Chiang Mai

February 3 - 7

We had tried desperately to have our trip to Chiang Mai coincide with the Flower Festival. Chi'en in Kuching had said he might be up to get some pictures and other things we had read sounded like it was pretty cool. Of all the things we read about the Flower Festival, however, the one thing we couldn't ascertain for certain was the actual DATES of the festival. Everyone seemed to have a different story and most Thai tourist info people had no idea the festival even existed. We were exasperated and decided to just run with one flyer we had seen. So, here we were.

We arrived from Pai by cramped bus (the norm) and went directly to our hotel. Casey and I had agonized over which urban though seemingly rural hotel we should choose and since our first two choices where unavailable and/or extremely overpriced we picked what we thought would be the next best option - Karinthip Village. It was located close to the tourist center but the grounds were green and inviting. The rooms, however, we a different story all together. Apparently, the owners spent all of their money on the shell and thought that people would not want to spend time in their rooms. This was evident by the horrible paint jobs, lack of lighting and horrible views of wall. We were not impressed.

After checking in we decided to head over to the Hill tribe museum in hopes of finding out a little more about the tribes we incountered in Mae Hong Son. It was a small but informative museum out in the the middle of nowhere. I tried to write information down to post later, but i'm not sure where it is now...I will look at get it up in a bit.


The next morning, we were hoping, there would be a parade for the flower festival. We ready then asked the front destk attendant where the parade would be. Not surprisingly, they had no idea what we were talking about. Somewhere though, we found a route and decided to head in that direction. Only a few blocks from our hotel (and they still didn't know about it!) we ran smack dap in the middle of the parade. It was a huge event and there were tons of locals as well as foreign tourists all trying to snap some pictures. This made for some very annoying games of who can step in front of who the quickest in order to monopolize the best picture taking view. Ugh.


With that aside, the parade was an incredible event. By far the best parade I've seen since arrive in SE Asia. The numerous floats were reminiscent of the Rose Bowl Parade floats. They were covered in vegetable matter which included everythin from colored rice to large, red bell peppers to gorgeous orchids. Most floats also included a Thai beauty or two with hair as tall as Marge Simpson and an inch of makeup caked onto their faces. Between floats, groups where showcased. There were many ethnic groups dressed in their traditional costumes (funny, these costumes looked very different from the touristy ones we saw in Mae Hong Son) as well as high school bands. The bands were amazing! They consisted of a wide range of intruments and their songs were not just awful pop tunes. This made for an extremely pleasant listening experience and kept me wondering why Filipino bands think all they need are horrific metal xylophones and drums and why they think the Sex Bomb Girls are the only singers to replicate.

After the parade we followed the hordes down to the parade finish line. The parade ended at a small park in the corner of the old walled quarter of Chiang Mai. Once there we were able to view all of the floats, which were lined along the street. There were also beautifully crafted displays from various flower and orchid clubs. The park was filled with food stalls and walking food vendors. Many parties had rented woven mats and the grass was covered with people lounging in the shade (Thais are not as sun-loving as N. Americans are, rightly so). We stayed for a few hours, people watching and tasting the yummy treats.

One night, we went to the night market. This was also within walking distance from our hotel. Once we arrived at the market, I was surprised to see all of the usual local products...delicious native fruits, the local cuisine as well as cheap clothes and accessories. Strange, I thought, this wasn't what I had expected. Of course not! Only then did I realize that this market WAS the local night market and the touristy night market was still a couple of blocks away. When we arrived at that one, we knew right away where we were. Stalls were piled high with the same souvenirs we had seen in Mae Hong Son. At first, it was excited to go through the items, but it didn't take long for it all to start to look the same. Every once in a while, a stall would have some unique pieces on sale, but these were far and rew between and often not worth the effort of searching thriough the myriad of identical junk. There was one store, that caught all of our attention - a wood carving shop. The artist had intricately carved the most beautiful designs, much inspired by Buddhism and common Thai symbols. My favorite piece was an aquarium full of wooden turtles, fish, crabs and a gorgeous mermaid.

