Cherishing Chiang Mai

Night Safari Fountain Show

The guests

Pagodas and golden flags

Recently I was on a visit to Chiang Mai, Thailand. It is a unique place with its own distinct character. We put up at the Orchid Chiang Mai, just next to the IT City Mall. The check in time at hotels in Thailand is generally at 2 pm, hence landing in the plush lobby at 11am actually was like a stab in the heart. How to spend time? The sofa sets seemed to scream out, arms outstretched, but being polite Indians we were a little reluctant about the consequences of putting our feet up and curling in. The lobby had an impressive photo gallery and I was rather smug to learn that two people who had visited this hotel, not so long ago (I mean this geological period) were the Prince of Wales and his beautiful princess Diana.

We decided to take a walk in the meanwhile just to pass time, but by some stroke of good luck, we got a room early. Freshening up, we left for a walk around the neighbourhood.

The IT mall held a huge surprise for us. There was a food carnival going on. Cheap, fresh food of all possible kinds, with legs (two to eight) , claws and fins and some with no leg at all. Strabucks was totally vacant as we pushed and paved our way through the flood of hungry people. There was still a nip in the air and we enjoyed our walk checking out the local street restaurants. Fully satiated we returned at about 5 pm. At 7pm, we left for the Night Safari. I had already done one of these in Singapore, but this experience was definitely a notch above. There are exotic animals (kinjouko from SouthAmerica) and raccoons dressed in black and red, which was the same combination I was wearing that night. It may have helped us to identify with one another and we played about like siblings. A walk further up revealed the opportunity of taking a shot up close and personal with a medium sized tiger, just before it would be released into the national park. It was definitely an opportunity not to be missed. The beast climbed up gently, heavy but extremely soft with a distinct odour and settled itself on our laps. I had a feeding bottle , and in the heat of the moment I’d forgotten what to do with it. The man reminded me that I had to hold the tiger’s head close to my breast and put the bottle in his mouth, else he may find something else to nibble on, and I was the closest. I thrust the bottle in his mouth and he started sucking. I could feel the movements of his skull and jaw muscles with every pull at the teat. The experience was just superb.

The night safari train took us on an hour long journey through the park , where intermittently some greedy one would come up to the carriage asking for food from the baskets we had purchased. We fed the deer, the pigs the sun bears (from a distance). But the pick of the lot was the giraffe. As I held out a carrot for it, it took out its 12" tongue and wrapped my palm upto my wrist. It took the banana and very kindly gave me a loving lick. Somehow to me the experience was like getting my hand pasted against wet sandpaper, but yes, the expression of love was surely unparalleled.

Night Safari ended with a mesmerizing fountain show where the water drops acted as the screen on which the projector depicted scenes from Thailand. Enough for the day. We reached the hotel at about 11.30pm and hit the bed straight away.

Day two we had a different agenda. Stuffing ourselves at the breakfast table, with all the bread and meat that we could, we headed out, on foot again. Exploring the narrow alleys, reeking of fish oil. We had a local Thai man accompanying us. His name was “Gobi” and I can vouch that he must have memorized the following joke thoroughly.

“Hi I’m Gobi!! Like Alu Gobi..You eat Gobi, so you call me alu Gobi..No problems”. Confused at first startled at second, digesting at third, we managed to make a bleak smile look like a huge appreciative grin. Gobi took us to the local markets, the narrow back alleys, where short and sweet Thai senior ladies were busy making pancakes and the delicious aroma filled the air.  They were all dressed rather similarly. Loose black trouser pants and oversized floral printed white shirt. Cropped hair and the biggest embellishment…a welcoming and serene smile.  Gobi also took us to some typical tourist spots like the jewelry factory, the Thai silk factory. A ride around the city is mainly about the pagodas (that outnumber the 7/11s) made vibrant by the monks who planted the holy yellow flags on heaps of sand to herald the Chinese New Year. The city of Chiang Mai was basically a fortress surrounded by a moat. Remnants of the same can be seen still. There are four doors to the city. One for entry, one for exit, one for the monks and one to carry the deceased out of the fortress. We walked along the moat, and reached the most interesting hand painted umbrella factory. Though most of the employees were over 65 and were enjoying a siesta after a ravishing meal of sticky rice, one man eagerly asked whether I wanted my jeans painted or not. I politely declined to convey to him that I was more interested in umbrellas. But to my utter horror he didn’t speak a word of English, and crinkling his wrinkled face further, he approached me with a paintbrush dripping with yellow paint. I flailed my hand widely and picked up an umbrella and pointed it menacingly at him. Even though the gesture was extremely impolite, I kind of got the message across. Frustrated he threw down his brush and took me inside. Alu Gobi, instead of offering any linguistic assistance, seemed to thoroughly enjoy the situation.

