PHOTOJOURNAL
January
26 - February 3, 2001
Day 266, Fri, Jan. 26, 2001 – Today we took a day
off from sightseeing to write, upload the website, pack, have lunch with Helen,
shop, check out, and take a taxi to catch the overnight train to Chiang Mai.
*******
Day 267, Sat. Jan 27, 2001 – We were gently rocked
to sleep by the train until 6:00am when annoyingly loud tourists started
chattering around us. As in India,
the sleeper car berths are all just separated 
by
curtains. Therefore, your body and
belongings are always open to everyone and anyone who might walk down the aisle
of the train that night. Those
fancy Westerners have doors and locks on each berth so only those you know will
be 
sleeping with you – what a prudish European novelty.
We slept OK given the circumstances, above a local couple who were doing research in
agriculture for an NGO. At the
train station, we were met by the usual touts for hotels, but went to the
quasi-official looking booth and got a free ride to one guesthouse, who ignored
us, so we went to the Royal and checked into a room for $8 – perfect except for
the huge spider web (with maker) in the corner.
After figuring out the tiny electric water heater, we showered away the
overnight train ride feeling and went for lunch at a great Italian place. Unlike Laos’ second city, Luang Prabang, Thailand’s
second city allows tourists to rent mopeds - a decision praised correctly by the
tourist industry, but condemned rightly by the health authorities. We rented a Honda Dream – newer than the Dream in
Vientiane, but also more paperwork for insurance and warnings (uh-oh).
We
decided to save nearer things for walking and headed out to the farthest main
tourist attraction, Wat Phra That Doi Suthep.
It was up a long flight of stairs guarded by fearsome naga beasts with
sharp teeth and deadly horns. The wat was very busy with locals since it
was Saturday, so we saw plenty of monks offering blessings, worshippers offering
prayers, and some old white guys with young local girls.
The wat is another combination Buddhist interior with Hindu gods
presiding over the exterior, seemingly guarding those inside.
The wat was up an awesomely winding road to the top of a
mountain overlooking the city. We
got first hand proof of the country’s amazing agricultural output - first in
the world in rice, second in tapioca and fifth in coconuts.
They also have the second largest pickup truck market in the world after
the US – we should know because it seemed like thousands zoomed past us as we
ambled up the hill. Our poor little
100cc dream wheezed at the turns (due, I’m afraid, to our huge Italian lunch)
and we longed for the 1100cc toy we have back home.
This road was better than any 20 km stretch we’d seen in LA but we
couldn’t really take advantage of it. Somehow,
the half tank of gas went quicker than we imagined.
We also assumed there would be at least one petrol station on 25 km of
national highway, so we wound up coasting in neutral for 10 km of the return
trip back to town. For making it,
we had a celebratory ice cream sundae at Swenson’s and had a pretty good fight
with a parking attendant over a scratch they put on our moto.
*******
Day 268, Sun, Jan. 28, 2001 – Had breakfast of
corn flakes for the first time in ages and 
saw the devastation of the Indian
earthquake on the BBC. Ironically
falling during Kumbh Mela, it killed at least 15,000 – the worst in a long
time. According to Conversations
With God, which I finally finished
on the trip, earthquakes are caused by
the collective subconscious desires of all humans (that’s about where he lost
me, too). We decided to keep the
moto for another day and rode out to see some sights – Chang Mai is stuffed
with more working temples, stupas and wats per km than anywhere else in
Thailand, most inside a square moat representing the old walls of the medieval
city. Unfortunately, they also have more illicit couples per capita than in
Bangkok – very brazen as well – sidewalks, motos, restaurants, shopping,
holding hands. A few high school students
stopped us to practice English, so it was only fair that we interviewed them
too:
"Love"
"My family"
We drove
the
moto outside the city walls to a secluded 
monastery
in the woods with a turtle pond and chanting coming from the wat. This
sect was very serious about denouncing worldly things, with a statue of a
starving Buddha at the entrance and prophetic quotes in Thai script and English
nailed to the trees.
Back inside the city walls, we researched
other tour companies so we could see some more of Northern Thailand.
