Moats, Temples and PushMe-PullYou's

Chiang Mai is the kind of town that at first glance is tourist trap. Within the old moated town, every second shop is promoting touristy activities and this puts me off. "Massage sir?", " Trek sir?", "Elephant park sir?" seems to be all you hear and the cynic in me said I should leave straight away, especially as I was staying in Beelzebub's own motel. However, Chiang Mai grows on you if you give it a chance. The Old Town is a calm square of tree lined streets, cafes and temples that somehow gets under your skin. The people are genuinely friendly and by and large the food is superb, cheap and served in an environment that says, "Please stay a while longer". The moat, with partial surviving ancient red-brick fortress walls has been turned from deterrent into a pleasing attraction with fountains and sloping green lawns where dogs and children play with happy abandon. Chiang Mai itself has colourful history with its roots in the Khmer culture of Cambodia. It was haggled over by the Thais and Burmese for centuries, with alternating control, before it decided to settle down and be a Thai tourist town - which it now does with aplomb. The local Lanna-style architecture that is found in stately buildings and temples alike, is a glorious combination of teak and stone, that appears light and important at the same time. Some of the 300 temples with their multicoloured, swooping roofs and separate chedis are spectacular. There are no charges for entering the temples, which in my mind is a plus as it appears the Buddhists are more interested in worship than money. However, the lie to the non-commercial appearance, is apparent in the details. In one, I was asked to make a donation into the bowl labeled with the day of the week I was born so "I would be assured of long and happy life". Apparently God is most concerned with which day of the week you were born and only bestows favours if you praise him accordingly. The temples, like most Buddhist temples, all contain impressive, huge golden statues of a serene-looking Buddha who impassively smiles at the hoard of food and grocery donations placed at his feet by the faithful. Vast red carpets, numerous bells and huge teak columns complete the pious picture and tranquil beauty. All very humbling, except when one considers the abject poverty nearby and the huge sums diverted to these ornamental buildings instead of education or health.

On one of my strolls, I came across a sight that almost got me run over. I was crossing the street, and while waiting in the middle, I noticed two dogs attached on the opposite pavement. They were attached, not in the traditional, erh, doggie style, but rather backside to backside. Both were complete mongrels; one was white and one was black. They seemed as confused by the situation as I was. They turned themselves around clockwise and then anti-clockwise and then repeated the process, seemingly unable to detach themselves. I could not see what bound them together, but bound they were. The moved forwards, they moved backwards, but for whatever reason they simply could not part wyas. I was contemplating this strange imitation of the famed "PushMe-PullYou's" when I was almost mowed down by a bus. Realising that placing myself in mortal danger was not worth solving the riddle, I left my mid-road vantage point and moved on in ignorance.

I shared a breakfast table with Phil from Phoenix, Arizona. Phil was a teacher traveling during the holidays. In a display of extraordinary humility, he seemed to apologise profusely for the dismal state of the world and George Bush's dire foreign policy, which he saw as its root cause. He appeared to experience physical pain at the thought of him and beseeched the powers that be, almost in prayer, to replace Dubya with a Democrat, any Democrat, in '08. He explained that as an English teacher, his main problem is getting kids to read. He has to contend with the Religious Right attempting to ban popular books like Harry Potter on blasphemous grounds which promptly sends the kids scurrying to MTV instead. Phil came across as a man who had been released from prison now that he was traveling across South East Asia, and I guess, in a way he was.

I found a little bar, that is the kind of bar, that is only found in transient backpacker towns. It has a live band, free pool table, staff who want to drink with you and is decorated in a combination of faded flags and photos of travelers engaging in hedonistic revelry. It did not take much persuasion for me to become another photo on the wall, beyond budget and thoroughly intoxicated.

I did not do the cooking Tom Yam Gool course I contemplated, however Chiang Mai baked a warm souffle of happiness in me and I was just a tad sad to be moving on to Chiang Rai.