I bought a pretty pink hand painted umbrella, fit to cover only a frog’s head, as per its size and then moved out. It was THB 98 only.

We walked back through a road where Gobi showed us his ex- flat and left us to our own devices at around 7.30 in the evening. Gorging on pork dumplings I couldn’t resist a street side massage. It was simply out of this world. Pretty much the same feeling that dope can give you. The food, freshly roasted, with a slightly difficult odour to bear..but tasty beyond comparison was still being served in full swing. Strabucks was still empty, and the employees seemed to have a good time hooked on to their cell phones.

Our next agenda was the Kalare Night Bazaar. Bargaining with a tuk tuk (once you are in Thailand, bargaining becomes an interesting pastime) it took us to a never ending street lined on both sides with temporary stalls selling anything and everything that one may care to buy. The vibrant and extremely bargain friendly night bazaar was an array of colours. Colouful table mats, coconut shell carvings, paper lights, wearable, colourful slippers and oh dear..the pretty painted umbrellas (for THB 40 only). It broke my heart.  We hung around till about midnight and had food at a roadside restaurant. A man with a paralyzed leg was trying to sell a difficult to comprehend contraption that went round and round making a fuzzy sound and emitting light like they’d show off a space ship in a low budget Hollywood alien movie. It became so frustrating after a while that his own toddler came, picked it up and put it in his bag, asking him with a toothless smile to stop. Just walking through the labyrinths of this amazing atmosphere can make one dizzy with excitement.

Ronaldo Vs Rembrandt

Bamboo Rafting

Hairy Periscope

 Day Three was booked whole day for Mae Taeng Elephant Safari. We took a van from the hotel, which was like a melting pot of tourists. Germany, Singapore, India, Lebanon, Isreal and Canada. The most interesting was the Canadian principal who’d spent 4 years beyond the Arctic Circle setting up a school and teaching the aborigines some modern technology. We reached the elephant enclosure and got to meet the stars, taking a shower. There was one tiny pachyderm that was the most active, enjoying every moment of his shower with a naughty twinkle in his eyes. The "show" included two artistic pachyderms painting trees. One of them was Ronaldo being forced to become Rembrandt. He just would NOT paint, and after much cajoling did a decent job. But once that chapter was over, the crazy elephant didn’t miss one shot at the goal. He was super-duper awesome. After the show the paintings sold for a whopping $250 each. Once the crowd started to disperse I went to caress one of the elephants, and just as luck would have it the mahout asked me to stand close, the elephant made me wear a cap, gave me a rather wet kiss on the cheek and then blew its (thankfully) dry nose in my face.  It was an out of the world experience. The agenda after all this was an exotic ox cart ride, but for an Indian like me, it was definitely something I was not looking forward to. The German ladies were thrilled with every bump and finally we reached the riding station after a back breaking but "worth it" ox cart ride!! Mine was a mama elephant accompanied by her two year old cutie pie. He demanded a sugarcane now and then and waded through the water, mostly drowning himself wholly with the tip of his trunk outside the water level like a hairy submarine periscope. He showed us several acrobatics like slipping off a ledge, dancing on a rock and like most two year olds ended up on his rear with a stupid expression on his face. I just loved him. The last agenda was bamboo rafting and we all took turns in rowing. It was fun. Much to the delight of our male companions, there was a raft filled with bikini beauties that had got stuck in one of the rocks. One should applaud their over emphatic concern for the damsels in distress till our boatman in Thai angrily managed to convey that the depth was 4 feet here and they were perfectly out of danger. This put at least 4 litres of water on the enthusiasm level and people got back to admiring the natural beauty and the helmsman’s posterior.

Lunch was scheduled at a tiger kingdom (one can find it in every Thai city), where the king of the beast’s tail  being used as a hookah pipe by tourists to take photographs, was a ghastly site. 6 jumbo prawns down, it was time to leave. Phuket awaited us next day, and the wake up call was at 6.