Musings of an Idiot

At the hotel my room mate was Dan (same as in the train ride) and he is a pretty chilled out guy and is great fun, so I was happy. Overall I love the entire bunch of people I am travelling with except for Sylvia (who is too caught up with her obsession that everything should be like UK) as they are a great bunch of people with very unique personalities and in a way sharing the same interests. Once we settled into the hotel we had a few optional activities planned – we could do either a half day cycle tour in and around Chiang Mai or we could take a cooking class or just wander about on our own. I decided to take the half day cycling tour since I was planning on taking a cooking class once I got back to Bangkok. Dan took up the cooking course while John & Sylvia decided to wander on their own while Amanda, Alan, Joy and Kelly decided to take the cycle tour as well.

Our cycle tour guide was David and he was a cool guy. Biking in Chiang Mai is so much fun, especially since it is so very flat and it doesn't take as much time and effort to get to a place say like in Auckland which is pretty damn hilly and a hard place to bike. We got out of the city pretty quick and our first stop was a temple which wasn't frequented by people anymore. Thailand loves it's temples and there are a million temples in the country. We learnt that the paintings on the walls and the ceilings basically tell the story of the temple as well as teaching some of the Buddhist preachings about good and bad and karma. After the temple we biked through the rural area and I was so tempted to stop every so often to take photographs but I knew that I would be left behind really quick. So I stopped and hung the camera around my neck; put it in 'sports' mode and started taking photographs as I was biking.

After that we biked around some more before stopping at a local house/restaurant for lunch and the pad thai there was very yummy. Soon after we continued biking and stopped at a crematory and David explained to us the traditional Thai way of cremating people and it was fascinating listening to such a common tradition. Even death can't spare the show of power and wealth – in normal practice if someone dies the body is kept for 3 days in the house for everyone to come and pay their respects before it is cremated but if you are wealthy then the days can go up to 100 days and in case of one of the Thai princess who died recently it was about 200 days. After the brief stop over at the crematory, we moved on and then stopped at a 700 year old excavated temple which was only discovered 30 years back. We were standing on top of the temple grounds and it must be massive but the government there doesn't have enough money to buy back all the surrounding area in order to excavate the rest of the temple. That spot also turned out to be a tourist spot for local people who were just coming to know about the history and importance of that place. After that we biked up to our hotel while exploring the various nooks and crannies of Chiang Mai and seeing how people really lived. Overall we biked about 35 KM and got to see the beautiful country side and saw some interesting places. David – the tour guide was pretty informative and he kept answering all the questions we kept throwing at him. One of the things that always keeps throwing me off is how amazing people's smiles are.

Tipping is a common practice in Thailand and if you are happy with someone's service then you definitely tip them to show your appreciation. So once we got back to the hotel we tipped David and after that we retired to our rooms to take a shower and refresh ourselves before the evening meeting for our hill tribe trek. We were explained what the hill tribe trek involved and also the basic customs to adhere to and the equipment etc. that we needed for the trek. All of us then went out and hired the hiking gear necessary for the trip and once that was done we went to one of the night markets to grab something to eat.

The trip to the night market was fascinating. There are several night markets in Chiang Mai – most of them in the same area, so they kind of compete with each other by putting up cultural shows in order to attract visitors – local and foreign alike. The way it works is that there are food stalls in the same place but you can't pay individually at each of the shops – you have to buy tokens from a token booth and then use the tokens at the food stalls. The stall owners encash the coupons they have at the end of the night. Any tokens that are unused for the night – you return to the booth to get the equivalent money back. That way the market association knows exactly how much business each food stall has done and part of the money is used to pay for the local performers. It is a great system since it not only promotes arts and culture within the society but also helps increase the business within the system. The food there was very yummy and I stuffed myself with lots of good food. While enjoying the food we also saw a local band perform and then a 8 year old kid performed a couple of traditional Thai dances.

We left soon after to do some shopping at the road side stalls. You have to bargain for everything otherwise you end up paying way more than usual. Only advice is don't be too stingy and try and bring down the price by like 5 baht or something – that is considered being very petty. We returned to the hotel after learning a few valuable bargaining lessons from Kelly and I am in bed now after a long and exciting day. I am now even more excited about the hill tribe trek.

Till later,
Amit