Into the North

Day 32 (01/05/08): Chiang Mai, Thailand

The overnight sleeper train was actually very nice. I had an upper bunk bed, and even though it was quite small, very narrow and slightly too short, it was comfortable. We did have to wait at the train station for quite a long time, as the train was over an hour late. Not much really happened on the train, most people retired into their bunks, drew the curtains and read books or played cards. I was reading the required backpacking novel 'The Beach' by Alex Garland (made famous by the recent movie starring Leo diCaprio). The book talks about backpacking around Thailand, staying on Khaosan road, Koh Phangan island etc. It is quite interesting to read a book about places you have just spent a lot of time at, and describes experiences that you have had, right down to the little things that wouldn't make sense unless you have been there.

Once again, I didn't get a great nights sleep. The a/c on the train, like in all of Thailand, is set to freezing cold. So I woke up in the middle of the night and everything was freezing. The supplied blanket was pretty meager, and I couldn't be bothered climbing out of my bunk to find my bag to dig down to the bottom to find something warm. Likewise I couldn't be bothered trying to dig around for my eye mask, as the curtain didn't do much to block out the light. Either way, the train was very nice for an overnight journey, much better than the overnight buses.

The train pulled into Chiang Mai station in the mid morning. I had thought that Bangkok was bad for touts, but the train station here was manic! It was packed full of people offering tuk-tuk rides, tours or guest houses, and it was impossible to walk a few meters without being assaulted. We had already selected a guest house out of the Lonely Planet guidebook (the cheapest one of course), and finally gave in to a tuk-tuk to take us there. The guest-house was rather nice, and our room even had its own bathroom, although we took the cheaper option with only cold water. After all, I haven't had a hot shower for over a month, so why break the habit?

Chiang Mai is a large, quite modern city. In the center of the city are the remains of the old fortified city. A large square wall runs around it, surrounded by a moat. On each of four sides of the wall, right in the middle is a large re-enforced gate, although some have now been enlarged to allow for traffic. My guest house was just on the edge outside the old city, overlooking the moat and the east gate. In the afternoon we went on a short walk around the old city. It is very nice and has a great atmosphere to it. The local government has gone to a lot of effort to preserve the city. No tall buildings are allowed with 93m of a temple (which apparently covers something like 85% of the city area), the rivers and moat have undergone a large cleaning and anti-pollution program (there are now fish and turtles in the moat), and there is an extensive recycling program. It is all very nice to see compared to the dirt and pollution of Bangkok.

Walking around the old city was, as always, hot work. Although while Bangkok seemed to be perpetually overcast (most likely the pollution), Chiang Mai had clear sky and you could feel the heat of the sun. The most interesting things to look at were some temples, which although I have seen a lot of, can still be very impressive. The biggest attraction around Chiang Mai tend to be the activities, the most common of which are treks into the nearby jungles and mountains. I am planning to do one of these at some point, probably in the next few days. Although I have also seen adverts for a whole range of other things; white water rafting, elephant trekking, mountain biking, rock climbing, even bungee jumping and paintball! So there you have it, Chiang Mai, adventure capital of Thailand!

My head was still feeling very bad, and my noise was running like Forrest Gump, so the rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and reading a book (the area around the Guest House has a huge number of second hand bookstores, so I went and got myself a new book). Some good bed rest was in order to try and recover as much before going trekking.

That night I had tickets to a Muay Thai boxing match (otherwise known as Thai kick-boxing). I had been really keen on going to one of these, but hadn't managed to get to one yet. It wasn't a particularly big stadium, and most of the audience were foreigners. There were 8 fights during the night, starting off with some quite small kids (33kg), moving through some teens, a female fight, and finally into the main fights of the night (63kg). They were very impressive, and I really enjoyed watching them. It is very different to modern (western) boxing, although some fights just went into a clinch a lot, which can get quite boring. The main fights of the night, with the adults, were very well done, the competitors were all very good, and I particularly liked watching the different styles of each of the fighters. Although the funniest, and possible most enjoyable part of the evening was at the 'half time' show. Four boxers come on stage, all young men, and put on blindfolds. They then went around the ring swinging wildly and trying to smack each other. To make things more interesting, a fifth guy went around pushing the boxers in the direction of each other and generally trying to cause mayhem. Even though he could see, and tried to avoid the swinging gloves, he still took quite a few hits. It was a great laugh.

The other aspect of Thai boxing that I really liked was the sportsmanship. Each competitor always treated his (or her) opponent with respect, and always saluted at the start of each round. At the conclusion of the match, each competitor drunk from their opponents corner. I thought it was a very nice touch.

After the last fight, most people got up to leave. A free cabaret show had been advertised for immediately afterwards, and I was somewhat tempted to find out what it was about. However, after seeing a few lady-boys walk out in bikinis and big feathers, I decided I had seen enough, and joined the rest of the people leaving. It was a short walk back to the guest house, where I found my roommate asleep, and so read my book for a few hours using my headlamp.

(No photos unfortunately, like many internet places, the USB at this place doesn't work).