Chiang Mai

Ok, I've been remiss in posting. I went to Chiang Mai for five days after Phimai, and I haven't been quite sure exactly what to write about it. For a start, though, the picture above is the view from my window at the guest house.

So, what to say about Chiang Mai . . . I think I could quite easily live there. It's beautiful, and it's a big city without the feel of Bangkok's unmanageable traffic. I arrived ridiculously early in the morning from having taken the night bus, and spent a good half hour just wandering around the Old City, which is full of temples and guesthouses and various attractions. All the larger buildings are outside the Old City, which still has the remnants of the old city wall and gates into it.

My favorite part was probably the Sunday walking street market, which is easier to walk around than the weekend market in Bangkok. For the week I was there, one of the main roads in the Old City was being torn up and repaved, which basically meant that part of the walking street market took place on a dirt road. It made for a very strange atmosphere. But it was fun to wander around and see everything that was being sold, taste various things, and listen to music from street performers. (I also went to the Saturday walking street market the day before, which was outside the Old City and very similar, but on a smaller scale--the Sunday one was better.)

I was very lazy about my time in Chiang Mai--partially because I had the beginnings of a sore throat. So I didn't do as much sight-seeing as I might have otherwise, but I had a very enjoyable week of sleeping in, wandering around, drinking fruit smoothies, and writing. I did go to Chiang Mai's art and culture museum (which turned out to be more culture, less art, but was still ok), and to Chiang Mai's zoo and aquarium. The zoo was a bit of a strange experience--far from the norm in American zoos where there are signs against feeding any of the animals, most of the non-carnivore animals had a stand near their enclosures, with baskets of food you could give to them for 20 baht. I'm not in the habit of essentially feeding money to animals, but it did make for some interesting differences in the behavior of the animals--for one thing, it meant all the animals were a lot closer than in American zoos. For another, it meant animals like ostriches and giraffes would follow you along the fences of their enclosures with an expectant look that borders on creepy. One of the funnier things I saw during the entire trip was a hippo surprising a tourist by bursting out of the water right in front of her, mouth open.

The aquarium was, alas, a little disappointing. The Chiang Mai aquarium's claim to fame is having the longest underwater viewing tunnel. It was ok, but what they don't tell you is that it's longest because it zig-zags, not because it goes through a particularly long or large tank. The bigger disappointment was that I'm pretty sure all the coral in the saltwater portion was fake.

A few other random pictures from the zoo, to show you just how close some of the animals were:

And of course, I couldn't visit Chiang Mai without going to see some of the temples. The temple seen from my room at the guest house in the top picture, by the way, is just a small, random temple, not one of the larger or more famous ones. I went to see Wat Chedi Luang around six in the evening, which meant it was almost empty, although I could tell from various signs it's one of the temples that gets a lot of traffic during the day. There was a newer, fairly standard temple in front:

And an older, preserved temple in back:

And some rather beautiful smaller shrines around the edges of the grounds:

My favorite discovery from the visit was actually a sign asking people to remove their shoes, if only because of what was directly above the sign, almost looking as if it would hunt down the people who didn't obey the sign:

I'd love to go back to Chiang Mai sometime. There's too much I didn't see, and it's too beautiful a city to only see once.