Our next day began with brekkies in the sala. What a spread! Delicious coffee, fresh squeezed orange juice, hams and bacons, croissants with the greatest mango jam in history, fried egg, scrambled egg, tomato, and best of all, crepes with cinnamon sugar. Dang yo!
Peter gave us a lift into Chiang Mai, we were headed for Wat Phra Doi Suthet, a temple on the top of a mountain. We were dropped by the university at a little red “taxi” stand. Basically a truck with benches in the back that take you up and down the mountain for 80 baht a person. The trick is you have to wait till there are ten of you, they don’t go before that, so we sat and read our guidebook as random thais joined the wait. Finally we had enough and so we loaded into the van and started the treacherous many hairpinned journey up the misty mountain. The views were amazing, disorienting. Where you can see for so far that you feel as though you’re tipping forward. We only got glimpses of the view through the trees as we careened up the mountain, but we were in for a treat at the top.
(the bazaar on the steps leading up to the steps leading up to the temple)
Finally arriving 15 km later, and a little green around the gills, we stepped out onto the street. It was like a road high in Banff, but all along the sides there were vendors hawking shirts and silks, sausages and sweet corn, fresh juices and coconuts with straws sticking out the top. We turned and started up the stairs towards the temple. There are 306 steps up this steep hill through the jungle. The banister on either side, the entire length of the staircase, is a curving enameled dragon, with brilliant blue, red and gold scales. Posted on trees as you go up are various sage sayings in Thai. Only one was in English, “The willful man will have his way”. Duh. I coulda told you that. Stupid monks. Kidding.
There were some very heavy looking clouds rolling in as we reached the top of the mountain and the beautiful temple sitting atop it. Views stretched forever from every side. We were as high as the clouds, mist was rolling over the temple and through the trees. We really understood where “mist rolling in” comes from. It was like we were under the sea looking up at a storm. It started to rain pretty good while we were up there, but we just kept strolling, seeing all the statues of Buddha and the Thai’s carrying their flowers dipped in perfume, their burning incense sticks and their little yellow prayer candles around the central golden temple. Around the statues were monks in their vibrant orange robes speaking quietly to Thais sitting all around them. We were shooed out of the temple at first because we didn’t have long pants but Celina was smart enough to have packed some so on they went and in we went.
After some looking around and enjoying we started the long trek back down the mountain to find our van and head back into town. We stopped and had some sweet corn from a street vendor, delicious, and then hopped back into the van. With the help of a couple young Thai girls we told the driver we wanted to be dropped off downtown, where the Sunday market happens. He said he’d do it for another 30 baht each, two whole bucks, and we wound our way back down the mountain, breathing the heady fumes of the exhaust billowing directly into our faces.
In the center of Chiang Mai, surrounded by a moat and an ancient wall, is the old city of Chiang Mai. There are temples and government houses and just a bunch more city in there. Every Sunday from 5 to midnight is a gigantic street market. Stretching about 10 or fifteen blocks long and then down either side four or five blocks. Clothes, art, toys, and so much food in every direction. Its like if the section along 83rd Ave in front of the Varscona was the way it is at the Fringe, but for as far the eye can see in every direction.
When we first arrived we had three hours to kill so we grabbed a two hour oil massage for about seven bucks each. This was not a great massage, soft and weird. More like a traditional US massage. It was cheap, but also not good. Meh, still not a bad way to spend two hours, but when you step into the humid sunshine afterwards you regret the oil somewhat. You know when you reach into the bottom of the popcorn at a movie, where all that “Real” butter oil has settled. The stuff that bleeds through the bag and stains your pants? Well if you lay down on a big spinning platter and had them dispense that oil all over your body, and then put you in a suntan booth with nine humidifiers going full steam (literally! Wakka wakka!) you’d have an approximation of the sensation. I felt like if butter could sweat.
Still an hour to kill so we grabbed a banana shake, they are so damn awesome here, and started strolling through the market, seeing the miles of stalls going up. Some of the food carts were already up so we wandered into a little parking lot that had been converted into a food court for the night and sat at an ankle high table one teensy stools surrounded by roosters clucking around. The old Thai man gave us a menu so we could point. 15 baht for green curry chicken? Sure! That’s like 50 cents for dinner. It was a little suspect though. I have no idea which part of the chicken those pieces came from but each one had part of some unrecognizable bone. It may have just been chicken face? Guess what. Chicken butt. I have no idea. It tasted fine but was a little creepy. I warned Ween off the chicken parts and we enjoyed the rest. The broth and lemongrass and ginger and galanga. Then paid our dollar and headed back out.
By now more of the market was hopping and we wandered the length of it in every direction, the clouds having cleared the sun was beating down, it goes from like 75 degrees when its raining to 95 the second it stops. That’s like from 20 to 35 celsius. We bought a few little keepsakes and gifts, trying hard not to fall into that trap that tourists so often do. The eternal question of “is that pretty or tacky” followed by the penultimately eternal question, “is that genuine and handcrafted or could I buy it at the airport on the way home”. After all our wandering we determined that many of the stalls had doubles of other stalls, so we avoided those things. We also got to do a little bartering. There is no offence taken to any offer here. Our first try went something like this. How much? 200 baht. Ah, could you do 150? (absolutely no pause whatsoever) 170. (slight stunned pause) uh, okay. The second went along these lines. How much? 250. 200. For you? Deal. (whispered aside) I think we should have offered less…
We were hungry for some real food and I was, for no apparent reason, craving Indian. Our guidebook recommended a place over by the night bazaar, a ten block stroll away, so off we went. We got a little tense as we wandered, less English, no farongs, shifty looking ladies. Then out of nowhere we stumbled across a giant temple in a fully manicured lovely garden with statues of every kind of animal throughout including… Donald Duck with manga eyes? Snapped some shots and eventually found our way to our destination.
