Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand, but it’s only one eighth the size of Bangkok. It was billed as a more cosmopolitan, international city than Bangkok, and a highlight of many tourists’ trips to Thailand.

View from the patio of my guesthouse

The Western gate surrounding the old town

It lived up to the billing in some ways, and it disappointed a bit in others. Like other Thai cities, it was not designed for walking or biking. On many of the roads, only a few feet separated the edge of the pavement from the adjacent buildings, and the cars and trucks that whizzed by were sometimes inches from my body. The dogs that were listless and semi-nomadic in other cities were well-fed, territorial, and aggressive here, and they often charged, barked, and snarled if you got too close to their house. The locals recognize all this, I suppose, since they almost exclusively rely on driving or hitching rides on the taxi/trucks that pass through the town. This, along with the mountainous surrounding terrain, does not do great things to the air quality.

Although Chiang Mai was not quite the Portland of Thailand I had hoped for, it was wonderful in many ways. Beautiful temples were scattered around the old city center. These temples were not like the ornate monuments in Bangkok. They felt more “in use” to me – less there as monuments, and more there for worship.

The liked the vibe of the travelers better than that in Bangkok or Koh Samui. Rather than partying hard, as in Bangkok, or simply taking a European beach vacation, as in Koh Samui, the tourists seemed to be more oriented toward eating Thai food, taking day trips outside the city, taking Thai cooking classes, and exploring temples and markets.

Learning about rice in cooking class

Tip, who made excellent smoothies

Chiang Mai did offer a lot of options for a traveler. I took an all-day Thai cooking class, where I learned how to make green curry, hot basil stir fry, coconut soup, spring rolls, and mango sticky rice by hand. I got four massages and drank a fresh smoothie every day. I went to a night market and drank local fruit wines and ate street foods with the locals. Pauline, a French girl I met in Sukhothai, and I went to a temple on a mountain 15 miles outside of the city, and we walked around the immense Chiang Mai zoo after.

Pauline and me

And, as all good things do, it came to an end after five days. The three weeks of living out of a large backpack, experiencing warm and sunny weather, eating at restaurants daily for under five euros, and spending time mostly with my thoughts and my books (though occasionally with fellow travelers) ended. I flew from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, and then I had an eight hour wait in the airport before my fourteen hour flight home. And then, like magic, I was back in Amsterdam, where snow and ice blanketed the ground and clouds obscured the sky. And, hence, back to reality.

Worry not, though; spring is just around the corner.

Sukhothai

Once in Bangkok, I thought I'd finalized my travel plans for the rest of my stay in Thailand. I was going to go from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, which is a 14 hour overnight train ride to the north. Then I'd take a bus to Sukhothai, then another bus to Ayuthaiya, then another bus to Bangkok for my flight home. This plan did not take into account the (at the time unknown to me) fact that demand for overnight trains from Bangkok to Chiang Mai tends to surpass supply, and the trains were sold out. So I took a seven hour daytime bus trip to Sukhothai instead, and I eventually scrapped my plans to go to Ayuthaiya. 

A songathaew - a truck that acts as a kind of taxi in which passengers sit in the bed of the truck - dropped me off at the guesthouse that I'd circled in my guidebook. The owners told me that they only had one room left, and that it was a bargain at 200 baht (about five euro, or seven dollars) per night. Naturally, rooms at this price have a few drawbacks. This one had a shower, but no hot water (or, at least, no temperature control for the water - it was freezing in the morning and quite warm in the evening), and the toilet was "Thai style" rather than Western, meaning the flushing mechanism involved scooping water from a large bucket into the toilet to make it "flush." My physics knowledge is insufficient to understand how this works, but it apparently does.

This was the closest I was to roughing it during my trip. There was a loud buzzing noise from some of the wiring in the room, and I had to wear ear plugs at night. There was no air conditioning, but the fan and the metal screens on the windows were mostly effective at keeping the mosquitoes off of me at night. Ultimately, I didn't get any rashes, and I slept reasonably well, so I'll consider it a bargain.

Sukhothai itself was the smallest city I visited. I got the feeling that the current city's economy is largely driven by tourism based on the "old city," the ruins of the ancient capital of Sukhothai, which dominated the region in the late 13th century and the 14th century. It was a relief to be somewhere relatively quiet after the chaos of Bangkok, though there was one night in which a fellow traveler and I could not find a place to get a beer after 9:00pm.

I only had one full day in Sukhothai, and I spent it on a rented bicycle riding around the ruins of the ancient city with my camera. 

