I woke up at about 11:30, fully clothed with my book spread across my chest. I could hear an amicable conversation, and although I couldn’t understand what they were talking about, it was pleasant to wake up to.
For a short time, all I could do was stare up at the ceiling fan, spinning wildly, the motor wobbling on its mount. I couldn’t decide on anything other than continuing to ponder the hypnotic thrashing of the dusty machinery hanging above my face.
I suppose I was having a bit of an existential dilemma at this point, considering I just woke up for what was, in all intents and purposes, the beginning of my real trip, and I didn’t know how to proceed… These feelings were all exacerbated (and probably caused) by Henry Miller’s chaotic, disparaging anti-narrative. His semi-autobiographical account of his life in New York in the 1920s had gotten to me on the bus and before I went to sleep, and now I wasn’t really sure about anything. For a moment I felt like I was paralyzed in my bed, listening to a somewhat far off conversation in a foreign language.
The cobwebs cleared and I looked over at the other bed, and my pack, which had fallen over when I was asleep, and it kind of reminded me of a sleeping dog, and I remembered why I was here in the first place and that I needed to get up and do something. I was in Chiang Mai. In Thailand. So I had to do stuff.
I had looked at a map earlier, and while I didn’t know it at the time, I was outside of the “old city,” and not inside the part of downtown Chiang Mai surrounded by a moat in the shape of a large square.
It turned out I was in the labyrinth of lovely alleys about three blocks from the Old City, which turned out to be pretty advantageous, considering the noise factor inside the moat.
I went downstairs and found Sarah, sitting alone reading a Thai newspaper. I asked her which direction would take me on a good walk and there I went. The labyrinthian alleys inside and out of the Old City are wonderful on foot or on a bicycle, and reveal hidden treasures of restaurants and historical temples and houses. The alleys were quiet, save for an occasional motorbike, being casually manipulated around the corners by Thais who could probably navigate them by muscle memory alone. Dogs lay in the street, lazily moving from the cool pavement under shade to the warm pavement in the sun. Who ever said “workin’ like a dog” did not have Thailand in mind.
Walking along, I’d see residents in the neighborhood going about their chores, hanging laundry, cleaning odds and ends, sitting around a table with friends eating and drinking or playing with children. I have a theory that Thai people are so relaxed and mindful in everything they do because of the heat. In the pursuit of dry comfort, I think Thais have adopted the mentality that there are truly few things worth breaking a sweat over: work and football. Everything else will just make you uncomfortable, so …just… relax.
sabai sabai. Calm your heart. Relax. Be comfortable. Smile.
I walked until I found a major street, and while I thought I was inside the Old City (but wasn’t) I took a right, thinking that was the direction toward Tha Pae Gate, the famous “gate” into the Old City.
However, considering the blunder I’d made earlier, and was still following, I was walking in the direction away from the gate. And looking back, I’m grateful for it, because it lead me to one of those beautiful moments when I disappeared into the everyday lives and goings-on of the Chiang Mai residents. There weren’t any attractions, there weren’t any temples, there was just alley after alley of busy Thais going about lives. Trucks and motorcycles glutted the alleys and throngs of people shuffled along sidewalks turned into narrow market-lanes, underneath plastic tarps that poorly shielded anything from the fine drizzle that was falling. As an average-sized foreigner, I towered over the majority of the Thais pressing their way along the sidewalks, and the best I could do in this human torrent was apologize for being so clumsy. So I moved to the street and walked side-by-side with the vehicles that weren’t moving much faster. The falling mist was comfortable and when I saw bewildered expressions that, through their eyes, asked “Why are you walking in the street… in the rain?!” I took self-centered satisfaction that I had made the more comfortable decision and that I should be asking them why they’re subjecting themselves to that warm, sticky surge of human bodies.
Eventually I found an outdoor food and small goods market near the bridge of the river I hadn’t intended on walking to, but I took the opportunity to browse the selections and I settled on deep fried (and chewy) strips of pork skin with the sub-dermal fat still attached, a huge grilled chicken leg and a sludgy dip of cilantro, lime, chiles, garlic and onions.
By now I’d realized I’d made a mistake and taken a wrong turn, but I was happy with the results and I knew how to get back, so I just went the way I came, munching the deep fried, grilled and savory tartness of the goodies in my bag, in the rain, in the street. On the way back, I was attracted to a temple by an elderly lady with a tray of birds.
On this latticed tray, made from strips of bamboo, were dozens of small hollow orbs, also made from strips of bamboo, and inside each one of these orbs was a tiny bird flapping about and singing. They didn’t seem happy (obviously) but they weren’t in too much distress… She asked if I wanted to feed them. I thought to myself, “like… toss some feed into their little cages?” but I figured out that she was asking me to make a monetary contribution toward their bird feed. Considering I just paid 30 baht for a huge meal of awesome pork and chicken, I fished around in my pocket for a five baht coin that would be more than enough for an entire fistful of bird feed. I handed her the coin and she laughed and asked for 100 baht. I bawked and declined, realizing she’d commandeered these birds as bait. Of all the people constantly walking by on the sidewalk out front, it was pretty clear that if she’d been successful with at least 10 of the thousands of passersby every day, she was making more money than I was and well into the upper-middle class among her peers. I smiled, declined and walked on toward the temple.
If pictures are worth a thousand words, than pictures of true Thai craftsmanship are worth a million words. The devotion to the craft, the devotion to the repetitive carving and chiseling, and the meditative mindfulness needed to produce all these works is legendary, and rightfully so.
These gargoyles were displayed at many railing intersections and at the bases of banisters.
You may disagree with this, but I find the temple statues in Thailand to be much more expressive than those in Europe, which I find more passive and emotionally inaccessible. A main cornerstone in Buddhism is that suffering is the essence of all life, and that seems to be reflected in the expressions of the statues.
The rest of the day I spent wandering around, taking in the otherness of the city and the culture, until my friends Kerry and Emmy got back from Pai, a small, eclectic town nestled in a valley in the mountain ranges to the west.
After they settled in to the room next to mine, we struck out for the night, walking the streets of the real Old City, drinking beers and wandering through the night markets, before joining a group of travelers waiting for a pickup truck to a hilltop full moon party.
We decided to join the group and, waiting for the pickup truck, Kerry and I whipped up one of our lethal 7-11 cocktails…
