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Going North...
Saturday
10th January 1998
Hotel: Bus to Chang Mai (200B for bus and board the following night
in Chang Mai).
Sunday
11th to Friday 16th January 1998 (not including 2 nights on the trek).
Hotel: Chang Mai Holiday Guest House
Room Type: double room at 140 B (first night free, included in
the bus ticket))
Verdict: Good; temperamental hot showers, good people but loads
of shouting kids from the schoolyard in the early morning
Chang
Mai
Chang Mai was freezing when we reached the city at 7am. We were collected
from the bus station and brought to the Guest House where a humorous business-woman
explained the customs, tours, regulations etc. to the group.
Eating
There are plenty of places in Chang Mai to eat local and western food.
At the night market there is a huge outdoor courtyard with many tables
bordered by about 20 stalls, each separate stalls offering every kind
of Asian food. This is a good spot for a crowd in the evening but watch
out for the bat droppings. McDonalds and other fast food joints are just
around the corner.
Chang Mai has its fair share of pubs both local and pseudo English/German/Irish.
We located the Irish pub and had a makeshift Irish Breakie: ham instead
of bacon, a single withered sausage, cold scrambled eggs and tomatoes,
and a lovely warm bread roll. Also on the menu were tempting spuds garnished
with spring onion. This Irish pub is not called, Molly Malones, Scruffy
Murphys, Kitty O'Sheas', DarbyO'Gills, The Old Shebeen or anything as
imaginative as those usual foreign drinking establishments claiming Irish
culture. It was simply titled "Irish Pub", no beating about the mulberry
bush. Of course the 'Irish Writers' with Seans' and Jimmys' intense mugs
was pride of place on the bar. Other posters of Killarney, Co. Armagh
donned the walls as well as the tea cloth with the letter from an Irish
lad to his mum writing about the crazy Americans on a piece of cotton!
There was a bicycle with a front basket parked outside but alas it belonged
to a backpacker and was not part of the decor - an oversight by the manager.
Sightseeing
Within the old city walls surrounded by a dried up moat you will come
across plenty of Wats and other hidden wonders. Take a taxi up steep windy
mountain to Wat Phra that Doi Suthep. Reached by a curvy dragon/serpent
lining the 300 steps uphill, this temple is a great Sunday outing for
all the family. There is cable-car up to the top if the heart is weak
or unwilling. Female monks vend incense, candles, flowers and paper parcels
of gold foil to worshippers. The candles and incense are burned under
any of the many Buddha shrines. Exquisite white single blooms and roses
are placed on the outstretched arms of Buddhas and gold foil from the
paper parcel is stuck on to the figure. The gold, red and blue metallic
temples, stuppas and walkways light up the peaceful relaxed atmosphere.
While we sat in one of the Buddhist shrines, feet and toes facing away
from the figure as is the custom, we were invited to be blessed by Mr
Buddhist monk from his seating position to the side. He waived branches
tied together and whetted from an urn beside him, chanting a he scattered
the droplets over our bended bodies.
Markets
The day markets in Chang Mai are located by the moat. Night markets are
more expensive and directed towards tourists. You can get trinkets, crafts
and clothes everywhere in these.
Treks
A Description of the 3 day, 2 night trek we did from our hotel ($16)
The squeeze in the Ute (short for utility vehicle) lasted for 3 hours
before coming to a halt at a marketplace in a race with many other vehicles
- Ute city. Hundreds of backpackers relieved themselves, bought whisky,
bog roll, chocolate and water and some fresh fried rice. Boarding the
Ute again we drove off into the sandy horizon. It was cramped and hot
and a few people were ill. Lunch was served by a hot geyser. Eggs were
boiled in the bubbling sulphur pool and eaten with the rice. Our final
destination was a remote village two mountains to the west of the highest
mountain in Thailand (2,500m) which we were warned that we would have
to climb in 2 days - a thought which remained in my brain for the following
32 hours. At 4pm we set off trying to beat the setting sun to reach our
destination 3 hours into the vales. Needless to say the mountains gobbled
up the sun and our footing failed on many occasions. Arms grabbed at tree
trunks, rambling roots and large fresh leaves to steady our wobbling bodies.
Wet tiered rice fields bordered colourful mountains and smoke rose from
the many fires that had ignited in the hot sharp sunshine. The forest
jungle is hot and dry but the leaves exhibit autumnal colours and your
pace crackles as you step on the crisp leaves. The Thai farmers here wear
the triangular straw hats and walk on raised pathways between rice paddies
with their burdens balanced at the ends of the bamboo poles about the
shoulders - just like the movies (without the American jet fighters and
helicopters buzzing overhead). Lodging for the night resided in wooden
teak stilt-houses with a veranda and a welcoming fire. Dinner was served
on a large mat before we smoked, sang and drank the night away. Turns
were taken at bashing local drums, spluttering in wooden pipes, strumming
the guitar and picking at some other similar but smaller instruments.
