Chiang Mai

Day 1

Renting a car was the first of two truly spontaneous things I did in Chiang Mai.We were planning to get around by taxi, or hire a tuk-tuk for the off-the-beaten path destinations, but when we stepped off the plane in Chiang Mai, we were assaulted by rental car ads. I guess we’re just easily influenced.

This trip itself was rather a spontaneous adventure. I had found my footing after a minor existential crisis, and was relying on intuition for decisions like this. I also had some miles saved up from a previous life as a jet-setting careerist. So, why not?

So, that’s how I found myself in the lobby of Chiang Mai airport, handing over my credit card with a practiced angling of the wrist and a “what’s the worst that could happen” kind of attitude on my tragically touristy face.

The drive from the airport to the hotel was hot. I came to Chiang Mai expecting rain, based on a religious monitoring of the weather report in the week leading up to my departure from Tokyo. Having thoroughly readied myself for a cold and cloudy vacation, I had to reset my outlook a bit to manage the scorching sun piercing my windshield. It was good fortune for which I had neglected to prepare.

I arrived at my hotel, Khum Phaya, around 13:00. With no particular plans for the rest of the day, I decided to kick off my stay with a dip in the pool, followed by the obligatory cocktail, and lastly a full-body massage in the hotel spa.

The massage had me face-down for two and a half hours, absorbing oils and candlelight and new age music. When I left the spa, the hot May sun had given way to a gorgeous full moon. I made small talk with the body workers as we left. They taught me the Thai word for moon and I parroted back in a laughable twang. Without ceremony or pretense, the interaction ended and we went our separate ways.

After the massage, I made my way downtown for a night market. The drive took less than 20 minutes and parking was abundant. My first night market stop was a downtown bazaar featuring mostly generic Thai fare. Each stall’s menu was particularly heavy on the tom (soup) selection. A young-looking cover band was hitting hard on the 90s tunes with stuff like Gin Blossoms, Dave Matthews, and so on.

I found round two at Ploen Rudee, another night market a stone’s through from the throwback place. Ploen Rudee had a more international feel. In place of toms, vendors offered pizzas by the slice, tacos, and ice cream. A young woman played the fiddle on the main stage, accompanying an older man who strummed an acoustic and mumbled American folk music in a way that somehow felt authentic. An older man was downing shots with a much younger local woman, looking silly but not giving a damn.

Day 2

It’s a rare treat to take time for nothing in particular, and that’s what I committed myself to on my first full day in Chiang Mai.

After savoring some fresh fruits for breakfast, I found a spot under a tree by the pool to lounge. The sun peeked through leaves overhead as it dragged across the sky. I played some hokey island music, fully aware that said music was manufactured by massive labels in Houston and Nashville and cities like that specifically to exploit and monetize this kind of scenario, and only a little embarrassed by my willingness to go along with the rouse. Long, lazy sun showers punctuated by the occasional dip in the cool pool water. That was how morning came and went.

Around 13:00, I got ready to set out. I pointed my car toward a hip part of the inner city, all hostels for European backpackers and organic, gluten free smoothie stands.

As with so many places in Chiang Mai, there was a quiet wat (temple) awaiting me. I agreed to strengthen my appetite with a stroll around the grounds. I later looked up the temple and learned its name, Wat Chiang Man, and that it was built around 750 years ago.

I met a tired, thirsty-looking dog and immediately made a proper project of him. He aggressively lapped up some water we gave him, but otherwise he was indifferent. He gave my hand some affectionate licks and I told myself it meant he was thankful.

For lunch, I eschewed the local flavors and indulged in a bagel. There was something inviting about this tourist pocket of town, true to its design.

After lunch, I was back in the car for a long drive to Tard Mork waterfall, which is tucked into Doi Suthep National Park. The tin and concrete houses of the Chiang Mai city limits quickly give way to natural beauty. Six- and eight-lane highways become narrow mountain roads, more populated by stray dogs and oxen than cars or tuk-tuks.