We continued to agonize over where to go next. We thought about Sukothai to see more great ruins, but ruins didn't seem to interest mother so much and frankly, I was beginning to think that all temples of worship were the same. There are only so many golden Buddha images one can see before they all look like cookie-cutter images. Don't get me wrong, I think the temples are gorgeous, but to the untrained eye (ie my untrained eye) the small differences in detail between one style and the next was lost. Finally, after much discussion we decided to head to the tallest mountain in Thailnd, Doi Inthanon. We thought it might be a good opportunity for birding and it would be cool enough for mom.

As sort of a last minute decission, we opted to rent a car for the drive to Doi Inthanon (why we hadn't thought of this before ie Khao Yai, I don't know). On our way to Doi Suthep, the day before our departure for Doi Inthanon, we stumbled across a car rental agency and decided, why not get the car a day early and use it to roam around Doi Suthep.

So we did. It was great! We rented an old manual four wheel drive. Casey was kind enough to drive it out of the city since both mom and I were to afraid to try driving, much less with stick in the suicidal traffic. Once safely outside of the city, we relaxed as we drove to Doi Suthep.

In case you haven't noticed, "doi" means mountain in the Northern Thai dialect. "Khao" is mountain in the central Thai dialect. We were heading the Doi Suthep to see one of the most famed monasteries of the north. It was built on the hill after an elephant carrying a relic of the Buddha died on that very spot. It was thought that the elephant would know the appropriate place for the temple and would stop (aka die) when it reached the location.


We wandered around the temple grounds, taking pictures and asorbing the peacefulness of the place. We read up on Buddhism in the little library and also received information on their meditation classes. Laura and Casey have been interested in taking a meditation class ever since they first heard about other PCV's doing so while on vacation from the Philippines. They heard many stories about what a life altering experience not speaking, eating on 2 vegetarian meals a day and meditating for hours for one week was. We thought the program at Doi Suthep was nice, it was run by donation only and you could start anytime. You may be reading more about our meditation exploits in a few months, should our plans pan out.

After battling the steep and numerous steps of the wat (ok, so maybe only Casey battles the steps while the rest of us opted for the elevator), we stopped into a small jade shop. Unbeknownst to us, this was no ordinary jade shop. Upon entering, we were provided with refreshments, a free tour and even a short video detailing the different types of jade. We also had a chance to see the master carvers at work in the workshop behind the store. Most of the jade was from Burma, which made me wonder if it was such a good idea to be supporting the Burmese jade trade. I had questions: Who harvested the jade? What were the working conditions, pay, benefits (haha, benefits)? Who owned the jade before it was sold to Thailand? I wondered this, because I wanted to know how involved the military junta was in the jade trade and if they used forced labor for its extraction...I never did find out these answers.

Since we had the use of our own personal car and driver we decided to explore Doi Suthep a little more in detail. We had heard of a few hill tribe villages in the area and so we set off. The road was windy and narrow but the scenery was breathtaking as we twisted and turned up the mountain. We arrived at a very touristy Hmong village that was more like a mini bizzare where my mother found story quilts that depicted the history of the Hmong and how they travelled from China through Laos before winding up in Thailand. We wandered through an opium garden and admired the clean, cool mountain air.

We wandered around a bit more and ended up in an extremely un-touristy hill tribe village that we found fascinating, but a little embarrased at showing up unannounced and so we drove slowly to the school and then left. On the way down the mountain we stopped at a little cafe that served fresh mountain coffee homegrown on the hillside next to the cafe.



Upon our return to Chiang Mai we headed to the host monastery of Monk Chat. This novel idea was thought up by someone to help the novices and monks improve their English while at the same time increasing the tourists knowledge of the intricacies of Buddhism. We spoke with several monks and asked them all sorts of questions. If I have time, I would visit them every week.


On one of our many wanderings through the city, we came across a large wat where many novices were having a lesson in drawing the Buddha. They were using the old images painted on the walls of the temple as a template and we couldn't resist snapping a few blurry pictures.