Although it
is high tourist season, we had to roust a couple of tour operators out of their
naps in the offices/homes to get information.
It looks like, on balance, we’ll be taking the most expensive tour –
a
4WD Jeep through the north, stopping at Mae Hong San and surrounding villages
to visit the famous ethnic “Hill Tribes”.
We had a pretty good Middle Eastern dinner with kebab, falafel, 
pita,
hummus, etc. Ah, just like the old
days in Jerusalem. There was a guy at dinner
leaning into the face of his 24-year-old companion to see if she would smile –
sort of like you play with a baby to get it to laugh.
It was disgusting. We met up
with Helen, but she decided to go on another tour. I’m still debating
whether to wake up early (6:00) to watch the Super Bowl on satellite TV at the
hotel. I probably would if it was
any team I cared about, but it’s Baltimore, which is doing pretty good for
being a new team a few short years ago and the New York (really New Jersey)
Giants who haven’t seen a championship in years except in baseball with the
damn Yankees who can’t keep their mouth shut.
*******
Day 269, Mon, Jan 29, 2001 – Well, I woke up early to watch the game after all, although I should have stayed in bed since it was such a blow-out. I did get to see the most exciting part – the back-to-back kickoff return touchdowns. Three turnovers later it was all over and Baltimore had whipped NY, which is great so New Yorkers won’t have another championship to gloat over. Unfortunately, Baltimore was the cockiest and least classy of the two. Anyway, we joined our group for the tour in time – it was just us and 6 Israelis in three 4WD Jeeps. Our guide, Pon, was no more than 24, and his assistant, Mickey, was a 20-year old version of Naomi’s cousin Joyce.
"Most important is my family. And love - for my family and all people
in the world - I hope"
Our first stop was an Orchid Farm, with some beautiful flowers and plants native to this area. The variety of colors was amazing.
Next
was a snake farm, which Naomi was really looking forward to.
The
handlers of the king cobras, pythons and other creatures were
amazing – catching them with their bare hands (and teeth!).
I kissed a python draped over my shoulders and Naomi actually touched a
king cobra for
the first time in her life. This is
a huge step for her – we were one step away from acceptance of lizards, but
then we 
happened
upon the iguana cage. They had
three specimens of the gnarliest, ugliest, creepiest type of lizard there is. Now we’re back to square one in our therapy. We got back in the jeeps and drove an hour to an Elephant
Farm, where we rode in a basket for an hour, feeding them bananas and raw sugar
cane every 50 meters. The treatment
of the creatures is not much better than India, but our guide pretty much left
ours alone to follow the others. Naomi
rode the last 20 minutes on the elephant’s head with her feet behind his ears.
After lunch we rode 3 hours to a hot spring with steam
geysers – the largest in Thailand. It
reminded us of the sufitada in Naples and Lake Borogia in Kenya.
The water was so hot we boiled some 
eggs
in a couple minutes and ate with salt. One girl burned her foot
in the water and now has a huge blister. Good
thing this is a driving trek, not a walking trek.
An hour later we were at our hotel and after dinner we took a soak in the
cement pool with piped in mineral water from another hot spring. Floating on my back watching the stars come and go behind a
haze of steam, I was waiting for something.
Sensing its imminent arrival, I watched the steam clouds drift and
bellow until suddenly, a crystal clear view of the vast blackness sparkling with
thousands of diamond messengers.
********
Day 270, Tues, Jan. 30, 2001 – We woke to find one
of the Israeli guys (fittingly the most obnoxious one) had cut his finger
screwing around with a knife last night. Unfortunately
we had to wait at the hospital while he was getting stitches.
This and other selfish indulgences put us behind all day and Pon had to
change the program. Then we stopped
at the market to buy candy for the kids (unfortunately).
We tried to explain to Pon and Mickey what we had heard and learned in
other countries about giving treats to kids, but they said Thailand was
different. Sure enough, 
as
we pulled into the Lisu village the kids lined up single file as they had been
trained to do whenever a jeep pulled up with foreigners.
They looked poised to pounce whenever the jeep stopped, but they
refrained. We disgorged and once
they saw the bags of candy all hell broke loose.