As I climbed higher into the hills surrounding Chiang Mai, each breathtaking view of fields and villages below is surpassed by the next. I struggle to find the right soundtrack and eventually settle on Adrianne Lenker.

45 minutes into the drive, I stumbled onto a small temple and gave my legs a well-deserved stretch. The temple lacks the gold and splendor of the bigger wats that dot the map of Chiang Mai. It appeared to be no more than one prayer chamber about 40 square meters in area, maybe five or six meters tall.

A single monk was sweeping the steps when I approached. We took turns pantomiming our way through a conversation, me struggling for the right hand gesture to communicate May I come in? After a minute or so of this, the monk ended this torture with a merciful nod, entered the chamber, and began opening the four windows on either side of the hall, each about two meters tall and comprised of two wooden panels. With all the windows open, the monk returned to the steps and dropped into a blue plastic chair that was set to the side. He draped his leg over the armrest. I performed my best impression of a local, folding my hands at chin-level as if in prayer and reciting Kobh-kun-ka (Thank you). Then I made our way inside.

Rich murals above the windows told the story of Buddha in vibrant color, illuminated by the gray light of a newly cloudy afternoon sky. In the middle of the room lay a red, patterned carpet. I wondered if it was for meditation. We spent a few minutes in the chamber. I fidgeted with the exposure on my camera to get a few photos in the temple’s beautiful darkness.

When I left the prayer room, there was no longer any sign of the monk. I thought it would be appropriate to tip him for opening the temple up to us, so we searched the grounds for a bit to find him. He emerged naturally from a one-room house on the far side of the temple grounds, perhaps hoping that we had already left, and I pass him 50 bahts for the trouble.

Clouds had started gathering and the sky was changing into a crushing gray, but our spirits were refreshed. I was invested in Tard Mork, rain or shine, so I pointed the car in that direction and reached the main gate after just 20 minutes or so, around 16:00. The park was scheduled to close at 17:00, so I wouldn’t have much time to waste. I paid the park entrance fee, drove a bit farther to the parking area, and set out on foot for the waterfall.

The trail from the parking area to the foot of Tard Mork was short. Along the way, I passed a family heading back toward the entrance. Another family was playing in the water basin. The sky had turned from cloudy to even cloudier, and a cold draft was rolling over the woods in the way it does before a rain. I didn’t feel any pressure to rush, though. I sat on a rock hanging over the basin, listened to the water falling and crashing on rocks. I took some photos of the waterfall, playing with the shutter speeds and hoping to chance my way into something worth sharing.

There were some stairs up to the crest of the waterfall, so I decided to check out the the view from the top. The terrain was less friendly, and a few pools of standing water attracted flies and mosquitoes. The crest was situated about two meters below and two meters out from an overhang. I lowered myself to the overhang face-forward, negotiating the fall.

From the crest, I watched the family below as it set out from the basin, the end of how many hours of play. The sound of the waterfall carried from below.

I enjoyed a brief moment of tranquility, but it was cut tragically short as the clouds started dropping rain on, slow and small at first but unmistakably growing. I climbed back up the overhang, descended the stairs, and made our way toward the car. On the return trail, the cold rain hit hard, but the percussion of raindrops on the canopy above and the smell of the freshly moistened earth tempered any feelings of eagerness we might have had back home on a rainy evening in Tokyo.

As if they had been holding out just for me, the clouds finally let loose their torrent just as I reached the car. I climbed in and started the drive back to Chiang Mai

On the way back into town, I took the scenic route through a few farming villages. Cows along the way craned their heads our way and let out comical moos. They were a bunch of absolute dweebs.

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The rest of the drive was magical, so I took every opportunity to capture it. I would drive a bit, stop to explore something interesting, then drive farther, then stop, and so on. Time passed like this and eventually I made it back to downtown Chiang Mai and set about finding some food.