Accompanied by 14 wailing out of tune voices the result was pretty terrible
but the banter was great. We settled down to sleep in our wooden room
on woven mats to cover the holes in the floor with something burning to
keep scorpions at bay. A version of Hotel California sung in a Margarita
Prakatan way ( Clive James Show) and Jason Donavans "Sealed with a Kiss"
made us long for some sleep and escape from this reality leaving with
that lucky sucker on that jet plane.
We were woken
the following morning while it was still dark by the throaty calls of
cockerels at 4am in the morning. This was followed by the pounding sounds
of women bashing rice and babies crying in the next room. At 7.30 we were
called to breakfast; cold toast an runny eggs which succeeded in running
down my face and fleece. Down at the fire the women and babies gathered
in the slowly warming day. Us tourists took photos as they posed in the
usual Thai-hill-tribe-mother-holding-child pose. Then they decided to
play the ' look what the pink people do when we do this', game. One young
woman sat on the makeshift swing and her children followed suit looking
so cute cuddling against her breasts. Sure enough 4 cameras were pulled
out and 4 pink people hunched on honkers pointing appariels at the sight.
This cynic took a photo of the hunched pink people from behind and the
coveted photograph content in the distance.
Five elephants trumped up to the village house and we mounted from a ledge.
Kim and myself got into the basket and Andrea tucked herself on the neck
between the ears, Tarzans'-Jane style. Hubon, our elephant led the way
and was extremely well behaved. Five loaded elephants wobbled though paths
and trees, up and down hills, over streams and under low hanging branches
laden down with gigantic spider webs. Over warbling brooks, dropping our
bags at a local house and we dismounted and climbed up to the waterfall.
The vicinity was shaded and the water icy cold. Nervously we waded into
the shallow pool and edged over to the cascading mass. It was fast and
heavy and still freezing so we did not linger long. Lunch from the bonfire
stove brought forth noodles and tuna while we dried out, packed up and
trudged back to our bags. At the top of that mountain, beyond the picturesque
shriveled cabbage patch fields (no room for potential nurturing of ugly
baby dolls) we witnessed more Kren village life. Daughters ground rice,
women cooked, babies toddled in the mud and cheeks bloated trying to blow
up the balloons that us pink people brought as gifts. Men grinned through
beetlenut stained teeth as they sold us coke in bright red cans in the
middle of nowhere. We struggled on down vales and across streams on makeshift
bridges constructed from two bamboo poles cut and laid over the shallow
waters gathering fresh loafas from trees and bushes for our imminent wash
in the brook. Yes, loafas grow on trees, not on the sea bed. They come
in pods and when dry one can peel the cloak layer, remove seeds and hey
presto a loafa for the shower. One of the many the things you learn when
you travel!
After side
stepping over and back numerous times like Moris dancers we came to a
halt at a hut on the stream. Offering benches as well as the welcoming
fire we laid out our sleeping bags for the night. The girls bathed by
the trickling stream while the dinner was prepared including a pumpkin,
which we had picked up on our trek through the fields. Around the fire
that night we ate, drank, told jokes and asked questions. I now know monkeynuts
grow in the soil like a root vine, lentils come in a pod, loafas grow
on trees and how rice ends up in Mr Bens bag. At least these were some
of the various explanations being thrown around for numerous queries some
of which were very bizarre. That night was extremely funny - enough laughs
to fill a year and enough tears produced by the laughter. No sleep again
and very little opportunity as we were not horizontal for long.
Up early,
one and a half hour trek in the blistering sun. The jeep brought us to
the edge of another river where we boarded our makeshift bamboo rafts
strung together with rubber from tyres. After a fried rice lunch we mushed
in to the Ute and headed for the hills, or rather the highest mountain
on top of which we saw pagodas; the tombs for the president, the view
and the Golden Buddha. Dusty and wrecked even though we had driven and
not climbed we got back to Chang Mai, showered and had a wonderful Thai
massage before relaxing with a few beers and another few laughs in the
Irish Bar.
From Chang
Mai we got a bus back to Bangkok, collected our visas from the Vietnamese
and Laos embassies and got another bus up to Na Thrang and across the
border at the Friendship Bridge into Laos where we got a tuk tuk - now
called a jumbo if they are the larger version of the samlor (a 3 wheeled
motorcycle) to Vientiane.
Best Route
between Laos and Thailand
The best way to go from Thailand to Laos is to cross over beyond Chang Rai
in the north of Thailand into Laos. At the Duty Free you meet a lot of people
crossing the border and gossip is the best research. Then board a slowboat
for the trip down from Huay Xai to the Mekong to Luang Praban. The trip
lasts 2 days and chugs past remote village life. We did not take this route
because we had to go back to Bangkok from Chang Mai to collect visas.
> on to Loas and Vietnam
> going south
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