The bus rides to and from Chiang Mai deserve a paragraph or two to themselves – that is, paragraphs of justified carping. I believe most foreigners who have traveled via the VIP buses on long-distance trips around Thailand share the same woes: that the buses are freezing cold; the drivers speed so much through windy roads that you wonder 1) if he even has a license, and 2) if you will die on this trip; and finally, that the provided entertainment is enough to make you go crazy.
Honestly, on the ride up to Chiang Mai, the air con was blasting so forcefully onto me that two layers of blankets that they had graciously provided us (scoff), plus my thin scarf and two jackets, did nothing to appease my feelings of being frozen-to-death. I felt like Rose in “Titanic” as she was clinging onto dear life in the icy cold water (“Goodbye, Jack...”). You may think I am exaggerating, but my air con vent was dripping condensation onto my legs, and the air con from the seat behind me was dripping onto my head. On top of this Chinese-torture-cell-simulation, the provided entertainment drove me insane. “Yeah, yeah, you complain too much, Kristina.” But really, YOU try sitting through hours of poorly shot Thai game shows (i.e. where two muscular men try to squeeze the juice out of tangerines with their biceps) that you've already seen on other buses before, then attempting to sleep, then being woken up at 2AM (YES) because they feel it utterly compelling and rational to wake up the snoozing passengers with some awful (and awfully loud) music videos. And I mean it when I say these music videos are AWFUL. Linnea and I even discussed our urge to vomit after having watched like, five of them in a row. I truly despised them because every single video's story line consisted of some love triangle (man loves woman who loves other man, man loves woman who actually loves a woman, woman loves man who loves another woman, etc.) that always ended up in the girl BURSTING out into tears. So it's 2am, you're trying to sleep, ice water is dripping onto you from the a/c, and your ipod won't drown out the sound of weeping/wailing/sorrowful girls. I mean, these music videos pretty much solidified my observation that Thai relationships, due to their culture of suppressing emotions, are overly sentimental to the point of obsession and annoyance. I guess my disgust with these videos stems from my own personal view on relationships, but truth be told, anyone would get fed up with the constant pitiful plot lines. But hey, at least the bus ride was significantly cheaper than a plane ticket (519 baaht vs. 1,000 baaht+).
Glad to have arrived in Chiang Mai at 3am. Had some hotel mishaps but to make a long story short, we ended up hopping around from cheap hostel to cheap hostel every night (really, 200 baaht/night, which is $6 for two people!). Had a “lazy” Friday, whence we tried out a coffee shop, per Lonely Planet, which had superb lattes. Then we got a private chauffeur (about $7/person for the whole day) who drove us to see a silk factory (cool), an umbrella factory (I got some bamboo cups personalized, yippee!), and then What Dao Suthep.
It's a famous temple situated at the tip-top of a mountain, and the ride up there proved as such, for Linnea and I were clinging onto dear life in the back of an open-air-tuk-tuk as our driver raced around in circles up the mountain, and as the exhaust from our vehicle gave me a headache. But no matter. This temple has 306 steps (again, Lonely Planet), and I was petrified of making the climb, but it was nothing. The view was pretty neat but it was getting cloudy by sunset. Night was fun as we met up with some fellow CIEE friends at a favorite bar/club hangout called “Warm Up.”
Saturday. Another day of driving, and lots of it. We signed onto one of the many advertised full-day tours that takes people, in a mini bus, from CM to some of the hill-tribes, the Golden Triangle, and other touristy sites along the way. The hot spring was eh. The “White Temple” was a joke – the inside of the temple had paintings of Keaneu Reaves from “The Matrix,” Spiderman, Batman, and even a mural depicting 9/11 on it. I think it was some allegorical illustration of the evils of the world or something. Anyway, I really wanted to see the Golden Triangle, which we did, and that was cool to have been on the Mekong River with Thailand and Burma to the left of us, and Laos on the right.
