Chiang Mai - Elephant country

Not sure what happened but we got to Chiang Mai 2 hours late so instead of arriving at 09:45 I got there at almost mid-day which meant I already lost half a day... but I wasn't to worry about it... I still had the other half of the day and a bunch of ideas about what to do.

I decided to book a room in the SKHouse 2 guest house (a recommendation from Alex from when he and Skeve were in Chiang Mai). Good value for money (I wouldn't expect less from Alex, anything less would be against his nature) ;-)

It's got a swimming pool, free locker at reception, although you need to have your own lock (I always carry a couple with me so that wasn't a problem). It's fairly central although the hotels area is about 20 minutes walk from here, but tuk-tuks are very reasonable.

It has a feel of a typical relax back-packer accomodation. The price was also very good, about 400 bath (9-10€) a night for a fan room, 700 (15€) with air-con. It's not very hot at this time of the year perhaps  25C so air-con is really not necessary (and after experiencing the full blast air-con they tend to use in this country I'd rather stick to the old fashion fan).

There are hundreds of activities you can do in Chiang Mai from spending a day with the elephants in a local elephant sanctuary where you get to feed them, bath them and ride them, walks through the jungle, a tiger park if you want to have your picture taken with some tiger cubs, flying over the jungle through a cable and many others.

As it was already quite late to attempt any of the above, I opted for a leisure walk with the intention of familiarise myself with the surronding areas and find a place to eat as I was starving... no breakfast on the train and it was lunch time already.

The guest house was quite centric as you can see below

No matter were you go right or left, there is a temple there. Chiang Mai is full of them as you can see on the map above.

The first two photos are from an official building

Thailand is a Buddhist country so all the temples are Buddhist temples usually dedicated to different Buddhas. Yes, there are different Buddhas! :-) I also got surprised the first time I heard it back when I was visiting Ankor Wat a couple of years ago and you can tell they are different by their posture and the objects they may be holding in their hands.

This temple had a nice garden on the back

And the last temple I've managed to see before I went to an unscheduled trip...

OK... I know... I shouldn't be talking to strangers but I just can't help it!

So I was holding my map to get my bearings and I was about to go inside when someone leaning against a car called me out, "no talking to strangers" I reminded myself but after the third time I just turned around, who knows perhaps he can tell me of a good place to eat (I still hadn't eaten anything).

It turned out the guy was from Bangkok, a University history teacher no less. Very good English. He just came with the family for some shopping in the "umbrella village" (a small village not far from Chiang Mai) and was waiting for his wife (a nurse in Bangkok) who had gone inside the temple. He recommended me to go there (the "umbrella village"), apparently people from all over Thailand (Thai people that is) come to Chiang Mai to buy silk, he even told me how to ask (in thai) to a tuk-tuk driver to take me there and wait for me to bring me back. 

All I can say is that it was a very long sentence in thai and although I wouldn't go there just to buy silk I wanted to go just to see how they make it.  

After he finished telling me what I would have to say in thai in order to book the tuk-tuk and faced with my hesitation to even start repeating what he had just told me he realised that negotiating the price in thai wasn't a possibility. I mean, I could repeat what he told me like a monkey but what happens when the driver answers me back... So very kindly he stopped a tuk-tuk and did the negotiation for me and he managed to get me a tuk-tuk to take me there and wait for me to drive me back, all for 100 bath (about 2.5€)

All good! I thought, unfortunately the driver had other plans for me...

There is a scam they practice in almost every country, in Egypt is almost compulsory to go through it, there is no way to avoid it. It's kind of expected.

The scam goes like this. They offer you a cheap excursion somewhere and on the way there they stop in some "selected shops" with prices adjusted to tourists (i.e. 200%-500% the normal price) and they get a good commission from anything you buy there.  

So my cheeky driver found himself with a "farang" (that's how Thai people call foreigners) on the back seat and saw his chance to make some extra money.

I have to give him some credit at least he was nice, taught me some basic Thai and took me to have lunch to the best place in this village, which turned out to be a take away shop by the road... the place was full of buses and it was also packed with locals, despite the initial impression I have to say that the food was really good.

The first shop he took me to, had a factory where they were making silk.

Warning to the squirmiest!!
Worm pictures below!

