Ok. As soon as I hear those words, I suspect that I have been ripped off.

Suspicions are confirmed approximately 36 hours later:

Hmm.

Purchase 2: Board shorts
I have travelled to Thailand without board shorts. This will present a problem with performing any dirty or wet activities I may undertake, sure to be frequent in Phuket, and I am suspecting also for tomorrow when I intend on visiting an elephant park.
Me: "How much?"
Vendor: "400 baht"
Me: "50 baht", I go in low and hard, she didn't have a chance to see that coming!
Vendor: "350 baht"
Me: "80 baht", I hit her square with another low ball.
Vendor: (shocked at this skilled, suave, unpredictable foreigner haggling like a pro!) "200 baht"

This is getting tense ladies and gentlemen, who will crack first!

Me: "130 baht"
Vendor: "150 baht"
Me: "SOLD"

Nice.  I have just scored myself a pair of billabong (read: standard board shorts with billabong illegally sewn into them) board shorts for about $5. My amazing haggling saved me 350 baht, or about $11, and she probably can't pay for electricity that week. Can't help but feel a little guilty after doing this.

I can happily report that they appear to be holding together better than the backpack.

One grey elephant balancing...
In amongst the excitement of haggling I set about booking an elephant tour for the following day. Seems like it will be pretty easy, I look for a shop with pictures of elephants and tourists, I enter, I purchase the tour. The first place I go into tells me they don't do elephant tours, they only do bookings for the Flight of the Gibbon (a zipline). Any elephants, pictures of elephants, words reading "Book elephant tours here", in the signs and marketing on the front of their shop are apparently completely accidental. In the end I just asked at my hostel and they were able to book me one with a company called "Peak Tours". Imagine my horror, when I awake and see this in the driveway outside my room:

This crappy old van is proudly displaing the logo of my tour company, and I suspect I may have to ride in this for over an hour out to the elephant park. Fortunately I did not, and another nice new van showed up soon later.

An elephant never forgets
But only what it remembers... We arrive out at the elephant sanctuary after about an hours journey. Here they are:

Apparently the elephants don't like new people, and if any mahout tries to jump and ride one, it will more than likely shake them off. To get around this, they fool the elephants by giving the tourists exactly the same clothes everyday, and getting them to feed the elephants first. So basically the elephants assume that these little blue people show up every morning around 10:30am to feed them bananas and sugar cane, and they love them for it.

Sometimes their love gets a little too physical - take a guy to dinner first!

We get trained in some basic elephant commands: "Pie" means go, "Kway" means left, or right (you then push your feet behind the ear that you want them to turn away from, "How" means stop, and "Non lon" means sit down.  Up I hop:

Once we have that mastered, it's time to commence our journey, which will be about an hour long. It's pretty scary sitting on one of these things! You're over two metres off the ground, and their neck and back aren't exactly designed for comfort.

Meet Soong-Ton

Yep, that's him there. Soong Ton is a male, 27 years old, and likes eating bananas, sugar cane, long walks in the jungle and getting caught in the rain. But hands off ladies, he's taken! Here he is with his lover, apparently they have been seeing each other for three months or so and the mahouts are hoping for a pregnancy soon! (So much pressure for the young fellow)

Does my bum look big in this?

I think he's taking the piss

Classic Glenn pun
As we are riding along our trek, we arrive at a very steep decline in the path. As the elephant starts to lean forward I begin feeling very unstable. I'm riding on its back at this time, and there's just a piece of rope to hold onto. The elephant starts to slow down a bit, and the mahout behide it starts yelling "Pie, Pie" to make it go faster (there are other elephants waiting behind). I start yelling "no Pie, no Pie!". Unfortunately, the elephant doesn't actually speak English so has no idea what to do with the word "no", and is just hearing "Pie" so it picks up speed and moves forward.

Even with death or severe injury sure to follow, I manage to eke out what I would be proud to be my final words "No Pie, No Pie, I'm too young to Pie!".

The mahout stares blankly...

The hilarity of my joke is entirely lost on him as I chuckle at my comment. Fortunately my passenger on the elephant is American, and is able to give it some modest laughter (although still less than I feel it deserved).

Anyway, now that that story is out of the way, here is some video of me riding the elephant!

At the end of the day we treat our elephants to a bath. They are really playful, especially when they're in the water.

Me throwing a bucket of water at an elephant:

The elephant retaliates:

In all games against a 4 tonne 2.5 metre tall beast, beast wins.

Binge Eating
We get back around 6 in the evening from the elephant park. I am hungry, so I wander my merry way down to a local market. There are rows and rows of street food vendors, and it smells amazing. Putting all fear of food poisining to the side, I embark on what could only be described as a horriffic binge session of the street food. Noodles (so hot my eyes were watering), shishkebabs, dumplings, weird little pancakes that are still gooey in the middle. At one point one of things I was given was just put in a plastic bag and I was given no implement with which to consume it! A quick trip to the 7-11 to buy some plastic cuttlery and I am on my way again.

After a solid hour of wandering along eating new things I am well and truly stuffed. If I don't get food poisoning or diarrhoea from this, then I shall consider myself invincible. (Happy to report that 24 hours later and still in tip-top condition).

Master Chef
Today I prepared myself a fall back position for when the world ultimately falls over in GFC 2, by undertaking some advanced cullinary training.

I organised this on the same night as organising my elephant tour, but was more successful. While I was at the booking office, the guide asks me if I will require a pickup from my hostel.
"Yes please", I reply.
He asks the name of my hostel, to which I respond "Smile".
He looks puzzled "That is just around the corner correct?".
"Yes, I think so."

He still looks puzzled but writes it down and sends me on my way.  What I had missed in his explanation, apparently, was that we were to meet first at the booking office, and then we would all be transported out to the kitchens (about an hour out of Chiang Mai). So this morning a van pulls up at the hostel, I get in, and we drive not more than about 30 metres and the van stops and we all get out... hmm. I feel a little sheepish. Given how horrible traffic is here, it was probably an incredible amount of effort to navigate to my hostel just to drive me within sight of my hostel.

In the kitchen, we are given instructions on what we are about to make. I keep hearing words like "careful", "finely dice", "patience" being mentioned. I had my early cullinary training in the Robyn Sheedy kitchens. Words like "Patience", "Careful", and "Fine" had no place there. When she walks around and first looks in my mortar and pestle and sees me trying to bash entire chunks of chilli and lemongrass into a pulp, she breaks into laughter. Not surprisingly, it takes me three times as long to crush my curry paste as everyone else.  But I get there in the end, and the proof, as they say, is in the pudding curry.

Posing for an action shot:

Another finished product:

Don't expect me to cook anything like this when I get back. I had originally claimed I would do this, but its bloody time consuming and hard work. If I invite you over for Thai, it will be coming from Bow Thai on the corner of Wickham and Gipps St in the Fortitude Valley. If you like I will organise it on a plate for you.

Anyway, that just about covers everything. Tomorrow I fly to Phuket to embark on the next part of my journey, as shown graphically below:

I have just completed the "Culture" leg of my trip. We now move onto the more exciting and adventurous "Drinking" leg.

Expect no more updates.

Glenn