The Chiang Mai Chapter

Here's something about lo-cost airlines. There's usually something that comes along with lo-cost: lo-service. At the beginning of the trip, we took the kids and grandchildren to Phuket for a weekend. Seeing as it was 6 tickets, I sought out the best deal we could get, which I found with an airline called Air Asia that operates mainly in and around Southeast Asia. The deals appeared good, and in fact they actually were very good. Just it's a funny thing about the way they advertise their prices. Oh, you want to go from Bangkok to Phuket? OK that's (for example) $99. Oh you also want a seat? That's another (for example) $23. What? And baggage too? That's $15 per piece up to 15 kg. More than15 kg? that's $30 per piece. And so it goes… Well anyway, they still worked out to be the best deal, when best = cheapest in this case. Now here's the thing… in order to keep their costs down (you'd think lo-cost meant lo-cost to you the buyer, but it actually means lo-cost to them, the service providing airline) they don't park their aircraft at the gate but somewhere out in the great blue yonder. It also means that they run very tight (published) schedules, which in turn results in their planes arriving late and therefore also departing late. Now on the way back from Phuket, out flight was delayed over 60 minutes.

So what's this got to do with today? Today we flew to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. Same airline as to Phuket, because it was the best ( = cheapest) deal. The flight was late (duh!) departing, but to their credit I must say the aircraft is comfortable (leather seats!) and the flight attendants do their best to provide service (selling food and drinks and chatchkes). The flight was an hour and a quarter and here we were landing in Chiang Mai, a sleepy city of some 250,000 residents that has a big tourist industry relying on the variety of elephant farms (we didn't go), tribal villages (we saw some), jungle treks (more about that later) and a reasonable amount of Thai/Siamese history and culture (unlike Bangkok or Phuket).

Mountains, lakes and jungles

Our hotel (Holiday Inn Chiang Mai – HIGHLY recommended) sent a car and driver for us and off we went. The hotel was absolutely splendid! Great lobby, great room, HUGE bathroom, a wonderful concierge who catered to all our needs, and all-round great hotel. Also, it was located a small distance away from the main drag and thus was quiet at night (unlike our experience in Phuket). Once we were checked in and had a bite to eat, we set out to walk into town to find Chabad which is located on the main drag (Changkland Rd). Turns out we walked right by them and further into town, stopping here and there and eventually at Starbucks for a little refreshment. Then we started making our way back down the street when I saw a Chabad-looking dude pedaling in the opposite direction of the other side of the street. I called out to him, he saw me and stopped and gave us directions (which is how we knew we had walked right by them). On the way back we noticed the sign which we hadn't seen before because it was hidden by the awnings under which we were walking.

Strange thing about Chiang Mai: lots of dogs on the street, and they're all sleeping. We saw precious few dogs walking about but plenty sleeping hounds. And we saw a holy cow – calf actually – tethered outside someone's store. Holy Cow!

Chiang Mai reminded me very much of Pune in India. Lots of lo-rise buildings, many palm and banana trees, lush tropical vegetation, not too much traffic (turned out to be incorrect because Thursday afternoon's traffic was very heavy), and we were in the tallest building in the city on the 20th floor.

My favorite night market in the East

In the evening we availed ourselves of the hotel's shuttle and went to see the night market, which is one of Chiang Mai's must-see items. We had noticed when walking about the city earlier that there were many closed-up stalls lining Changklang Road. When we came back in the evening we realized what they were all about. This main road is lined with stalls on the sidewalks, on each side of the sidewalk on each side of the street, so basically there is a very narrow path along the sidewalk between two lines of stalls along which the crowds make their slow progress through the market. It is (a) very colorful; (b) full of interesting things (over and above the usual T-shirts, junk jewelry, chatchkes and what-nots, etc.) and interesting handiwork. We arrived to the market at 8 p.m. when it opened and after about half an hour we found that the street part opened into a huge lot filled with stalls, so we footed into there to investigate the wares. Great stuff! What we also noticed is that there was blaring music not to be found anywhere. Some of the pubs and restaurants lining the outer rim of the market had singers or musicians, and the environment was really enjoyable. It was a fun place to be. Also, there was almost zero humidity and the night was relatively cool. Compared to Bangkok it was downright frigid - but then again, compared to Bangkok most places are downright frigid.