The three phases: Worm - Cocoon - Moth  

They stick the cocoons in semi-boiling water and with that they extract the silk thread

The yellow thread is untreated, the purple one is after "washing" the silk, not sure whether they add some dye to the mix or whether by simply washing it it becomes purple, the guide's English wasn't very good and my Thai even worse so I couldn't figure it out but if I understood correctly it was only washed.

Finally they make the fabric from the thread

Then they took me to the shop with the "adjusted" prices. 45€ for a tie!! I can find it in London for that price! Needless to say I didn't buy anything and I told the driver off, but he tried again with another shop and when I came out of it I told him to take me back home I didn't want to waste any more time.

That erased the smile of his face, he tried to convince me to go to yet another shop but I wasn't having any of it.

Back at the guest house I got a ticket for muay thai (thai boxing). I've never seen it before and I had been told that Chiang Mai was the best place for it, you are so close to the ring that you get to wipe the blood from your face (not my words...just repeating what I was told back in the UK) :-)

I went to the hotels area (where the Muay Thai stadium was), it wasn't too far (about 15-20 minutes walk). They have the leftovers from a city wall.

and had a walk about the market...it is huge!

They have these shops where you pick the fruit and they make the juice

And let's not forget the typical and very popular fish tank for your feet

 Finally, I made my way to the stadium

I tried to take pictures but it was too difficult and they were all a bit blurry so I made videos instead. :-)

The first thing that drew my attention was the music, they kinda move with the music


The crowd was almost as spectacular as the fight itself


The warming up was kinda weird


There was a KO!


and this was the last combat, the big fight of the night


The town takes a life of its own at night. It's full of people everywhere...tourists of course...and performers...


I don't think I'll be able to post anything tomorrow as I'll be catching another train back to Bangkok and there's no internet on the train... But as always, I'll save the entry for when I get to Bangkok.



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On my way to Chiang Mai

I barely slept anything on the plane the previous night so I thought that today I would be sleeping like a baby... well...the baby must have been crying because although I was falling asleep standing I went to bed at midnight, slept for 1/2 hour and then I couldn't sleep again until 03:30 or so.

I had to set the alarm to wake me up at 10:00, breakfast closed at 10:30 and I didn't want to miss it, you never know when your next meal is gonna be so I always make sure to start the day with a strong breakfast.

With a full stomach and sleeping well problems tend to look more like challenges rather than real problems.

Today, or rather tonight I'll be catching the night train to Chiang Mai and this time I'll be travelling in first class!

First class you may be wondering.

I can almost hear you thinking, What does a budget concious person like myself travelling First class?

Well...not my choice I must admit, it was the only class available for today (and I bought the ticket on the internet a week ago).

But fear not my dear reader, on the way back I'll be travelling in second class...with the people and for the people! :-)

I'll try to make a full report on travelling first class vs second class in Thailand. Who knows, someone may find it useful.

Anyway, as I promised yesterday, the pictures from the hotel roof showing the swimming pool and the gym.

I'd wish I could just chill out here for a little bit but a,s I had a late start today, I needed to find something to do until it was time to head for the night train so I decided to go for a short walk nearby and to pay a visit to to the closes shopping centre.

I know, it sounds a bit like a waste of time when I could be visiting the temples for example but...

1.- It is too hot and humid to be outside, if you need to do any activity during the day (like tourism) you ought to do it firt thing in the morning.

2.- I need to get a portable keyboard because the one I'm using is a, total pain in the butt, it takes twice as long to write anything.

3.- I also needed to find a place to have lunch.

You can alway opt in for the "street cuissine"

Although that's probably the easiest way to spend a couple of days in bed, or not...it's like the lottery you need to play to win it ;-)

There is a wide range of foods available from fruits, hot dogs, some thai curries all the way to fried ants, grass hoppers and the like (I kid you not).

I caught the sky train at Nana (the closest station)

It reminds me of the DLR in London.

The shopping centre turned out to be an interesting place. There was a thai group playing and judging by the number of teenage girls among the public together with a bunch of reporters taking photos like there is no tomorrow, they must have been quite famous.

and this is how they sounded



They even had an ice ring

what they did not have though was a portable keyboard. :-( so it looks like I'm gonna be stuck with this one for a while...

I took the below picture for those of you who have never seen written thai and are curious about it.