It didn’t help that two of the guys were playing keep-away, tossing a
bag over the kids’ outstretched arms. Then
they were surprised and angered when one “little animal” stole the whole bag
from them. It was too depressing to
watch, so we strolled on through the dirt hills of the village.
It is small, with no electricity and just a couple TVs that run on
batteries rather than generators. It
was definitely an authentic village with women working, kids playing, laundry
hanging, chickens scratching and bolting, and mangy dogs sleeping everywhere,
but there were not many people. Most
were out in the field working, and the people we saw were not necessarily
dressed in traditional clothes. We
did however see a pathetic monkey with a rope tied around his neck, and one sign
of prosperity - a Honda Dream parked outside a bamboo shack.
We had a fried rice lunch before starting the real
adventure portion of the trip – offroading in mud
getting the most out of our four-wheel-drive.
Somehow the Israelis negotiated driving privileges – just long enough
to get stuck after almost rolling their jeep.
We all had to get out and push, then went to a vista point overlooking
the hilly views out past the “Golden Triangle” poppy fields feeding the
world’s opium habit.
We went for a very peaceful stroll in a nature reserve with a famous cave full
of fish. A legend tells of a prince who died after eating fish from the cave, so
nobody has since. Now they’re so
big and plentiful, they scramble all over each other to get at food thrown by
tourists. In the park, there are
incredibly twisted trees and gentle water wheels that drive bamboo chimes.
We eventually made it to a temple at sunset, then checked into our hotel
in Mae Hong Son– the farthest good-sized town in the North and base for many
nature hikes and hill tribe excursions. Unfortunately,
it’s still close enough to civilization to have a 7-11 market.
********
Day 271, Wed. Jan. 31, 2001 – Impossible to believe a month is gone of this new year already. We slept lightly after asking the boys next door to keep it down. In the morning we headed to one of the highlights of this trek – a small village of the Padung hill tribe. The tribe is known as “longneck” due to the long brass rings worn by women. They give the appearance of stretching their necks, but actually push down their collarbones instead. It was a small but friendly little village of women and children. One woman spoke English she had learned from tourists – she was very sweet. She said it is a woman’s choice to wear the rings “if she likes”. This doesn’t exactly jive with what I’ve read that they start as young as 8. Pon gave a few different versions of how the tradition started, including to protect women from tigers getting to their jugular vein, to show respect to a dragon god that mated with the wind, or to make the women unattractive to the men of other tribes.
Another woman was playing one of the guitars, which are carved by the men of the
village. Unfortunately, when
she finished she handed it to one of the tourists who started to play.
We bought some dolls, key chains and a pipe from some of the women.
The villagers were actually quite friendly and not at all pushy (i.e.
desperate). Unfortunately, the most likely scenario may be that what was once a
unique and significant tribal costume was discovered by anthropologists or
missionaries, exploited by local government and perpetuated to feed the appetite
of tourists for amazing travel photos. We
are guilty of the later as well. As
in Africa, the experience prompts our internal debate over whether contact with
the “developed” is a good or destructive thing. We sense it is good in our quest to learn first-hand about
all forms of human culture and society in the hopes of building respect and
tolerance; but it is easy to see the danger when women sport walkmen, men have
Honda Dreams, teenagers can’t wait to leave the village forever, and kids
wearing “Pooh” t-shirts immediately stick their hands out when they see a
strange face.
On the way out, Pon said tour guides have to pay 250 baht
($6) to bring tourists through and the village is very excited because they have
a bus of 36 coming later – no wonder they were so happy.
It
was less 
depressing at the Hmong village we visited next because it was
virtually deserted. Apparently, the men and most children were in the fields
working. We saw just a handful of
western-wearing kids and gave some candy. The
Hmong have one of the most colorful histories of the tribal groups, as they were
among the hill tribes trained by American CIA during the war.
They are still suffering for that and centuries of other ethnic
rivalries.
After the village we stopped at the local school and playground hoping to play some games, but we had no time and could only show the kids the videos of themselves, which created quite a stir.