Trains and Tuk-Tuks

There are several train services to Chiang Mai from Bangkok. There is a rapid service with flashy accommodation and there is the service that stops at every village along the 700km journey. I had taken the first sleeper available, which was the slow coach. The train has about ten carriages and three different classes. First, sleepers with aircon; second, sleepers with fan, and third, seating only with open windows. The second class journey is priced at the princley sum of 531 baht which suited the budget perfectly after my earlier extravagance. Each second class carriage ingeniously holds about 20 sleeping berths. The upper berths can fold up during the day, while the lower can transform into blue leather chairs with a fold-away table. The carriage panneling is a stomach churning cream-soda milkshake green, while stainlees steel mesh baggage racks incorporate tiny ladders to the upper berths. Stocking thin, stagnant-pond coloured curtains give a semblance of privacy to each bunk. The Thai Railway Board has obviously decided that, despite the fact one has booked a sleeper, that is not your real intention as the vast overhead strip lights never turn off during the 15 hour journey and the train beverages hawker thinks nothing of waking snoozing passengers at 2.30 am to take their rice porridge breakfast order with cheerful sprightlyness. Ceiling fans languidly rotate in mechanical indifference to the sweaty plight of the passengers huddled into the carriage. Our carriage included a aging, orange-haired farang with his young Thai 'girlfriend' who slurped and slobbered behind their stocking-curtain before their sleep finally gave us all some peace. We also had a Kim Jong-Il lookalike, with scrubby hair and square gold glasses, who alarmingly paced up and down examining each berth in detail with the efficiency of the famed North Korean secret police, but turned out to be bored rather than conspiratorial.

When dawn broke, the grimey smog-ridden surrounds of Bangkok had been transformed into a lush giant fern sub-tropical jungle. We were climbing in a narrow ravine with the train line and reluctant, drowsy telephone poles the only evidence of man's presence. The diesel-coated heart of the engine seemed to splutter, cough, pant and gasp as we trudged and wound up the gentle incline. One could lean fearlessly out of the carriage doors, certain that if you fell off the train, it was moving so slowly you would be able to hop back on unharmed. We would occasionaly clatter across a small wooden and rusted-steel bridge over a country stream that gurgled happily below. Golden butterflies competed with white-winged orange-tipped ones in erratic races alongside the train before dissapearing behind bamboo clumps. All of a sudden the landscape changed and we emerged onto a giant plateau, ringed with distant green mountains bearing illegal quarry scars. Chaotic and unruly jungle was replaced with symmetrical and ordered rice paddies in early, bright green shoot. Traditonal teak houses painted in various colours interupted the farming landscape. Giant monsoon clouds were building over the horizon, gently kissing the summits of the mountains in mockery of the violent downpour they were bringing to Chiang Mai. We traversed the plateau with significantly more pace as Mr. Engine found his rhythm on the flat. Once again we began to climb into the mountains towards Chiang Mai. Behind, one could see numerous brown rivers oozing across the plateau, like painted henna tattoos on a giant green body.

Without warning, as we climbed into the mountains again, the torrential rain came as if a giant airborn dam, hidden by the cumulonimbus clouds had burst its wall and released it entire contents onto the verdant valley below. Several passengers scrabbled to close the uncooperative, aging, dirty windows. I, however, ran to the carriage door and leaned out to enjoy the summer drenching which was as close to a shower as I had come in nearly 36 hours.

Chiang Mai station is thronged with touts and tuk-tuk drivers hoping to get you into commission-paying hotels and mountain-trek tour companies. I deliberately avoided their boisterous sales pitches and crossed the road looking for a tuk-tuk bus, which is the recommended budget-conscious transportation into town. I pointed on the map to an intersection beyond the central moat, negotiated the fare and crammed into the back with a few non-plussed locals. The tuk-tuk bus sped off dropping people off here and there and, in due course, crossed what I assumed was the moat. I indicated to the driver I wanted to jump off and despite his slight reservation, he acquiesced. It took me half an hour of wandering to realise that what I thought was the moat, was in fact a distant river and I was miles from where I wanted to be. Furious with my eager stupidity, I set off on foot in the right direction in search of a hotel that would drag the budget back in line. It has been a while since I stayed in a hotel that requires you to bring your own secret papers, but the Golden Muang Hotel off Moon Muang Street, is such an establishment. It has two good points: it is in Chiang Mai and it is likely to be condemmed soon, so that future travellers will avoid this excuse for an hostelry.