Photos: http://princeton.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2052289&l=3ac36&id=1101094
We took a night bus to Chiang Mai and arrived to refreshingly cool morning air. Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city, is nine hours north of Bangkok, and situated among the hills—so the temperature was a good ten degrees cooler than it had been in Bangkok. Which, for me, meant the difference between sweating and comfort.
Our plans for Chiang Mai were relatively straight-forward: meet some of Brian’s NGO contacts, who would be able to give us good information on the Burmese political scene before we ventured into the Heart of Darkness; hang out and go rock climbing with some of Kendyl’s old CMRCA (Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures) friends; and do a little sightseeing on the side.
Brian’s contacts turned out to be mostly out of the country, but Kendyl did get to meet with one guy who put us in touch with someone in Mae Sot. And in the end, that was all we needed.
We went rock climbing with CMRCA at the Crazy Horse Buttress, a climbing site built by Princeton’s own Josh Morris ’99. The only rock climbing site in northern Thailand, Crazy Horse had done much to get the local population into climbing. Amazingly, one Thai girl who learned to climb at Crazy Horse only a few years ago now travels to international climbing competitions. She also happens to be Josh’s girlfriend.
I hadn’t been climbing in a while, so I spent the first half of the day relearning knots and remembering belay protocol along with another inexperienced guy. His name was Greg Fry, and he was originally from upstate New York, although he had taught English in Shanghai for the past year. We got along quite well, especially after he mentioned that his girlfriend worked for the Foreign Service in Madagascar. Predictably, I had a wealth of questions for him.
The climbing went ok—well, I should say, I was horrible, but I had a great time. With some practice I’m convinced I could be decent. But as it was, I used my arms far too much when I climbed, and midway through the afternoon I was totally burnt out. In the end, technique does matter.
That night I went to dinner with Greg while Kendyl went to a girly party with her Thai friend Pui. We even managed to catch a replay of Game 2 of the World Series, which was still exciting for us because we didn’t know who had won. But by about the fifth inning we were exhausted, so we just walked across the street to an internet café to see who had won. That’s the beauty of tape delay.
The second day we were in Chiang Mai, Kendyl and I rented motorbikes (fun days in SE Asia always begin that way) and buzzed up Doi Suthep, a mountain just outside of the city, to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, one of northern Thailand’s most sacred (Buddhist) temples. The temple was incredibly touristy (and, as I watched all the tourists stomping about and tried to keep my breakfast in my stomach, I realized I hadn’t been on the tourist track since Medan, Sumatra, about three weeks ago. It’s not so good to be back…), but it was also quite impressive. Most of the objects inside the temple were coated in gold, and against the blue sky and the bright sunlight the place was particularly beautiful. And the motorbike ride up and down the mountain was especially fun—I hadn’t seen roads that curvy since Big Sur, CA, and the Blue Ridge Parkway before that.
After we got back to Chiang Mai, we grabbed some fried rice (to go) and drove about 30 minutes north to Mae Sa, a town that has a National Park and a series of waterfalls. The place was pretty cool, although only some of the patches of white-water that the park termed “waterfalls” were actually waterfalls (Kendyl and I decided that water must, in fact, be falling for it to count as a waterfall). Oh, and the other not-so-cool thing was the price of admission: 20B (50 cents) for locals, and 400B ($10) for foreigners. What the hell? This is why being a tourist in Thailand can really blow. I miss Indonesia.
Anyhow, we had a nice picnic lunch and a swim underneath one of the waterfalls (and a free massage—that water SLAMMED our backs. At one point it also knocked off my swimsuit). It was the most touristy day I’ve had in weeks, but in the end I didn’t mind it so much. I can handle a touristy day every so often….
Other highlights of Chiang Mai included sampling khao sawy, a local dish originally brought to Thailand by Yunnanese Muslims, running through the park and surrounding districts with Kendyl, and the Sunday night walking market, during which the entire Old City of Chiang Mai gets transformed into one big market, and you can wander around sampling foods, bargaining for clothes, and meeting new people.
On the last night before we left for Mae Sot, we had dinner with Pui at a restaurant called Brasserie, on the banks of the river. The food was quite good, though throughout the entire meal I couldn’t stop thinking about how odd it was that I was going to miss this place. My first couple days in Chiang Mai were uninspiring—I couldn’t figure out why everyone said the place was so special. But by the time we left, I realized that while Chiang Mai didn’t boast any blockbuster tourist attractions or natural wonders, it really was a great place to live. Perhaps I’ll make it back some day for an extended visit.
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