Archive for October, 2001
I am still in Chang Mai, but Kathy left to go to Phuket this morning so I am here on my own for the first time! (Kathy’s only here for a few weeks so she wanted to head south right away to have time to see more stuff but I wanted to see more of Chang Mai so I decided to hang around. We’ll probably hook up again in the south in another week or so before she heads back to Bangkok.)
I’ve booked a three-day jungle trek for Thursday – Saturday with another girl here at the guesthouse. She is from New Zealand and is also traveling on her own.
So yeah, it was my birthday 2 days ago (the 29th). I celebrated the first anniversary of my 29th birthday. It was a good day. I didn’t do much during the day because it was raining and it just felt like a lazy day. They have a lounge room at the guesthouse and you can rent movies and watch them on their gigantic television so we rented Galaxy Quest (it cost about 75 cents to rent a DVD here). Then I treated myself to a foot massage for 150 BAHT (about $3). I went to a Blind Massage center to try it out and it was ok. All the masseuses there are blind. I thought it would be a really great massage but I had a young kid and he was really more interested in talking to his buddies then working on my feet. Oh well, it was something different worth trying.
Anyway, Kathy took me out to dinner and we had some great Thai food (ok what Thai food isn’t great I know) – Chang Mai curry vegetables and spring rolls. Then later we went out with 2 other people from the guesthouse – Rebecca (the girl from NZ) and Robert (from America). We headed over to the river and saw some live music for a while and then went to a local disco called’Bubbles’. It was a good time! A late night for me though… It was after 3am by the time we got back (Kathy and I had been lucky to stay up until 9pm before).
So yesterday of course I was not moving very fast (could it have been all the Chang beer?). But I did some great shopping and basically walked around town all day. We rented another movie back at the guesthouse in the afternoon – this time it was Fight Club. Then, last night Kathy, Rebecca and I went to the falafel place for dinner again – it was great food! Kathy decided to go back and pack and so Rebecca and I headed out to the festival in town.
The celebration here that’s going on is called Loy Krathong – it’s a festival to mark the end of the monsoon season and quite a party to be had. Supposedly last night was a warm-up and tonight is the big night. All the Thai people make these floating candle things with fresh flowers and incense on them and they light the candle and then send the little float down the river, making a wish for the next year. Tonight when we went down there were a lot of them on the river but I think tomorrow there will be even more. I bought one and set it out with the others.
We also took lots of photos of the various fried bugs for sale at one of the vendor booths – grubs, cockroaches (large and small – your choice), and grasshoppers – all fried and ready to be eaten!! We were pretty grossed out, especially as we watched Thai people come up and buy them!!
Then, there were the firecrackers. You’d think it had been National Firecracker Day the way people were (and are) setting off explosives EVERYWHERE! And I mean EVERYWHERE! All directions, left, right, up, down – as you walked across the street it was like a battlefield. I was amazed that we didn’t see anyone get hit. I can only imagine the mayhem of fireworks that we are in store for later tonight. Even now at 10am there are sounds of fireworks all over the city!
Getting’ ready for the jungle trek tomorrow…
Happy Halloween!
Jen’s birthday bash
Fried Bugs for Sale!
Nice photo (but no I did not actually eat the bug)
October 31st, 2001
Our first full day in Chang Mai. So far it’s been a good day. We got a lot accomplished. Most importantly, we found a good bike shop and got our chains cleaned and small repairs fixed on the bikes.
But first we stopped at a Thai silk tailor shop so I could put in my order to have an eyeshade made. I’ve wanted to have something tailored and it seemed like the perfect idea because it’s something that I can put to use while traveling. The woman there gave me a pile of silk remnants to choose from and I spent my time selecting what colors to use. She said I could use a different color on the inside so I chose 3 combos and I will keep one for myself and give the other 2 as gifts. They were 300 BAHT each which is a bit expensive for Thai standards (1 USD = 44 BAHT), but it will be a good and useful souvenir so I decided to splurge. They are supposed to be ready in 2 days.
After that we headed over to the bike shop, Velocity, but it was closed. There was a sign on the door that said’Open at 2pm’ and it was around 1:15pm so we decided to hang out and wait. Well it turned out to be a longer wait because they didn’t show up to open until 3pm. We’re on Asia-time, as Kathy said. Anyway it was well worth the wait because the mechanic really knew what he was doing and they had the size of the tube I needed as well as the bike computer that Kathy was looking for. AND they spoke English so we actually explain what we needed done. The mechanic replaced my front tube that had the valve break off a few days ago and he thoroughly cleaned my chain that had been caked with grease and dirt. The best part was that he didn’t charge any labor.
So my ongoing joke with Kathy is that we could write a guidebook on how to cycle Thailand. It would go something like this:
“First you box the bike and put it on the plane. There is a train station right at the Bangkok airport so as soon as you get off the plane you can put your bike right on the train and head north. They do charge 70 BAHT extra to take the bike on the train though. Then you can chose a hotel and safely leave your bike in the room while sightsee. Well ok, if you REALLY want to RIDE the bike for a few days I suppose you could do that. But if you start to get tired you can just pull over, stick out your thumb, and get a ride into the next town. It’s also very easy to travel by bus with a bike – they can tie the bike to the roof of the bus for an extra 100 BAHT fee and you can travel up to 300 km in one day! When you get to a town and you find your bike in need of a tune-up, just find the local bike shop and they’ll do all the work for you. Traveling by bike is certainly a wonderful way to see a country and also adds physical challenge to your adventure.”
The best kept secret to traveling by bicycle…
October 28th, 2001
On the bus to Chang Mai we are.