We took a long, torturous drive to lunch at a
roadside shack with a thatched roof and light filtering in through the plywood
slats. Afterward, we enjoyed even
more dramatic offroading along dusty curves and trenches, kicking up a cloud of
dust. Pon stopped at a famous
waterfall, 
which
he 
somehow convinced me to take a dip
in (although he wasn't willing to go in) It
was freezing cold – not that nice of a trade just to get the road dust off.
Back in Chang Mai, we met Helen and friends for dinner, followed by the
most amazing street dessert in the world. A
sweet little lady with a tiny hand cart was frying biscuit dough, with sliced
bananas inside, then covering the whole greasy mess with chocolate syrup and
sprinkled condensed milk. Simply
delicious.
******
Day 272, Thur. Feb. 1, 2001 – We begin a new month
with just two months left in our trip. Unbelievable
the things we have seen and people we have met.
After a greasy breakfast, I finished downloading India (from two months
ago) as Naomi shopped and ran errands. I
got a little adventurous for lunch, just pointing to a dish behind the counter.
I found out later it was probably pig nuts. Oh well. After
that, we decided to go All-American for dinner, visiting McDonalds and Baskin
& Robbins, before taking in one of the famous bouts of Muay Thai – all out
boxing. We 
didn’t
want to spend a whole night at the stadium for the official bouts, so we just
went to a local bar with a ring in the center.
The small venue made it no less savage – we got close-up looks as they
beat the crap out of each other – using all means available – punches,
kicks, elbows, knees to the groin. Really
incredible stuff – the guys back home watching World Wrestling Federation
would be eating it up. After the
bout, the bloody winner walks around to all the customers asking for tips.
It’s a hell of a way to make a living.
******
Day 273, Fri, Feb. 2, 2001 – A day of errands and
enjoying the wats and people of Chang Mai.
We eat, shop, get a haircut, talk to some students, watch some working
girls, and visit an old folks home. An
old guy told Naomi he almost never gets any visitors – it was very sad.
We also had a chance to check email and found that AOL has decided to
finally pull the plug on the Warner Bros. Studio Stores – my former employer.
Apparently, I left just in time to avoid lay-offs.
Sounds like good planning, but my friends are laughing all the way to the
bank with a fairly generous severance package.
We’re really happy for them – as they say, timing is life.
The city was preparing for a major festival – a park full of flowers and festive atmosphere on the streets. We went to an Irish pub for fish and chips, where an eccentric cook was running the show:
"Work because work gives you life. If you don't work, God will not help you. If you don't move, god will not move you"
In the bar we found out that the festival was really just
an excuse for expats to get supremely drunk and go to a beauty pageant.
There was even a farang (foreigner) category for “Miss Chang Mai”.
We all rode out to the park in the back of a red pickup taxi, hanging on
to the outside. It was a great ride
out there, but unfortunately the pageant planners were a little behind and all
we could do was talk and drink. Not
a problem.
*******
Day 274, Sat, Feb. 3, 2001 – Today was the
culminating parade of the flower
festival. There were 
marching
bands, dancers, kids, hill tribes in traditional costumes, and large colorful flower floats in intricate designs of
elephants, dragons and horses. The winners of the beauty pageants were given prime treatment and got the
most cheers and photographs, although the farang winners looked a bit hung over
– wishing they were home in bed. After
the parade, we went to the park where judges were awarding prizes to flower
growers, kids were playing, and young couples lounged on mats in the sun.
At
the end of the day, the sunset cast a warm glow on the gold and red
brick of the wats. Afterward we
found a pretty good Italian dinner, and then took a tuk tuk to the bus station
for the overnight bus back to Bangkok. We
were pleasantly surprised by the comfort of the bus - reclining seat, legroom
and all - although we had to ask them to turn off the blaring Thai-language DVD
of Rules of Engagement since everyone was trying to sleep. None of the passengers spoke Thai anyway.
Naomi fell asleep right away and I actually got a few hours of sleep,
which was a few more than I expected.
*******
If you would like to follow our adventure back to Bangkok, please click here:
Photojournal February 4 -10, 2001
If you have any comments, suggestions, or other feedback, please see our contact information and send us a note.
Thanks for your support!