What was especially nice to see were craftsmen and women working their wonders with their hands as they sat behind their stalls. There was one guy who was making necklaces / belts / scarf-type things out of ties and large wooden beads, covering one bead and threading the tie through the next. He created some really beautiful stuff. Also, the combination of lights, music, color, and the unbelievable collection of ethnicities in the area was absolutely fascinating. We stayed there till about 10.30 p.m. and then walked over to Chabad for a late supper, and then a tuk-tuk back to our hotel.

Royal Flora – a flower exhibition second to none

One of the main reasons we came to Chiang Mai is the International Flower Show "Royal Flora" that is on here at this time of the year. The area is on one of the mountain slopes just outside Chiang Mai. The entrance that welcomes you has beautiful sculpted hedges and manicured lawns, ponds and hillocks. Inside the exhibition grounds there is also a lake and a royal temple which are all beautiful.

Beautifully landscaped, with Royal temple, lake, park and amazing flora

Our deal at the hotel also included complimentary transportation to and from the show, so we hopped into our private van and were driven to the show. We bought tickets and made our way in and started the winding route through the show grounds. About ten years ago my wife and elder daughter and I went to the International Flower Show in Amsterdam when we were on our way to Vancouver, which was absolutely spectacular. This show was pretty much the same. We love gardens and flowers and plants of all sorts, but nothing prepared us for the first few pavilions which were beautiful gardens filled with… vegetables! Cabbages (green, white and red) and kohlrabi and broccoli and spinach and cucumbers (the size of tennis rackets) and pumpkins and squashes, absolutely unbelievable what can be done with vegetables. Also, there was a close-up small rice paddy and my wife was able to see for the very first time how rice grows. She got SO excited!

From the various creative vegetable gardens we proceeded to the orchid exhibition. Now, once again, I must talk about the orchids here in Thailand. Orchids are, in my humble opinion, among the most beautiful flowers on earth. I always remember as a child and as a young adult that orchids were gazed upon with awe. Even now, in Israel, orchids are very rare and immensely expensive. In Thailand, on the other hand, orchids are like the dust of the earth... 10-15 baht each. They cost almost nothing, gornisht. And they can be found everywhere. They make anything look spectacular, and so you often see them tied onto trees (even next to the pool downstairs) in private and public gardens and sidewalks. Most often, the orchids you see are the national flower orchid, the purple one with the white and yellow trim. It's gorgeous, and also serves as the colors of the national airline, and the Siam Commercial Bank, among other companies. Now, imagine walking into an exhibition area that has literally THOUSANDS of orchids of HUNDREDS of different types. O!M!G! And each one is more beautiful than the one before. And they come in a multiplicity of shapes, sizes, colors, forms and everything in between. I tell you, this is seriously breathtaking stuff! It's hard to fathom so much beauty. Each one is spectacular and if we would take the time to actually look at each kind, we'd need literally hours, if not days, to work our way just through this exhibition hall.

We continued through some of the national pavilions (South Africa was disappointing, Israel wasn't there) till we came to the Ferris wheel, and decided to go for two loops to see the show from above. Wheee!

Anyway, we continued our stroll through the show for another few hours and then went back to the entrance to meet our driver, who took us back to the hotel. After spending about 6 hours on our feet, we needed to rest up a while which we did at the hotel, before heading back downstairs to take the ride to the shopping mall. There's a shopping mall near the airport that provides free shuttle service from hotels in town to the mall and back. So off we went again…

How to find Chabad? Find a Chabadnik!

