Chaeng Yours!

Hello there everyone,

I have, I know, been unfairly lax in my updating of this marvel of communication. I did have a rather upsettingly busy last few weeks of term, though I may have actually been kidding myself and been doing nothing at all. Food for thought there.

Anyway, term ended last Friday with a triumphant bang, or at least, it might have done, I wasn't there. The penultimate week was busy for me, and my family arrived on the Tuesday of the last one. This meant I had a pretty good excuse for leaving school early and doing no work. Or so I thought - I was pretty rapidly drafted into lighting for the tiny kiddies' production. Why they bother getting tiny kids like that to act, when they have almost no control over their limbs yet is beyond me, but there you go.

So, on Friday morning I hopped into a taxi, after writing a tearful note* to my flatmate, and went for breakfast with Mum, Dad and my sister. Then onto a plain to Chaeng Mai. I think I spelled that right.

My first impressions of Thailand's Spiritual capital (apparently) were not favorable. I found it polluted (forest fires and cars) unattractive (dead trees, long roads, no hookers) and very, very hard to get around. In Bangkok, despite their many, many problems, taxi-meters are a pretty good way of getting places. It usually only takes a few tries to get one who knows where you're going. Sometimes you can even find one who knows where he's going, but that's less common.

Our hotel wasn't too far from the perimeter of the old city, but was still a bit too far to walk anywhere useful in the midday heat. With this in mind, I was very annoyed to discover no taxi-meters, only hotel run minibuses of ill-repute or those death-defying injury-producing "Tuk-Tuk"s. So named because of the two stroke engines which power them and the sound they create. These are apparently, in Chaeng Mai, run by the Tuk-Tuk mafia (I'm not joking) who do all in their power to prevent any public transport system from being successful. A bit of advice then, for any visitors to the area, those red pickup trucks with roofs are the local equivalent of taxis. You can get at least 15 people in them (7 in comfort, perhaps) and they're very cheap. I was confused by the fact that they look the same as the ones in Bangkok, which are even cheaper, but run on routes like buses.

Once we made this discovery, Chaeng Mai became a much nicer place, with a profusion of cheap cafes and restaurants. Getting across the road is still unbelievably difficult, but there you go. There is a night market there which is very popular with tourists and therefore crap. I don't like to defame an ancient city in this way, but it's just stalls of the same stuff they sell in MBK only more expensive, and more repetitive.

However, on Sunday, there is another market, called the Walking Street market or something like that. I presume it's named in this way because they close off the roads to cars for the market. The street itself doesn't actually walk anywhere. This market is great. It's thronging with tourists and Thais alike, its on all Sunday evening, when it's just about cool enough to wander around without expiring on the road. The stalls are either on mats on the floor or low tables, most things are candlelit and almost all the items are hand-made and excellent value. There is very little of the usual repetitive nature of Thai markets, each stall has something different, and there are hundreds. Quite a staggering number.

Chaeng Mai is well worth a visit just for this, and if anyone is planning on coming but not for the weekend, plan again.

Since this post is in danger of becoming too long to be read in one sitting, and I don't want to bore you, dear readers, I'll sign off. Plus, an outside Internet cafe just doesn't feel right. Actually, it's awesome.

Dom

*don't forget the milk, feed the cat, etc.