Well, that entry didn’t get very far – the bus was too bumpy to write. Now it’s 11:30pm and I am at the Smile Guest House in Chang Mai. We had an interesting time in Mae Sot but I am glad to be here in this popular tourist town surrounded by westerners everywhere. Mae Sot was not the most welcoming to say the least. We had a lot of stares from the local Muslims. I would not be able to say that we were absolutely refused service in one restaurant but we walked in and no one made a point to look at us, greet us, or sit us down in any way – they just gave us evil stares (this was right across the street from the mosque). We left.
Our first night there we were hanging out in our hotel room just falling asleep when we heard what we thought were gunshots in the hallway of the hotel (turned out to be very loud firecrackers but we did not know it at the time). We FROZE. Kathy said, “Turn off all the lights” so I did and we just lay still and waited. Nothing. No screams, no commotion. I totally expected someone to break down the door and pummel us with gunfire. When nothing happened we just started nervously whispering to each other and a few minutes later it happened again, this time RIGHT outside our door. It was pretty scary. (Mind you, we had been stared down all day in town by local Thai-Muslims, several wearing Bin Laden shirts – the fear was surely justified.) All said, it happened 3 times and then it stopped. We never heard any voices or anything. It was not the most pleasant experience. I had a hard time falling asleep after that.
The next day (yesterday) we had breakfast at a wonderful little bungalow place that had a full menu in English! What a treat! Previously we would go into a restaurant, be handed a menu in Thai, and then I would pull out my Thai phrasebook and show the waiter my Thai phrase that says I’m a vegetarian. Basically it would be a crapshoot to see what I would get. So to have a full menu in English was something we both appreciated!
After breakfast we set out for the Myanmar border. It was a 6 km walk to the river/border crossing so we started to walk but it was very hot and so when a Thai guy pulled over and offered a ride we did not hesitate to take it. Five minutes later and we were at the border.
We had a bit of a hang up getting out of Thailand because I was missing my departure card that they stapled to my passport at the airport (turned out to be back at the hotel). So I had to go from the immigration “booth” over across the street and around the corner to the immigration “office” but it was lunchtime there so I got several “Just a Moment Please”‘s while the immigration people ate lunch, and well, things don’t exactly move fast in a country like Thailand so it took a little while to straighten it out. Overall the staff were extremely nice and helpful and they all said, “Welcome to Thailand” when I left which I though was pretty funny because I’ve been here for 10 days already.
So I got the number of the departure card from Bangkok and that was enough to clear me through customs and allow me to cross into Myanmar. We walked across the bridge and on the other side hit the Myanmar immigration booth where we had to fill out more paperwork to enter the country. Lots of stamps, paperwork, and official-looking people. Once we were cleared to go we walked through the streets of the little border town for about an hour and then decided that there wasn’t much going on there and that the shopping seemed better on the Thai side so we left, having to go through Myanmar immigration again to get out and then Thai immigration on the other side to re-enter Thailand.
So, back to today…we took a 6-hour bus from Mae Sot to Chang Mai with our bikes tied to the roof of the bus. (With Kathy’s limited time in Thailand and both of our lack of desire to ride out through the mountains, taking a bus the remaining distance seemed the best plan.) There were quite a few mountains along the way and it was a hot, sunny day so I was glad to not be riding.
We arrived in Chang Mai late in the afternoon and found this hotel/guesthouse. We were instantly amazed at the site of so many “farang” (Thai for “foreigners”) EVERYWHERE. We had been so used to being the only ones in town and having everyone stare at us. Now we were staring at the other westerners just like the Thai! There really are a lot of tourists here. But so far it seems like a pretty cool place. There are yoga/meditation/massage places everywhere, vegetarian restaurants, internet cafes, and believe it or not even a Starbucks in Chang Mai! The town suits me well.
Tonight for dinner we went to a Jewish restaurant and had falafel, hummus, and babaganoush and it was EXCELLENT! I was in heaven. Then we hit the famous night bazaar of Chang Mai – a huge maze of vendors selling all types of hill tribe crafts, Thai silk, clothing, jewelry – you name it. I mainly scoped it out tonight but I will be back again to haggle and shop for sure.
The Thai border at Mae Sot (heading into Myanmar)
First glimse of Burma (walking over the bridge)
October 27th, 2001
It has been another strange but interesting day. We just couldn’t seem to get an early start. It was still pouring this morning after having poured all night so we were really in no hurry to hit the streets. We also had to decide whether to head directly north towards Chang Mai or to go west towards Myanmar (Burma), then north through the mountains, then back east tow Chang Mai. We finally decided to go west to get a taste of the mountains.
Then, as we tried to finally get going we just kept hitting walls- first Kathy’s bike computer went dead and then the valve on my front tube broke off. Neither of us was in a very good mood due to our bike troubles. So we finally got going sometime after 10am and we had an 80km ride to Mae Sot.
It was raining lightly when we left but in just a few km it started to pour. Then we hit THE MOUNTAIN. It was a huge forever going uphill windy climb that just would not end and it was even more dreary in the downpour. We went up and up and up and up. The morale was low. Then Kathy’s chain kept hopping off and then it really started to pour and we said screw it. I stuck out my thumb and within one minute a pick-up truck pulled over, an off-duty Thai police officer with his 2 young daughters. He helped throw our bikes in the back and proceeded to give us a ride for the remaining 50 km here!!!! We were SO grateful, especially once we saw how mountainous the road was all the way to Mae Sot.
This town is only 7 km from the Myanmar border and there is a large Muslim population. We can definitely feel the tension as we walked through the streets this afternoon. We did not feel the warm welcome we have felt previously in all the other towns. We walked by one store with a wall of Osama Bin Laden t-shirts for sale.
Tomorrow perhaps we will cross the border.
Miles biked today: 14.69
The view out of Tak (note the ominous rain clouds lurking in the distance)
October 25th, 2001
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