At this stage this was not really a true shopping outing. We were pretty pooped and didn't really have what to shop for. But my wife wanted to check out some knitting stores which we did, but didn't find what she was looking for. We were once reminded of what our daughter-in-law had said before we went to Chatuchak Market – if you find it, buy it. My wife had found at the market this cute embroidery kit which had a unique needle with it that all you to do was push and pull and the needle did the rest. We only bought one kit and had been searching for another needle. Anyway, we came up dry. As we strolled through the mall we noticed an Apple store so we went in and a very nice young sales woman explained the iPad to us in detail and I decided that this was the time. So while she carried on explaining to my wife how the gizmo works, I went and bought one. Yay!  Just like our erstwhile ancestors in Egypt, "Yatzati Bi'rechush Gadol!" Later it was a stop at Starbucks for a shot of caffeine, and then back into the mall until it was time to go home with the last shuttle. Of course, seventeen hundred other people had the same idea and when we got to the shuttle there was only sitting room for one person, so my wife sat on my lap and off we went.

Now what exactly is this shuttle you may ask, that it takes people sitting on one another. Well, in fact the shuttle is a loosely used term to describe the vehicle. It's basically a pickup (bakkie, in South African) with benches on each side and a roof over the top, and they cram as many as possible into it. Sometimes, we also saw people standing on the step at the back of the pickup taxi shuttle thingy. Anyway, off we went and my wife starts to chat with all the folks from Sri Lanka, China, Indonesia and other places. Lordy, lordy – my wife, bless her, talks to everyone. Mrs. Friendly she is. Of course they have no idea what she's saying because they cannot understand her accent, and when they do understand and reply, she can't understand theirs. What a riot! Anyway, we went back to the hotel in time to get the shuttle to the night market which is near Chabad where we went for supper and then by tuk-tuk back to the hotel because we were being picked up the next morning at the crack of dawn to go zip-lining through the rain forest with the folks from "Flight of the Gibbon." Rush, rush, rush…

Another one of the main reasons we came to Chiang Mai was to spend half a day in the jungles of Thailand on the Flight of the Gibbon (hereafter FotG), a 4 hour zip-line jungle adventure. And what a thrill it was!

I forgot to mention earlier that our room, being on the 20th floor, was only accessible by elevator. The hotel had 5 elevators, one of which was a glass elevator, which we tried to use as often as possible. It had a great view and we loved using it. So here's the view from the glass elevator:

Our pickup was at 6:45 in the morning and when we came down they were already waiting. There were 2 women from Germany and a young couple from Oz in our group, and they were already in the van with the driver and the host from FotG. We immediately left for the hour's drive up to the jungles. Now our driver was seriously interested in speed and not at all interested in the potholes in the road. As a matter of fact I believe with perfect faith that his only purpose in life was to hit the potholes at the fastest speed possible and to ensure that he missed none. Man, I was seriously nauseous by the time we arrived to Mae Kompong village. I don't know what this godforsaken village did for a living before FotG arrived here, but I am sure that now they all lead flourishing lives with the multitude of travelers who come here every day for this experience of a lifetime. 

Once we had completed the run of all the potholes in and around the city and most of the potholes outside the city, we started the climb into the mountains on narrow winding roads, all with the required amount of compulsory potholes for our driver to hit and jiggle us around. And there was none of this slowing down stuff before a sharp hairpin bend. So while we're jiggling up and down from the potholes, we are also being thrown left and right and left and right and right and left and all over the place as we zoom up down and all around. I tell you, it was all I could do to keep my breakfast down.

Getting fitted and harnessed

So, we arrive at the place and then we get strapped into harnesses, get bandanas and helmets, cables with wheels on and other cables with safety clips on, and then we are told to get back in the van (oh no!) which will take us to the beginning of the 5km zip-line course. So old driver guy did his thing again, but this time he was forced to torture us for a brief 5 minutes only.

There our guide started to hike into the jungle showing us where the course starts. Not too bad and not too high. We climbed up the mountainside and crossed over onto the platform on the tree.

Now, to give you an idea of these trees, they are banyan trees, and they are seriously tall trees. I mean hundreds of feet high and about four hundred years old with huge branches and massive trunks, around which the platforms are built. I mean these trees are so high you sometimes cannot see the bottoms from the platform. Or the tops, depending on which way you're looking. 