To reach it we had to have some serious eagle eyes. Arabia Restaurant was written on the teeniest sign on a sign post with about thirty other signs all pointing down an alley. An alley huh? Oh well, we’ve come this far. We went down the alley which opened up onto a giant market with proper restaurants all around the perimeter, lit by patio lanterns. Every restaurant we walked past had folks out front calling out their wares, trying hard to get us punters into their restaurants. We went past one Indian place that was packed and found the one we were looking for, which was dead empty and sad looking, so we followed the crowd and that was that! For under ten bucks we had a lot of waters, chicken korma, dal fry (lentils), a humungous veggie pakora, rice and lots of naan. It was delicious, spicy but not burny, just flavorful. It was delicious and hit the spot!
Out into the muggy night we went, the night bazaar, a touristy attraction with many more stalls all selling the same stuff as everywhere else. We weren’t that interested and were pretty wiped out with the day, all the walking, the crowds, the heat and rain and heat again, so we checked our guidebook and realized the bus back to Bon Sang, our pickup point by Peter, had all stopped leaving except for from one station a long walk away. Blech. Instead we thought we’d grab a meter taxi the 14 km back. Where to find one of those? I hit upon the genius idea of stopping at one of the fancy hotels in the area but apparently the meter taxi don’t really run in the city after dark. That may have been bull but whatever. We headed out onto the street and actually listened to the constant hails from tuktuk drivers that accost us anytime we’re by a street of any kind. Without much choice we headed for one. Where to? Bon Sang. You sure? Yeah. Bon sang? Yes. Y’see, Bon Sang is a little village a long way away from the city, theres nothing to do there at night and the only attraction is an umbrella factory, but that’s where The Secret Garden is. So eventually convincing the guy where we were headed, we asked how much. 300 baht. No way I said, and we started walking away, how much you pay he yells after us. I said we’d been told it would be 120. Now he was shocked and dismayed. Its 14 km! 200 baht please! Privately celebrating our biggest discount of the day we tried to squeeze the price down a little more but with a few drops of rain starting to fall, more and more insistently, we figured our bargaining power was lost and in we got. Now a tuk tuk is like a motor bike front half and a rickshaw in back, with open sides and a little tin roof over top. Our first tuktuk ride of the trip, and we chose to make it a 14 km ride through what wound up being the most intense downpour either of us had ever experienced. We cuddled together and watched the nighttime roadside whiz past, feeling every car and truck drive past in the cloud of spray they shot up.
(exhilarated, tired, probably drunk. and thats just the driver! total rimshot!)
A half hour of absolute soaking later we arrived at the meeting point, found the movie store where we would wait for our pick up, had a minor panic when we couldn’t find peter’s business card, found it, called him, and wandered through the movie store while we waited. We took a picture of “Stick It” starring our friend Vanessa Lengies from my last pilot, all in Thai, and sent it to her. Peter grabbed us, we headed home soaked to the bone and accepted a glass of wine on the house, which turned into two which turned into four, sitting with Peter and talking late into the night in the sala, before heading to our room to hit the pit. (Celina again… okay, so Peter is this wiry and tall fellow with snowy white hair that’s boyishly long and curling around his face, and a bushy white moustache to match. His skin is red and leathered, he’s somewhere around fifty or sixty and you get the sense that he doesn’t ever stop. Over our wine we learn that he has built the entire Secret Garden himself. It’s been a labor of love over the past 26 years. He moved from Germany to Spain all by himself when he was 16 and fell in love with a girl who’s father owned a restaurant. He fell in love with Spain as well, and married the girl and worked in the restaurant for 15 years. He woodworked all the while and helped build the restaurant into one of the top places in all of Spain. His marriage dissolved though they remain friends, and he vowed that he’d move back one day and with his first major earnings would buy some land there. He moved to Chiang Mai because his designs could be produced more inexpensively than anywhere else, and he bought the land in Spain and a rice field in Chiang Mai. Over the last twenty six years he’s built the Secret Garden on the rice field, initially only intended as a huge party facility where he and Pai could host their weekly hundred person Sunday get-togethers to try and unite Thai people with foreigners and build friendships… which apparently never quite worked. He, Pai and Isabelle now spend 9 months hosting guests at the Secret Garden, and for the three months that Isabelle is on summer holidays, they move to their home in Spain. It doesn’t sound like the worst life ever, does it? Ken, I kept thinking of you while we were visiting with Peter and learning about his place. I got the feeling that you two would become friends… so maybe let’s think about all coming back to Thailand together so that you can meet him!) Tomorrow was to be the highlight of the trip! Patara Elephant Camp. But oh no! There was an email from them from a few days ago we’d neglected to see asking us to confirm. We sent our confirmation but worried the night away wondering if they’d get it. Neither of us slept, each taking turns checking email. Ugh! Stress! I would lay awake worrying we’d missed it, then doze and dream about spending the day with elephants, then wake up worried again, then back to sleep. Oy.
1 comment:
Thailand has moved way up on my "Top 100" places to visit.
I look forward to elephant day.
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