Bowls and jars with incense candles sat below many of the statues

A monument to King Ramkamhaeng, who seemed to be a real philosopher king, and enjoyed borderline divine status.

It felt very dry compared to Bangkok, Khao Sok, and Koh Samui, which were all adjacent to large bodies of water, and the dirt ground in the ruins was covered by only a patchy, yellow-green layer of grass. There were plenty of others touring the ruins, but the complex was about a square kilometer, and I often got to tour the statues and temples in silence. The sound of the soft wind blowing through tree leaves and the sight of little ribbons of dirt swirling above the ground gave the ancient capital a bit of a mystical, almost eerie feeling.

The typical mangy Thai dog, resting in the ruins.

There were several orange robed monks touring the grounds, though I felt it rude to take any direct picture of them.

After my second night in Sukhothai, I grabbed another bus to go to Chiang Mai, which would be my final stop in Thailand before returning to Amsterdam.

Bangkok

Several of the most interesting spots listed in my guide book were in the northern half of Thailand, so I figured that I should probably aim for Bangkok as my next destination, since it is, more or less, in the middle of the country in terms of latitude. Unfortunately, the ten hour overnight “sleeper” bus from Khao Sok did not live up to my expectations based on its name. The bus was airconditioned, and I was in a cushioned seat without anyone sitting next to me, but the road was generally bumpy with regular potholes, and the seat was designed for someone six inches shorter than me (which is, I think, the average Thai man’s height). My condition at my 5:00am arrival in Bangkok was best described as “zombielike.”

A Dutch girl (Ragna) who lives within about four miles of me in Amsterdam was also on the bus, and we shared a cab from the bus station to Khao San Road, which is apparently a famous “backpacker ghetto” that serves as a resting (or starting, or finishing) point for travelers traveling within or close to Thailand. Within three minutes of getting out of the cab and walking up the street with our packs strapped to our backs, we were approached by a group of drunk men who were still going strong from the previous night, and who walked (or, in some cases, staggered) alongside us for a but while talking and looking for their next drink. This seemed to be a sizable part of the Khao San Road experience: acting like a college kid in Las Vegas.

After another five hours of waiting until check-in time at the guesthouse I found, Ragna and I left the Khao San Road area to take the guidebook suggested walking tour of the part of Bangkok we were in. In the next hour, we were exposed to all of the negatives of Bangkok mentioned in travel guides. It was around 90 degrees and humid, and the streets were packed with loud, smog belching vehicles that used their horns liberally. There was little shade and no plant life. The intercom system outside the Grand Palace conveyed the following message on a loop: “DO NOT TRUST ANYONE” (after a pause, this was followed by a description of what is apparently a common scam around the Grand Palace, where a cab driver will tell a tourist that the palace is closed, and the tourist will then get in the cab and be taken to various seedy stores or worse). But we also saw some of the amazing temples that were shown in my guidebook, including Wat Pho and Wat Arun.

Wat Pho contained several stupas (kind of like Buddist temples) covered in small glittered panels and several life sized golden statues, but it is most famous for its giant “Reclining Buddha,” which is 40 feet high and 150 feet long.

Wat Arun was directly across the river from Wat Pho. The main attraction is a 250 foot high tower with steps that are incredibly steep, even by my Amsterdam standards. The tower is covered in multi-colored porcelain that apparently sparkles in the morning sunlight.

After a day spent mostly recovering from the lack of sleep, walking all around Bangkok in the sun and heat, and the noxious effects of the mixture of Thai rum and cola they serve in plastic buckets (advice: skip this if you're in Thailand), I toured the Grand Palace, which is apparently one of the holiest sites in Thailand, and housed a large selection of breathtaking statues and temples. 

Apart from the temples pictured above, I didn't find Bangkok all that enjoyable. It was noisier, dirtier, more urbanized and hotter than the previous places I'd been, and other destinations in my travel guide seemed much more appealing. So I made my third night my last night there. In that third night, I was able to visit the only other place I had circled on my guidebook: the "Skybar," an outdoor bar on the 63rd floor of an upscale hotel in Bangkok. There was an advertised dress code, so I bought an ill-fitting pair of shoes for ten euros, since I'd only packed sandals and running shoes, and I put on my best shirt and pants, which had been packed for functionality when mosquitoes were surrounding me in the jungle rather than for a night at a fancy bar. Fortunately, everything worked out, and I was able to enjoy my ten euro glass of Amareto on the rocks.