Zip-lining through the jungle was fantastic – even for us grandparents!

Anyway, we went about our way hiking through the jungle and flying through the jungle for 5 kilometers on a series of zip-lines, a small bungee and two abseils. The longest zip-line was 850 meters! Way cool! We also stopped at a gibbon farm where some of the gibbons are kept (not in captivity, but for study). And no, they are not monkeys, we were told. Hey, if it looks like a monkey, has hands and feet like a monkey and swings through the tree like a monkey – it's a monkey! Gibbon, shmibbon - it's a kind of a monkey.

After four hours of this activity, which went by so very, very fast – it's true that time flies when you're having fun flying – we completed the course and headed back to the van. Fortunately Bumping Billy wasn't driving it, and our new driver took us further up into the mountains to our next stop, a hiking trail to Mae Kompong Waterfall.

Here, the trail starts off winding its way through the jungle and then it comes to some concrete steps that wind their way up the mountain. Up, up, up the mountain they go. All the time, you're climbing the stairs alongside this spectacular waterfall of rushing water. Now it's not Victoria Falls, but more like Bridal Veil Falls, with a thin but steady flow of water rustling, gushing down the steep mountain. And you're climbing up and up and up this very steep staircase. Sometimes there's a banister to hold onto and sometimes there isn't. Sometimes the steps are firm and sometimes they're not. Anyway, it's about an hour and a half up to the top of the steps, and then there's still more to go but I said to my wife that I didn't want her to go further because it's already easy to slip up over there.

Abseiling down the tree!

The other thing about the jungle is the smell. It's like an evergreen, ever moist place, with this constant heady smell of lemongrass everywhere. It's simple intoxicating. Fantastic! I love the smell (and taste) of lemongrass, and that smell mixed with the other fragrances of the rain forest made the whole experience wondrous. OK, so now we were at the top, and now we had to go down to the bottom. So off we went and it took about 40 minutes to get back down, where in a hut at the bottom, the some of the gibbon staff were waiting with a warm fresh berry juice drink which was fantastic too!

Then back in the van and back to base camp for lunch. At base camp they offered us this Thai dessert that I have seen all over the place. There are two kinds and both come wrapped in banana leaf and tied with a bit of bamboo strip. Wrapped inside the banana leaf is some sweet rice with nuts of sweet rice with banana. I went for the first kind. My wife skipped them both.

Seeing as we weren't going to have lunch, we did go and sit with the others and chat while they ate. We were offered fruit platters and herbal tea which we had. In the background there sat three guys who played local tribal music on three strange looking local tribal musical instruments. Very pleasant, I must say. After that it was back into the van, NOT with the criminal, and we were driven back to our hotel. We got back at about 4 p.m. 9 hours after we left, pooped out and in need of a good sleep. 

Of course, that didn't mean we were going to skip the night market again. We got up in time to get the shuttle from the hotel, and this time we decided to do the northern part of the market which we hadn't done yet on the previous excursion. Turns out, the northern part of the market was not as attractive and a whole lot more crowded than the southern part, so after going up one side of the street and down the other side, we headed back to the big lot where we had been two nights earlier and did a browse around again just in case we could find something worthwhile. We didn't and so we headed back to Chabad for Supper and then walked back to the hotel.

Our plan on the last day in the city was to go and visit the old city of Chiang Mai. I must confess I didn't know what that actually meant. We had driven by some ancient looking walls the other night on the fateful pickup/taxi/sit-on-my-lap ride from the mall near the airport. Anyway, what we needed to do first was pack our things and check out and leave our stuff by the concierge. So we had a late morning and a late checkout, and then as we were leaving the hotel, our erstwhile hotel driver pulled up in one of those pickup taxis, dressed in jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt. Turns out this was his day off and he was caring for his alternate employment during his day off. Anyway, he had two Dutchmen in the back and added us to his load and off we went. The Dutchmen were on their way to a mall and we were on our way to the old city. Off we went, tra-la-la-la-la…

After zipping here and there and left and right and up and down a variety of streets, he stopped and let us off at one of the gates to the old city. OK, so what's the gate to the old city look like? Well, gate might actually be a loosely used term here. Actually, old city would be an even looser used term. 

