Thailand - Chiang Mai and Mae Sot

I forgot how much you actually travel when you're "traveling". Much time is certainly being spent in different modes of transport. In the last week we've traveled by plane, metro, sky train, distance train, bus, cab, tuk tuk, minivan, back of a truck, ferry, tiny 8-person boat, bicycle, motor scooter, elephant and bamboo raft. Not to mention all of the walking.

 

 

 

We spent our full day in Ayutthaya bicycling around seeing temples.

 



 

 

 

 

Then we took the night bus to Chiang Mai, got in at 5am and thankfully there was a 24-hour McDonalds with free wi-fi, so we grabbed some coffee and wiled away a few hours before we could check in to our hostel. The 5am night bus arrival used to give me some anxiety in South America, but having a traveling companion really alleviates the worries. It's a nice difference.

 

After checking in at our hostel, we, very originally, rented bikes and road around seeing temples!

 

 

 

One of the temples also had planted a forest of enlightenment with proverbs attached to the trees. 

 









 

 

After the sight seeing of the day, we went to a Thai cooking class and learned how to make Pad Thai, coconut soup, hot and sour soup, green and red curries, som tam der (as mentioned previously, a new food obsession), spring rolls and mango sticky rice. Delicious!! With a properly stocked kitchen, we'll totally be making these when we get home. And since it'll be autumn/winter when we get back to the US, the curries will come in very handy.

 

 

Also, I have to say we both appreciated the sharp knives, natural gas stoves and quickly heating woks! We'll probably need to invest in those areas as well in our next kitchen.

 

The next day we went on an organized day trek, starting with elephant riding, then bamboo rafting, then a trip to a waterfall and a visit to some local hill tribe communities. We had read that the visits to hill tribe communities are somewhat less than fulfilling. It's pretty much a bunch of tourists wandering around taking pictures of "locals" in their ethnic attire. I'm fairly certain that much of it was put on for the tourists and lacked any authenticity (I doubt if the communities even lived in the places we visited). One of the visits was to a Karan village, the famous hill tribe whose ladies wear rings around their necks, slowly stretching out their necks over time. There were maybe four houses in the village, mostly ladies and young girls present, and one man sitting back from the spectacle, leering and with a generally unhappy appearance. Marcus and I walked in and pretty much walked straight back out.

 

That night we went to the night market and found that most of the products were pretty much the same as the markets we'd been to in Bangkok, so we did a quick walk through and had an early night.

Day three in Chiang Mai was one I did have apprehension about. We rented a motor scooter ($8 to rent for the day!) and Marcus took the driver's seat, though he hadn't driven one for years (hence my apprehension). He took a spin around the block a few times, then I hopped on and repeated in my head, "We are safe. We are safe. We are safe." For probably the first two hours! We rode up the mountain to a temple called Doi Suthep, one of the North's most sacred temples. Back in the day, they were looking for a new temple site and decided to put some Buddhist relics on the back of a white elephant and send it into the countryside. When the elephant got up the hill, he walked around the site three times and stopped (and died apparently). This is how the temple site was chosen. It's a beautiful temple with great view over the city and little bells hung all over that jingle in the mountain breeze. There's also a Vipassana center up there, and I can imagine that it would be an incredible spot for a meditation course. Aside from the obnoxious tourists ringing the giant bells labeled with a "Do not ring the bells" sign.

 

 

 

We made it safely down the mountain (still chanting in my head) and made our way to a lake that's quite popular with the locals. We thought the water might be a bit clearer than the lakes and creeks we've been around, but alas, still brown and cloudy. We did have some excellent lunch, though. Chilli pork fry. I have no idea what the ingredients were, but it was delicious!

 

Another night market later that night, but this one was much better and very popular with the locals. Marcus headed back early to do some work on the resume, and I finished wandering through the market. Lots of scarves, purses, paintings, handicrafts, and a few hipster t-shirt stands. I bought us each one. :) For $4, who can argue?

 

And, another 6-hour bus ride yesterday and we arrived in Mae Sot, a border town with Burma. One of the girls I met in Geneva lives here, and we were too close to not come and say hello. Of course, Marcus will argue that 6 hours isn't exactly close, but when you live on the other side of the world, I'd say it's very close! On the bus ride we met a young American boy from Utah, went on his mission in Peru. He works with Burmese refugees back in Utah and decided to come volunteer in one of the refugee camps in the area before starting his final semester at BYU. He was reading a book about lady boys, had many Buddhist and Karen bracelets on his wrist, and had a quiet demeanor. Marcus and I both agreed that it was a case of a young Peter and we wonder where he'll be five years from now. Probably not in Utah. :)

 

Mae Sot is a town of NGO workers, as there is quite a lot of conflict, displacement and poverty at the Thai-Burma border. This was my first time to witness the plethora of white SUVs so commonly referred to by my professors. NGO fleets. There are seriously too many nice cars in this city. Big trucks go roaring by, coming within three feet of us (I'm almost certain they're being driven by Americans). Though they're not just NGO workers. There is also solid trade in gems and opium in this area. Wealth and poverty mashed together.

 

After a lot of vague emails and FB messages, my Geneva friend said she would swing by our guest house and we'd all go out to lunch together. After we'd waited an hour and a half, I came back to find that she'd not been able to find our guest house. And that it was too rainy so she was going to wait until later. She finally gave us the address to her office and we met her there, had lunch, and had a chat about the work she's doing at the Palaung Women's Organization. They are a group of women from the Palaung area in Burma, where there is still a lot of fighting going on and where women are still treated as a sub-class. They run a variety of different programs, trying to educate Palaung women, eliminating violence against women, promoting the Palaung culture and literature, drug education and awareness programs (because many of the opium fields are grown in the Palaung area), mobile health clinics, and a crisis center at the Burma-China border to help Burmese women who have been trafficked to China. An impressive array of programs for a staff of 20 women. I get the impression that they're a somewhat slow-moving organization, but they are certainly ambitious.

 

We also visited a shop called Weave that's run in conjunction with Oxfam and sells Thai and Burmese handicrafts to help fund women's education. Some women from UNSW have linked up with this organization and I actually bought one of their scarves back in Sydney when they visited the university. Beautifully woven scarves, shawls, bags, and a variety of other goods. I didn't realize it was the same organization and it was quite a happy coincidence that we stumbled across this store front.

 

So that's our time in Mae Sot. Not a whole lot to do in the tourist sense, but certainly a lot going on here. We only skimmed the surface. Tomorrow is a 10-hour bus ride to Chiang Rai. Bring it on.