That's the reason why when you give a taxi driver a piece of paper with the address (in english) of the place you wanna go to, they sometimes, tell you they can't read it and that picture above is the reason why. It's not iliteracy it's simply that they have a *very* different alphabet.

When it was time to go to the train station I went back to the hotel and asked them to keep the larger rucksack for me until the 15th when I'll be back.

That way I'll only need to carry the smaller rucksack to Chiang Mai.

In order to get to the railways station I had to take the sky train and then the underground.

I think is worth mentioning this. Make sure you always have a jumper at hand when you walk about because shopping centres, cinemas, over and under ground trains, stations and, in general any enclosed space is always FREZZING. If you were to die in one of those places your body would be preserved for months. Let me say it again...Absolutely FREZZING...

Finally I made it to the Hua Lumphong railways train station.

The carriage car is small and cousy as you can see below,

That's first class... they do provide bed linen once the train starts, no need to carry a sleeping bag with you. It's first class after all... :-)


The only problem is that they bought the trains from Japan. How do I know that? well... it seems they have forgotten to translate all the instructions up on the wall.

All modern cons included,

Plus of course the air-con at full blast for better body preservation in case of premature death!
I was warmer in Sweden at -20C!


It looks like the only difference between 1st and 2nd class is that on 2nd you don't have your own private room. You get to share it with a bunch of extrangers... I just hope they don't snore!




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Back in Thailand

As everyone who has had the chance to talk to me in the past month or so knows I've been really looking forward to this trip.

My colleages at work said they could see it on my face! I´ll let you be the judge of that! :-)

 As you can see on the picture below, I packed really light, rucksack on the left 11Kg, rucksack on the right 6Kg

I'm not sure whether every time I travel I take fewer things than before or whether I'm going to be missing some very important item... we shall see...I still have the feeling, I could have packed, even lighter.

I also added a nice serrano ham sandwich to my hand luggage, you never know!...

There wasn't anything really remarkable about the flight, it was punctual when it left and also landed at the estimated time. What I did find remarkable though, was the increase on the taxi fare at the Bangkok, airport! ...although I've notice there is a train now going to the city centre, I need to check it out because I may use it on my way back when travelling to NZ.

The underground here (or should I say overground since it doesn't go under) it's pretty good and not too expensive so now that there seems to be the option, it would be silly not to use it.

This time I opted to stay at the CityChic hotel where I stayed a couple of years ago. It didn't disappoint me then and it didn't today either. :-)

Link to the hotel webpage

Rooms are nice

It comes with complementary bathrobe and flip-flops. :-)

There even is a swimming pool on the roof...and a gym!!... Today is already dark but I'll try to get a picture tomorrow.

What I didn't remember from the last time was the special view to the bathroom

If you are a couple sharing the room, the above view will remove all the mysteries left in the relationship. You are not looking through the door, it is a window with direct views to the throne!!

I´d wish I knew what the hell was going on through the head of the architect that came up with this brilliant concept.

Although I must admit, it is not the first time I see this innovative architectural concept implemented in a hotel room... I´ve seen it before in one of the places where I stayed when I was in Botswana. Who knows it may be catching up and soon you may find it installed in a house near you.

As it was already getting dark but it wasn't terribly late yet, I decided to go for a walk and take a few snaps of the surrondings.

It seems that budist countries also celebrate Christmas... and new year too!! Or perhaps the God Dollar has more pull than any other...

You can actually see the pollution on the last picture with the tree.

I must admit that although I love Thailand as a country (my 2nd favourite country in the world) I´m not very fond on its capital Bangkok. The palpable pollution, the constant stink, noise and the coucaraches of the size of your hand that come out at night and you can find everywhere. Actually I may take a picture next time of one of them , just for your viewing pleasure!

And if you are missing London... you only have to enter in one of the multiple shopping centres...

Tomorrow I'll be on my way to Chiang Mai (night train) so I won't be able to upload anything to the blog, but as always I'll write an entry for tomorrow and upload it whenever I find a place to do it. :-)

Also, I have to buy a new keyboard.... this one doesn´t have the letter 's' and keeps adding ',' all the time and I have to go back and remove them... it's taking me ages to write...

Well, time to go to bed and try to ride the jet-lag!



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