Given that I had lunched on bagels, I decided to try something local for dinner. After a bit of hunting, I found TongTemToh, a restaurant specializing in northern Thai dishes. One of the significant differences between northern and southern foods in Thailand is that, in the north, coconut milk isn’t used as widely. I tried soups and curries that relied on other oils to round out a vinegar base. Another important element is the spice. It could have been because my palette had opened slightly as my allergies waned, but I found the northern soups to be exceptionally spicy — perhaps reflecting the heavy Burmese and Laotian influence in the northern areas. Whether real or illusory, the spice made us thirst and we drained a few Changs at TongTemToh.

After TongTemToh, I walked around a bit to breathe in the quiet, warm atmosphere of night in Chiang Mai. That’s when I did the second of two spontaneous truly spontaneous things in Chiang Mai. Tattoos seem to be a common souvenir for a lot of tourists. High-traffic areas are dotted with stalls hawking bamboo tattoos for around 20 dollars for brave or stupid foreigners. Maybe it’s less spontaneous given the back story, but I certainly hadn’t come to Chiang Mai for the purpose of getting inked. Yet here I was, at proper tattoo parlor for a proper consultation about a proper tattoo. After trading some designs for mock-ups, I put down a deposit and agreed to come back on our last night to settle the design and have it scraped into my skin permanently.

The night didn’t end there. Having come all the way to Chiang Mai, I decided it would be a waste to rush back to the hotel and looked for some entertainment to close out the first full day.

I stopped in for a foot massage at one of those cheaper places that seem ubiquitous in Thailand. It was a very different experience from the full body treatment I had the day before. Feeling a bit lighter, I started back in the direction of the car, with a short stop at a cafe along the way that served coconut ice cream exclusively. It was here that I realized I had consumed more coconut in the past two days than I had in in my adult life.

Day 3

When I woke up the next morning, my tummy was still swollen from Changs and ice cream, but I didn’t let that slow my progress on a significant goal of this trip — to eat all of Thailand’s fresh papaya. The breakfast bar had met its match.

After breakfast, I was determined to spend another morning doing nothing in particular. I settled into a lounge seat at the pool and took in some vitamin D until my body started getting that sort of “hey it’s lunch time” kind of feeling.

I took lunch at the hotel and lazed around by the pool without any sense of urgency. Around 14:00, I mustered the energy to set out toward Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, the largest and most famous wat in Chiang Mai.

The GPS told me it would be more than an hour by car. Somehow I thought it was much closer, but I didn’t let the distance deter us.

Doi Suthep comes suddenly when you reach the top of a hill on a mountainside overlooking downtown Chiang Mai. I parked along the road and stepped out. Stalls around the wat entrance were selling the same stuff we had seen at the night markets — Thai pants with elephant patterns, t-shirts with tuk-tuks and other Thai miscellany over English phrases from the childish to the risque. The only real difference was the heavy price mark-up. Perhaps there’s some value to someone in being able to say, I bought this at Doi Suthep.

The colors at Doi Suthep were a beautiful and striking contrast to the more subtle Japanese Buddhist temples I’m accustomed to. Whereas Japanese temples tend to be constructed of wood and minimally painted (with some exceptions, including the use of red lacquer), wats seemed to make use of colored stone for much of their ornamentation. A finely detailed dragon’s back framed the staircase that led from the base to the main entrance, made up of green, blue, and yellow stones ranging from the size of a quarter to a dollar bill.

On the way up, I shadowed a black dog that was lounging on the stairs. I talked to him a bit about the heat, and how much hotter it must be for him under all that black fur. He stood and climbed the stairs a bit, rested in a new spot. I followed and talked to him some more. This continued for a bit as I tried to win the dog’s affection, make a furry friend on my trip, but he remained disinterested and I continued up the stairs.

In the main area of Doi Suthep, towering gold stupa reflected the afternoon sun back at a deep blue sky. Pilgrims and tourists mingled. The devout bought and burned candles for prayer. The smell of incense tickled our noses. The cool mountain air lifted the sweat from my neck.

As I walked back down the stairs toward the car, we searched for my new friend, but didn’t see him. And so I was headed back toward Chiang Mai.

Since I arrived in Chiang Mai, I had been told by more than a few people about a night bazaar that was being held that night. I was game to check it out, and so I parked downtown and started walking toward the main street.