The pillars marking the entrance to the old city of Chiang Mai

There are remains of an old wall on either side of two pillars. It's not very high and not very impressive. However, it is made of very small bricks, something like the wall around the old city of Xian in China. Just the difference is that there in Xian the wall is huge, about 5 times thicker than the walls of Jerusalem and about one and a half times higher, and there too, it's built with small bricks.

Anyway, we checked out the wall here and there and then we walked into the old city. Now once upon a time there was an old city here. Now there is but one relic of that old city. Also, it was never that old. I mean they're talking here about a few hundred years at best, and they have precious little accurate information about whatever went on here. I guess archeology is not an important science here in Thailand. One sign we saw at a ruin said something to the effect that "once upon a time there was something here but we don't know exactly when it was or what happened but we think that maybe this and that happened… or not." So that was rather disappointing. 

We passed a number of temples and monasteries, and then all of a sudden we saw this huge tower, but we didn't see how to get to it. So we stopped in at a travel agency, and the owner didn't know what we were talking about, but a few steps past his shop we found the entrance. Now this was a seriously impressive ruin. It reminded me of the temple where the monkeys hung out in "The Jungle Book". It had a real authentic ancient look. Very tall edifice, obviously an important and very large temple (or Chedi) once, sculpted elephants on its sides (some broken) – in short, this was an exciting find.

The enthralling ruin of Wat Chedi Luang – the oldest building in the city

It was a pretty hot day and by the time we found this place we had been walking about for about two hours, so we left and continued walking across the old city to the other side. There we left the old city and tried crossing the road, which was very busy. Then we noticed a guy standing on the other side of the road by a pedestrian crossing waving to us and showing us that he had pressed the light so that we could cross there. Very kind gentleman he was indeed – and also a tuk-tuk driver who offered to take us somewhere. But we decided to continue walking in the heat of the day. Stopped in at 7/11 for a drink and a chocolate (for me) and then continued toward the northwest corner of outside the old city where there was – you guessed it – a shopping mall! On the way we passed a place selling hi-tech gadgetry and we bought two iPad covers, one for me and one for our son. Then we continued to the mall, outside of which was a Starbucks (you never know when you're going to need that information). After some time in the mall where my wife found something she was looking for (escapes me what it was) and then the required stop at Starbucks for coffee, before making our way back to the hotel. 

I was too pooped to walk and we were MILES away from the hotel, so we looked for a cab. Found one who thought we were walking wallets and so we went looking for a tuk-tuk. We saw this funky lady standing by a tuk-tuk, with huge round spectacles and jeans – she must have been in her 60s and she "made us a good price" for the ride back to Chabad. Ah, by now for whatever reason, traffic was hectic. But our dauntless driveress was not to be stopped. She weaved and swerved through and around the traffic, looked like one of those old flyers from "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" accelerating and clutching and shifting gears (the gear stick is between her legs, so it's right foot on the gas pedal, left foot on the clutch, right hand on the break, left hand on the gear – I tell you it's tiring just watching her drive), along the main road, off the main road, onto a side street, down an alleyway, out to another side street, U-turn because it's backed up, down another alleyway, up a path, between some houses, up spook hill, and all of a sudden we're back on the main drag a half a block from Chabad. Bravo! She was so cute we took a picture of her (and with her).

Our dauntless tuk-tuk driver

After an early dinner at Chabad we walked back to the hotel, where they offered to drive us to the airport rather than wait for the shuttle, and off we went. Checked-in for the flight, went shopping, and then went to the gate to discover that Air Asia was delayed again. Which brings me back to the beginning of the Chiang Mai Chapter: Lo-cost often means lo-service. But we eventually boarded an hour late, and even had an empty seat between us. Arrived to Bangkok, hopped the train and underground and walked home. Back to familiar surroundings again. Amazing how much "at home" it feels. Everyone was asleep so we did our thing quietly, and went to bed. Good night!