Loy Krathong in Chiang Mai, etc.

I've been in Chiang Mai almost a week and am realizing that somehow my time here in Thailand is already coming to a close (at least until spring, when I'm back for another month). I fly out of Bangkok in two weeks, and so rather than try rushing things by going north up to Laos and spend too much time on busses, I'm going to be making my way more or less back towards Bangkok. So in the next day or two I'll head west over to the little town of Pai, which is also fairly touristy but is supposed to be a pleasant little town in the hills, with good access to hiking, some hot springs, as well as seeing some of the more traditional hill tribe villages (many of whom are refugees from Myanmar and Laos). I was considering doing an organized trek for a few days, but it sounds like they kind of rush things, shuttling you from a short walk to a waterfall to a hill tribe village (which might not even be a real village, but one basically set up for tourists, which is a weird concept) and then a quick elephant ride and then some river rafting. I'm thinking I'd rather just hike and bike around and do my own thing, and that area sounds like a good place to do it. Then from there I'll start making a more southerly route.

So, back to Chiang Mai. The Loy Krathong festival was quite amazing. The festival is centered around the end of the rainy monsoon season, so it's a time to celebrate abundant crops as well as release negative energies; which they do by floating these flowery candle boats down the river, releasing lanterns into the air and also setting off tons of fireworks. And by releasing lanterns into the air, yes, I mean lanterns, which are aflame and untethered, and go floating up into the sky, to land who knows where. This is not a festival that would be allowed in southern California. It's neither environmentally friendly nor safe, though the intentions are certainly good. But the best image I can think of is something like armageddon, or a war zone, except that everyone's having a great time. Fireworks are shooting off with little discretion in every direction, as well as cherry bombs and other explosive firecrackers. The river is filled with the lights of candles floating down it, and the night sky is filled with thousands of these lanterns floating up and over the city (they're simply a large paper tube, maybe 3-4 feet high and 2 feet wide, turned upside down and with a bundle of waxed cardboard inside them, which is lit and then causes it to float). This goes on for hours and hours after it gets dark, and happens over several nights.

The only reason this doesn't result in the entire country burning down, at least as much as I can figure, is because it takes place at the end of the monsoon and so everything's damp. Also, in theory at least the lanterns don't actually come down until the fires inside have already burned down. But of course that's not foolproof and some of the floating lanterns inevitably fall into trees. But they don't end up starting a fire due to the wet conditions, but just burn themselves out. You would think some of them would start fires somewhere, especially during a drier year, but if so it's obviously not enough of a detterent to change the tradition at all. Either way, I'd hate to be downwind from a city where all of these things end up landing.

The large Ping River flowing through town is the place to be, so I headed down there with my own Krathong (the candle boat) and took a spot by the river to watch the action; which involved a lot of Thai teenagers having too much fun, since the drinking age is 18, you can drink on the streets and most of them had fireworks on hand. But overall they behaved themselves fairly well, no fights or puking in the street, at least that I saw. Eventually a couple of travelers ended up sitting near me and we chatted a bit while watching the spectacle, and drank a beer or two too many ourselves (which means only three in my case, but that will do it); which was fun until I got back to my hotel room with a bit of a spinning head, and a stomach that wasn't so excited about the sausages I'd bought from a street vendor on the way back. So sometimes you have to pay for your fun the next day, but it was still worth it. It was definitely a trip, and I'm left impressed at how the Thais can be such friendly, easygoing people, and yet put on a heck of a party at the same time. There was also a nighttime parade and assorted music and street fairs that showcased various aspects of Thai culture, both more traditional and modern.

So, other than that I've just been checking out the mellow city of Chiang Mai a bit, including a number of temples and a museum I biked to today that illustrated the various different hill tribe cultures of northern Thailand (including the "long neck" women, with the series of rings around their necks, who are the ones who unfortunately have become something of a tourist spectacle. They are refugees from Myanmar (Burma) who have fled to Thailand to escape persecution from the Burmese government). Also I've been enjoying the wide range of dinner options here, where they're catering to all the Western tourists. I found a great Mexican restaurant, where I ate for Thanksgiving. Last night I headed there again, but they're closed on Mondays so instead I stopped into another place and had an excellent chili burger with fries (although the chili was just literally chilis). I figure I've got to take advantage of the food from back home while I can, since most places I'm not going to have the options.

Chiang Mai

(A Buddha statue in Ayuthaya)...

