Chiang Mai (and Phuket), Thailand

What is a Wat?

It was a smooth pick up and trip to the airport — and to Chiang Mai. And both Aunt One and Aunt Two seemed eager to demonstrate that they wouldn’t be a burden — they insisted on taking care of their own bags and didn’t want any help during transit. The airport at Chiang Mai was smaller and hence less crowded, much easier to find our taxi driver than in Bangkok.

Our hotel was a small boutique-y place, seemingly staffed by people who were prohibited from being older than 25 — gosh, they made me feel old! It offered cute little made-to-order breakfasts.

***

During our visit to the Chiang Mai Cultural Arts Center, we ran into large elementary and middle school groups on field trips. Running into students in museums around the world, I get that warm feeling, a sense of nostalgia at the familiar tableau: the excited students, happy to be out of their classrooms; the stressed teachers, secretly praying nothing unexpected happened to their charges; the parent chaperones, just as happy to tag along as their own children are embarrassed. The museum goers were directed to follow red arrows on the floor, from room to room, each closed off by heavy and suspiciously musty dark curtains that did nothing to cheer up the place. There were lots of pictures and plaques and fake life-sized dioramas depicting ancient life in Chiang Mai. Beyond that, the museum did not display — as far as I could see — any significant collection of artifacts that made us woo-or-ahh. We did not linger.

We had better luck at the Lanna Folk Museum. It included quite a few buddhist figurines, textile samples, and ceramics.

***

Today’s dinner plan was a delicate balance of the preferences of our little group: something that was not far (Aunt One), something that did not have strong fragrances (Aunt Two), something that was not Thai (N.). My brilliant plan was to chose a Japanese restaurant around the corner where we ordered beef dons (rice bowls), mackerel don, and salmon don.

An hour later (!) I noticed an individual come into the restaurant with a couple of mackerel and a salmon in his arms. That’s when I remembered seeing that same individual leaving the restaurant roughly half an hour earlier.

So as far as I can guess, the workflow in this restaurant consisted of the following: open the restaurant for dinner at 5 pm. Take orders from guests. Rummage through the refrigerator and look frantically for ingredients for the dishes listed on the menu. Give up searching for ingredients. Send out a worker to the market to buy ingredients. Begin cooking.

By the time we got our plates, we all had lost our appetite but went along pretending not to notice, so we wouldn’t ruin anyone’s night.

***

Wat was today? Today was Wat Day. (Heheh…)

Wat Phra That Soi Sundep was on top of a mountain, important and busy and crowded. The one saving grace is that it did have a cable car, so even Aunt One did not have too much trouble playing the part of pilgrim.

Our tour guide Tammy did try to explain the significance of a few images — the lady with the long hair symbolized Mother Earth; the saba tree was considered holy in Buddhism — but neither aunt seemed much interested, and N. kept wandering off to take pictures of this and that, so I think Tammy was a bit discouraged or annoyed or resigned. (She seemed a bit robotic in her sharing of these factoids, and later confessed that she was not feeling well herself and that her mother had passed away recently, so these personal details did not exactly improve the vibe of the tour.) Tammy kept mentioning that all Buddha figures, large and small and in-between, had been donated by the devout. And I believed it, because interspersed among the myriad statues were donation boxes — almost as many as the statues themselves.

Although it was not scheduled as a stop, on the way down the mountain, we stopped by Wat Phra Lat at my request, at the recommendation of one of the staff at our hotel. In contrast to Wat Soi Sundep, it was actually possible at Wat Phra Lat to imagine it as a place of devotion and meditation — there were no shiny golden Buddhas, no donation boxes in sight. The main stupas and the surrounding buildings seemed designed to fit into the natural surroundings — instead of eclipsing them — and so a little faith was restored in the message of what I always think when I think of Buddhism — that of giving up worldly possessions and living in harmony with the world. Nearby, we even found a group of devout, sitting cross-legged on mats on the ground, listening attentively to a monk.

Back downtown, Wat Phan Tao is now a bit of a blur and I don’t even recognize pictures of it that I search online. If I remember correctly, Tammy might have said it was the first wat built in Chiang Mai, so it was the oldest, I think.

The last stop on the tour was at the Warorot Market. I released Tammy from her responsibilities, and so we had the rest of the time at the market to ourselves. We had what I usually call in my head a “too authentic” Thai lunch of mystery noodles with various toppings. At least they came with authentically cheap local prices.

By this time of our stay, it was difficult to ignore that the air here in Chiang Mai was just awful. And so it was after asking the hotel staff that I discovered, lo and behold, we had arrived in the middle of the burning season, when farmers burned the remnants of last year’s crops in preparation for this year’s farming season. An orange haze seemed permanently settled over the sky; masking didn’t help much. Both N. and I felt like we had throats made of sandpaper.

***

We found a little oasis of art and serenity in the middle of the old city, appropriately called Kalm Village.

It was a 3-story complex designed around a courtyard, with spaces for permanent and temporary artists’ exhibits (most of which, currently, seem to be in transition). For me, the best gift was the space itself — beautifully built and decorated. It was the kind of space that provided a visual break from some of the other parts of town.

We had lunch at their little cafe and wandered and shopped for souvenirs in its stores (a pair of navy fisherman’s pants; cushion covers for both Offspring One and Two; a tiny tote bag).

Later in the evening, N. and I went to Wat Chedi Luang during sunset. Despite — or perhaps because of — the earthquake 600 years ago which cracked the stupa, the structure left was still imposing and beautiful, providing an inkling to the fervor of those who had built this wat so long ago.

Walking back to the hotel, we stopped by a restaurant with justifiably good reviews and brought dinner for the Aunts who, we discovered to our dismay, had all the classic symptoms of the flu. Mwah!

***

Everyone dragged their sick selves to the airport and we made our way to Phuket, but as hard as it is to believe, we spent our three days in Phuket in our rental condo, with everyone trying to recover from the flu. The only saving grace was that our place had good views.

***

And so ended our Thai adventures.

Aunt One and Aunt Two flew back home, and N. and I continued on our Asian adventures.

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Bangkok, Thailand (Part 2 of 2)