Supplemental

Chapter 3: City of Temples and Rain

I have been in Thailand for about a week, and so far I think I have a pretty good layout of the city at this point. Chiang Mai is the cultural heart of Thailand, and as such it is packed to the gills with temples and traditional structures. Chiang Mai has over 300 temples within it. The city is beautiful, hectic, and crazy. I am enjoying it nonetheless. The food is cheap and good, whether it is from a street vendor selling Pad Thai or a restaurant that has some new curry, I truly do enjoy it. And though it is hot, it is also pleasant when indoors, or up on a mountain.

The layout of Chiang Mai is pretty simple. The city itself is fairly small and easy to get around. There is the old city, which is within the old city walls that were built in the 1200’s. It is about a square km in area and this is where I am staying. There are a number of temples within the area, but I have yet to visit them. The hotel we are staying in is the Mountain View Guest House. It is a nice enough place, Pi Dang, the owner is incredibly nice and helpful. She can easily point us in the direction of something fun, and get us a Songthaw (a pickup truck converted into a taxi), and for this I am thankful. Every Sunday night, a section of the city gets converted into a walking street market. This market contains pieces of art, faux designer goods, and food. It is a lot of fun to be there, but it is also crowded and packed to the gills.

Most of the city is outside the walls. Notable places are the Kat Swan Kae mall, the Night Bazaar, and even more temples. The Kat Swan Kae is a mall near the wall and it is really unusual mall. On the outside, it looks hideous; it is a large ugly brick structure that does not even look like a mall. Walk inside though, and it is a large modern mall. You are greeted with a wave of A/C, which is needed when you walk to it from the hot outside air, and it runs 5-6 (maybe 7) floors. I really don’t know. The mall has no central focal point or corridor, but instead is grouped into a series of clusters in the building. There are empty and unused sections of the mall, particularly on the floor with the bowling alley and cinema. But it is still a good mall, and the grocery store in the basement has a pretty decent food court. I really don’t shop here since I am looking to the various markets for cheapo goods. The Night Bazaar is a nightly market in the Farung district of the city (or the foreign district). It sells many of the same goods as the walking street market on Sunday, so it is kinda the same old thing. However, I do not like having to pay 4x the standard rate for the Songthaws in the area (it costs 20 Baht to go there, and 40-50 to leave).

Now you may wonder why I titled this as the City of Temples and Rain, well along with 300 temples, there is also rain, and I mean a lot of rain. It has rained every day that we’ve been here. And not an “oh its misting a little bit,” I mean “my Lord, I’m drowning in rain.” It usually starts at 4 PM daily, but there have been some exceptions to that rule, like when it is nighttime and you want to go home. Last Friday, we were going home from work, and it took us an hour to get a songthaw, and it was in the rain. It was miserable. We finally got one, but it was wet, and none of us had any rain gear with us (stupid us.) But once we get inside, the rain and thunder are actually quite pleasant. The Next bit will be the narrative of what I have been doing.

Chapter 4: FBR, Temples, and a Palace

So at the FBR office, we are in the process of organizing their archived files. That kinda has been the 9-5 bit of life. FBR sends teams in (mostly consisting of people from Burma, primarily the ethnic minorities of Burma) to give medical aid and support to Internally Displaced peoples in Burma. They then send reports of their activities, the movements of Myanmar’s army, and any other relevant information. It is pretty simple work.

The staff is great to work with. It is a combination of Caucasians and Thais at the office. The guy overseeing us is Nick, he’s cool and is patient with us. We are also learning Thai while at the office. The language though is tough, very tough…

Everyday in the office though, we have a “sandwich” lady that comes around and takes down our orders for lunch, and everyday it is an adventure with something new and cool. I’ve had such things like Pas See Ew (fried egg noodles), Ka Pao (a stir-fried dish with ground meat and egg), Panang Curry, and a garlic chicken.

After work though, we return to the guesthouse and get dinner. At first though, with so much rain, we could only eat really close. But with improved weather, we now have a greater degree of options for food. Though most of the places we’ve been to have no English menu, it has mainly been a point and “I want that” thing.

Last Saturday we had our first excursion up to Doisethep and Puhping palace. Doisethep is a large Buddhist temple on top of the mountain in Chiang Mai. The view from up top was glamorous, but inside the temple, it was an event of true beauty. There is something to be said about South East Asian art and architecture. It has all the order and forms of China, but the passion and heart of India. In short, Chinese and Indian styles fuse to make something extraordinary. The liberal uses of yellow and orange for color gives the temple a certain vibrancy. The palace was also cool. The Puhping palace is a winter residence of the royal family in Thailand. We couldn’t go into the palace directly, but the gardens were still really pretty.

This Saturday though was a lot of fun. We took a whirlwind tour of the jungle with multiple activities. We started out by driving to an Orchid Farm. From there we went into a jungle and rode elephants. The elephant I rode I named Vara, and she was more content with eating than with walking though. We had lunch, and then we hiked to a waterfall. Though the hike was strenuous, being able to swim at the waterfall was refreshing. Next we did white water rafting. This was my favorite activity, and I wished that we could have done it longer, but alas we couldn’t. After some bamboo rafting, we headed back to the guesthouse to celebrate Maddi’s birthday. All in all it was a good day.

Next week, I will post musings that I have been having.