I'm now in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. I arrived early this morning after an overnight bus ride from Ayuthaya, where I stayed for two nights, after leaving Trat. Getting from Trat to Ayuthaya was a bit of a trip, because I had two very different bus rides. There wasn't a direct Trat-Ayuthaya bus, so I had to take a bus to Bangkok's northern bus terminal (in which I avoided having to actually go into the heart of Bangkok) and then catch another bus from there just 30 miles north to Ayuthaya. The bus ride from Trat to Bangkok was a government bus and it was very clean, only about half full, with a bathroom on board (they're not in the back but in the center of the bus where you go down some stairs, which also leads to a second exit door). At the start of the trip they handed out these snack boxes to everyone, that had water, a yogurt drink and cookies. It was a pretty nice and fairly new bus, where the driver and his assistant are separated by a barrier with a door at the front of the bus. So you only see the assistant guy come around every once in a while to check tickets or whatever. Also the bus made very few stops along the way, so we covered 200 miles in about 4 1/2 hours. Most of the highways here in Thailand are divided highways or freeways so you move along pretty good. Basically, it beat Greyhound and was about 8 bucks.

The next bus ride was a little different. It took 2 1/2 hours to go 30 miles, not because of traffic out of Bangkok or anything, but because the bus stopped every chance it got to drum up more passengers in order to cram it full. It was more like the typical India bus, sort of falling apart, with lots of colorful religious decorations (Buddhist in this case) all over the interior. There were four guys including the driver manning the bus, and I ended up sitting in the first seat right near the driver and the other guys, who were all rather boisterous. We got out of the bus station pretty much right on time, but then we stopped at a snack shop right away so that they could all buy cigarettes. Then we stopped at another snack shop so they could buy a bunch of shish-ke-bobs (which they gave me one). The bus was only maybe a third full, so when we got to another market area where there were a lot of people standing around, they pulled over and started drumming up the passengers. We stayed there for at least ten minutes while all the assistants went around through the crowd yelling all the places they were stopping along the way. Basically it was sort of a city bus that was taking people to various points outside of Bangkok on the way to Ayuthaya, but it was clearly a private bus, which is a bad combination if you're actually ready to get to your destination in reasonable time. So then we stopped at several other points to let people off, and then hang out for a while to get more passangers. Then we pulled alongside a canal and the three assistants got out with white plastic buckets, filled them up with water from the canal and then washed out the luggage area, for some reason, which I presume didn't have any luggage in it (at least not mine) because they just sloshed water all over the place. Then we continued on, stopping along the way all the way up to Ayuthaya. The way it was going I was thinking it was going to take even longer, so I was pretty stoked when we finally pulled up there.

Ayuthaya is essentially a rectangular island about 3 by 4 miles created by three different rivers coming together. It was the capital of Thailand (or at least that part of Thailand, the borders have shifted around a lot) from somewhere around the 14th to 17th centuries. There's now a modern town on part of the island, with tons of ancient temples (more than a hundred) scattered all around the island and then a few places across the rivers. Basically, it was the ideal place to just rent a bicycle and bike all over the place checking out these temples, which was what I did, managing to get thoroughly lost at one point just because road signs aren't entirely reliable (although they almost always are in English as well as Thai, dang convenient).

The next day I had an overnight "VIP" bus (which basically means they have a TV up front and play a lot of dubbed action movies) reserved leaving at 9pm, so I checked out of my hotel room and then just walked around and went over some of the ground I'd went over the previous day. The bus that night was entirely foreign tourists because it was coming directly from a popular backpacker's area in Bangkok. Other than stopping at Ayuthaya it stopped only once for a snack stop in the middle of the night. Basically it was a long, boring overnight trip in which I got no sleep and was thinking maybe it was worth it to take the day bus (the advantage to going overnight is you skip paying for a hotel room for that night). The one good thing about it was I ended up sitting next to a French Canadian woman who was also traveling alone and so we were glad to have someone to catch up on our travels with. Fortunately they turned the action movie off around 10pm and then it was dark and fairly quiet after that, and we got into Chiang Mai around 7 am.

After a rather exhaustive search for guest houses this morning I found something good, a little more than I wanted to pay, but I just wasn't finding anything super cheap that I wanted to put up with. So I got a pretty nice room on the second floor of sort of a mini-hotel, with tons of windows, private bathroom with hot water and two twin beds with a great mattress (the mattress is what makes or breaks a lot of rooms) for 200 baht, or 6 bucks. Not bad, this same room in a touristy place in the U.S. would probably be 80-100 bucks or something. Also I have a nice view looking down on the quiet lane that it's on. I'd found one other room that I really liked, it was all teak hardwood for the same price, but then the lady warned me that the bar next door played loud live music at night, so that pretty much ruined it.

So after that bus ride and then hiking all over the place I was beat, and just took a shower, slept for the afternoon, then found a nice restaurant for dinner and then found super cheap internet here at 15 baht an hour, or 50 cents. Other than the room being a little more than I wanted to pay, it looks like I'll be able to keep the budget a little more reasonable here with lots of cheap restaurant options, especially since I plan to stick around for a while, at least a week or so. There's tons to do here, lots of temples, museums, a zoo, bookshops, bars, and it's a really cool town to just walk around, super mellow with lots of small little lanes with various shops and characterful restaurants. It's also crazy touristy, in some areas you see as many westerners as Thais, but there's plenty of exploring you can do outside of this area (where all the affordable guest houses are), where I'm sure it will feel a little more authentically Thai. Also there's hiking and overnight trekking in the hills nearby, where you hike from one village to another and then spend the night in village guest houses, so I'll look into maybe doing one of those for a couple of days.

back in Trat

(A pier on Ko Mak)....