By the time I reached the bazaar, most of the shops were closed or nearly closed. I walked through the main thoroughfare and stopped at the shops that were still open. I bought a shirt for about 150 bahts (5 dollars) that has since become my favorite. I got a bag from a silk-screen artist for a friend, whose birthday was coming up.

I had tired myself enough, so I decided to hunt down yet another massage. The hunt proved tough, though, and we I was turned down by enough parlors that I was starting to feel a bit hopeless. Finally I got lucky ended up in another massage, this one a 90-minute full body deal.

On the way back to the hotel, I came across an open-air nightclub called Zoe in Yellow. Drunken white folks stumbled around the entrance, some with less clothes than others. It was an amusing sight, so I took a seat at a bar across the way to watch for a bit.

The bar had the kind of kitschy drinks one expects to find at a bar in a place like this, such as Dark and Stormy, which is what I settle on. The drunken revelry on display at Zoe was at turns amusing and at others depressing. I tried to absorb the experience without judgment and mostly succeeded. The music died at midnight — like a lot of places in Chiang Mai, Zoe closes early — and the tourists began stumbling back to their respective hostels or a hook-up’s hostel. I took the hint and worked my way back, too.

At the hotel, I tinkered with my camera to fix a broken film advance lever but ultimately failed. I was okay with it. It’s just stuff.

Day 4

One of the strange things I noticed about Chiang Mai that I hadn’t seen in other parts of Southeast Asia I’ve visited was a wide universe of cooking schools. Having spent most of the trip nurturing indulgences, it felt appropriate to nurture the mind a bit by learning something new, so I found a place to teach me how to make some authentic Thai food.

The driver was an enthusiastic and warm Chiang Mai native who goes by John. He came to the hotel to pick me up at 9:00 a.m. From there, we headed to a local food market, which turned out to be quite a burden for the senses. The pungent smell of durian and all manner of fermenting foods hit me like a truck and I wished for a moment that my allergies would return.

Having made it past the initial shock, the market proved a valuable experience. This place is close enough to Chiang Mai city center that I’m sure they see enough tourists, so it makes sense that they didn’t pay much mind to me as I walked between the stalls. Most memorable among them was the meat room, where animals at various stages of dismemberment were being processed into meat. An old woman hunched over a chopping block swatting away flies that were making homes in the buckets of blood and organs. I thought about taking a picture, then decided it was too morbid. Having had enough of this particular experience, I walked back toward the van. With the heat and smells it was a long walk.

We were at the market no longer than 30 minutes, then back on the road with the city center at our backs. We arrived at John’s house in no time and he invited us back to the kitchen. My hands felt like rocks, but I fought the fatigue to make a proper meal of curry, a sweet and sour tom, a stir fry, and sticky rice. We would finish making a course, eat it, and start on the next, like that until it was late afternoon.

John’s wife drove us back into Chiang Mai in the family car. She talked about growing up in Chiang Mai and how different it is now. She shared that natives can’t live downtown anymore because it’s all luxury condos for rich foreigners from China and elsewhere. I thought about the revelers at Zoe in Yellow, and about the way cities everywhere change like this, but mostly I listened.

I got back to the hotel and decided to have one last dip in the pool. At the bar, I ordered a drink. Another guest from Europe asked me about President Trump, and I did my best to avoid a conversation about the abhorrent state of politics in the U.S. and hoped the guest would take the hint. Like this, the afternoon turned into evening.

Around 18:30, I headed back to the tattoo parlor for my appointment. The artist showed me a few sketches he had turned out based on my original design. We tweaked it a little in turns, and when I was satisfied with it he set needle to skin. I expected the experience would give me time to reflect on the trip, but the pain was illuminating in an entirely different way. For the first time in a while, my mind was still and present.

After the tattoo parlor, I stepped into a bar for my last beer in Chiang Mai. The moon shown bright behind a wall of flat clouds. In the distance, a plane taking flight threw its roar against the mountains. The smell of tobacco drifted away on a westerly wind.