We then went to a tourist village in Laos. I mean, it wasn't anything special – just a ton of shacks with stuff to sell to tourists – but at least I can say that I've “been” to Laos, albeit for 30 minutes, and tried ginger whiskey (was too scared to try the scorpion or snake whiskey), and BeerLaos, which tastes...like a Heineken Light. After, we drove to the hill-tribe villages. I was so excited to see the Karan tribe because the women of the tribe are known for their long necks. Quite the spectacle. That, and my Mom had always told me about them when I was growing up because she said she'd always seen them as a child in Burma. Much to our dismay, however, the “village” was very set-up for commercial purposes: each woman would sit in a hut that displayed her hand-made crafts. And though she'd let every tourist take a picture with her, she'd automatically point to one of her goods and give you a price. I understand, though, that they base their livelihoods off of tourists, and I left feeling guilty for not having bought anything from them.
I'm glad I did the tour, in retrospect, because one of my goals when coming to Thailand was to visit the Golden Triangle and see the Karan women. But that mini-bus ride was equally as terrible as the VIP bus I'd previously mentioned. We squished 15 people in that mini bus – four French men who smelled of b.o. (shocking, haha, just kidding...), two Australian girls, two other French people, a Dutch lady, and some other people. At our lunch feast (kudos to that), we all lamented how our driver drove like a crazy-person – and consequently laughed at us when we told him to slow down, especially on the mountain curves – and that we had another six hours to drive. We'd drive 1.5 hours to see one stop for 20-30 minutes, take some pictures, then drive another 1.5 hours to see the next. We spent half our day in the cramped mini-bus. I guess that's the sacrifice one must make to see those sites, as they're in the middle-of-nowhere and would be hard to get to by oneself...well, at least that's what I was assuring myself towards the end of the trip. When I wasn't closing my eyes to avoid what I was sure to be my impending highway doom, I was thinking to myself, “Pretend like you're a Buddhist Monk in meditation – this is your trial. You must endure. Through the twists and turns and gut-wrenching challenges, you will reach nirvana (aka our hostel)!”; or “This really must be what it's like to be on a roller coaster to hell!”. I'm only glad I brought my ipod and educated myself with some podcasts I had uploaded. Have no idea how the others survived.
Chiang Mai's a great place, though. Totally different from Bangkok. Very laid-back, hippie-ish, and chill. I loved the Rooftop Bar that my CIEE friend, Nancy, took me to. You have to take off your shoes to get to an enclosed rooftop that's sprayed with graffiti. It has an open roof for high/tipsy/drugged (I'm sure of it) customers to peer up at the stars (so many stars!) as you sit cross-legged on the bamboo mats. I was mostly amused by the people there, what with their dreadlocks and anti-spring-break demeanor, which I have gotten used to from traveling down to Phuket and even around Bangkok. I enjoyed strolling around the Sunday market after a delicious brunch with Linnea, Nancy, and my USC Sorority sister, Chelsea, with whom I had spent the night (soooo good to see her!) because she's teaching near CM through Fulbright. Some of the vendors don't speak Thai because they're hill-tribe or Burmese people, which reminds me of the discrimination Chelsea said these people face in her remote town. I've learned that Thais are fairly open about what's considered acceptable or beautiful in their culture, and have been so to Chelsea when expressing disdain for these foreign refugees. It makes sense to me now that when in Bangkok, which is further south and more cosmopolitan than CM, I'm greeted with glee when I say my Mom's from Burma. But when I was in CM and asked a lady if she was from Burma, she gasped and said “No, no!”, and pointed to her dyed hair to prove that she could never be Burmese (the rational made no sense to me). Good thing I kept my mouth shut...
CM reminded me of Amsterdam because it has a canal running through the center, is very green, has crisp(er) air than Bangkok, and is laden with charming cafes. I'd love to go back and do something outdoorsy, like ziplining or trekking. Don't know if I'll ever get the chance to but I'm glad I went.
1 comment:
sounds like you had a great time! love the photos!
Post a Comment