I'm back in Trat, the little town (which now feels like the big city) that's basically the jumping off point for the Ko Chang islands, and where I was almost two weeks ago. I had a great time, got more than enough sun, did some snorkeling (although the conditions weren't perfect, it sounds like the water will be clearer later, since it's still transitioning from the monsoon season) did some hiking around, went swimming in a pool at a waterfall, had plenty of banana shakes (not with ice cream, I think it's just fruit, milk, ice and sugar put in a blender, but they're pretty good) and plenty of good Thai food. A couple of nights ago I mentioned to the waiter at the restaurant to make it plenty spicy, since previous dishes weren't quite spicy enough. "How spicy, Thai style?" Sure, I said. That was a mistake, it was so hot I could barely finish it, although it was still pretty good. He was a little apologetic and I couldn't quite tell if they'd accidentally made it even spicier than normal, or if that was just the norm. But now I know what Thai style is and for them to make it about half as spicy as that.

Anyway so I first went to the little island of Ko Mak. I was avoiding Ko Chang, which is the most popular island and also the biggest and most expensive. Ko Mak was great, pretty beaches, warm water and nice folks, etc., pretty much just what you'd expect of a tropical island. I met a Norwegian couple on the boat there and hung out with them a bit, as well as a woman from France who had lived on the island previously for 5 years, and had a great little wooden hut with private bathroom and a porch with a hammock (good thing I didn't haul that hammock all the way from home). After a few days I realized though that there wasn't a whole lot to do there activity-wise (especially trying to watch my budget, everything's pricier than normal there) and I was getting a little bored of just being a beach bum. I stayed there for a week though and then took another boat over to Ko Kood, which is bigger, almost the size of Ko Chang, but not nearly as popular mostly because it's farther away. That was a nice change, as there was a lot more to do, more beaches to check out, waterfalls, etc. and just a different vibe. The weather didn't cooperate completely though, it was hazy and overcast a lot, so I ended up getting started on an article about my recent trip to the Kalalau Valley in Hawaii, which I've almost finished (just writing in a notepad) and has turned out pretty well. So at some point I'll type it up and then start looking at who or where I could possibly sell it to, which is one of the plans for this trip. So we'll see how that goes. Also once I do get it written up then I'll go ahead and pass it along.

So the other wrinkle with Ko Kood was somewhat ironically that it wasn't quite touristy enough. I stayed there for five nights and there were at least a dozen rooms, but I was the only person in my guest house for all except one night, when another couple was there. There were other tourists on the island, but from what I gathered the real tourist rush starts next weekend. So I was thinking of hopping over to Ko Chang to perhaps find some other travelers to hang out with, or at least a little more sense of something happening, but it isn't easy to get from Ko Kood to Ko Chang. Basically it was cheaper to take a boat all the way back to Trat, and then go to Ko Chang from here. So, I'm still pondering maybe going over there from here, but instead I'm thinking I'll probably save the island thing for another time, and see some other parts of Thailand.

I was considering going from here into Cambodia to see the temples at Angkor Wat, but I don't really feel like leaving Thailand already and dealing with getting across the border, etc. So maybe I'll come back and do Cambodia at another time and check out Ko Chang then. Instead I'm planning to head north in the general direction of Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is a small city of around 150,000 people, pretty far north, but it's said to have all the cultural benefits of Bangkok, without all the hassle. It's quite popular with travelers, the hotels are cheap (and I need to do cheap for a little while after the islands) and there's a lot going on, i.e. meditation courses, yoga, massage, etc. as well as dozens of temples to check out, plus there's trekking in the hills nearby. So it sounds like something completely different from laying around on a beach and I think is more what I'm up for right now. There are a few destinations I'll most likely hit along the way, particularly Ayuthaya and Sukhothai, which are both towns with tons of temples, as I think they were both the capital of Thailand (aka Siam) at one point. Also Chiang Mai is heading in the direction of Laos, which has been highly recommended, so I may end up going there while I'm in that area. Another possibility is to then make a loop and go down into Cambodia from there and then back here, but who knows.

So I'll probably hang out here in Trat for at least a day or two, it's a good place to get reoriented, do shopping, get a cheap massage and trade in some books, etc. I'm staying at the same guest house where I was before, the people there are nice and at least a few speak some English so that you can make onward travel arrangements easier. Plus they make a mean banana shake....anyway that's all for now...