Thailand Part 2: Chiang Mai and the Great Green North

Hello, Chiang Mai

Dec. 29

I left Bangkok on the afternoon of the 29th for Chiang Mai. I know this because the tickets said so. I have no idea what day it is.

But before I left, I went out for a stroll in Bangkok this morning and found a very aromatic (and yes, in a good way) lane just a few hundred yards from the hotel.

It was about 10 in the morning and the food vendors had already set up. I didn't buy anything because it was too early for me to want serious food. But the access to really good food here is amazing. It's everywhere.

As with most side streets, there was no sidewalk so I walked on the left facing traffic. Only they drive on the wrong side here, and not too well, at that. I was nearly clipped by a van.

This is Harry on the street near the hotel in Bangkok. The aromas came from the cart behind him.

Larry handed me a beer Chang in the cab to the airport, and after that, I was perking up. Airport food is airport food everywhere, even in Thailand. The best we could do was dishes called gyosa and karate—pork and chicken, I think—along with a couple of bottles of Asahi.

The plane left Bangkok maybe an hour late, which put us here around four. I slept, sort of, on the plane.

I wasn't wearing a tie because of the climate, but the cab driver commented on how dressed up I was, probably because I was a foreigner in trousers and a jacket. She said I looked like someone from the Mafia.

We got to our rooms and the first thing to do was get bottled water. No one drinks from the tap here, but at the equivalent of $19 a night rent, the Safe House Court doesn't provide water. You have to buy your own. So we got that along with more beer.

I dropped off a load of sweaty clothes at a local laundry. The charge is 59 baht—about $2.50—a kilo because I want the shop to iron as well as wash and dry. They will be ready tomorrow afternoon. Cheap laundry, cheap beer, cab drivers who flirt with you—you can get spoiled here very fast.

Chiang Mai has a completely different feel from Bangkok. Traffic's not as bad. The buildings are older. There are golden stupas (some kind of Buddhist monument), antlered temples, trucks full of monks, crumbling brickwork in temple yards. My room looks out on one temple. I can hear monks chanting at another one right now. All the markets we passed are like the one we walked through on the way back to the boat yesterday. Like this:

I have run out of light for today, but will try to catch some mood shots tomorrow.

After all, this is just like the movies. I sometimes feel that I should be kick-boxing with somebody, or at least flipping a guy over my shoulder. 

We went to 7-Eleven for our water and beer. The chain is rumored to be taking over Thailand. They're like Wahlgreen's in New York—one on every block.

Larry and I split a pitcher of Chang Export at the Chiang Mai saloon. It's a farang bar. (Farang, the local name for the French, is used for all foreigners of European origins.) The picture on the menu is a cowboy riding a bucking elephant. We watched traffic go by, mostly motor bikes, a couple of tuk-tuks, very few cars. That's where I saw the truck full of monks.

I have no idea where I am, so I have the hotel's business card in my pocket so I can get into a cab and hand the driver the address.

Next morning:

The business card idea works. I rode in a tuk-tuk, but first handed the driver the card and said what I did in Prague: "It's a couple of kilometers from here. How much?"

Dinner last night was at a grill shop that serves green papaya salad and chicken. Also pork ribs. Concrete floor, picnic tables, perfect food. It was on a road that runs by the old moat. Bar hopping included a stop to see a couple of Larry's friends at another farang bar called the U.N. It was quiz night. the place was packed with a dozen teams. The master of ceremonies is a grizzled ex-pat with a pony tail and a worn prosthetic leg below his Bermuda shorts.

Percy and Seamus (I kid you not) were a team known as the Forlorn Hope. By association, Larry and I were part of the team. Seamus knew all the answers in the sports round. Who the hell is Kim Clijsters? I did all right in general info and World War II. Percy has one of those encyclopedic minds. We did all right, came in second, one point behind the lead.

The sleep on the airplane did me a lot of good. It was after 3 a.m. local time when I finally got to bed. 

I'm about to go out and photograph some temples. 

I expect to get home eventually.

Anna

Dec. 29

Hi Harry! Can I ask you who is collecting your mail? The reason is I had a car accident, car totaled and the insurance co. Sent the check, but I did not receive it. You know in the past the mailmen have sent my mail to you. Can u let me know or ask whoever has your mail if they have anything for me?

Jack

Dec. 29

Remember Donovan singing about Mellow Yellow, electrical bananas, and being "just mad about saffron”? Now it all makes sense!

Adventures in Chiang Mai

Dec. 30

Every day is an adventure, sure, but yesterday seemed special somehow.

We started out at a shopping mall. Larry needed some new Dockers. I got to wander in a supermarket.

We walked part of the way there and then got a tuk-tuk. Larry: "How much?" Driver: "Eighty baht." Larry: "Sixty."

The supermarket anywhere is a trip. They had an array of dried fruit, raisins and ubiquitous things like that of course, but also less common dried fruit like kiwi, cherries, and some I don't think I've seen even at Kalustyan's, the grocery store on Lexington Avenue in Little India. And I can't even remember how to spell the names. Also fresh stuff in startling colors, but they may be the reproductive pods of beings trying to take over the Earth.

The Safe House is in the old city of Chiang Mai. This part of town is surrounded by a square moat and the old wall, which may be hundreds or perhaps millions of years old, built by men or mastodons. It was on the way back from the mall that I stopped for the current photo, which Larry took at the old city's North Gate. You can call this "Harry Supports Chiang Mai."

Our first real adventure involved food, as it often does here. Larry is the sensei, and knows his way up and down the streets and alleys, which are colorful as hell but so exotic they all look alike to me. After all, I'm the Grasshopper, so what do I know. The side streets are like the narrow streets in many old cities of the world, including London, New York, and Prague. But here, they are all two-way thoroughfares with no sidewalks and people park cars on them. I told you in an earlier e-mail that I almost got hit by a van in a side street in Bangkok. No, no. I am wiser now. There were almost couple of inches of daylight between me and that fender.

I was trying to tell Larry about how I feel walking around the world, including the part where I live most of the time. "I have been on these alleys before, in lots of other places." It smells different and somebody has changed the furniture. The leaves of the trees have a different shape, but I have seen the same charm in New Hope, Pa.; Anna Maria, Fla.; Montclair, N.J. Even the soot on the walls.

And it is not a case of been-there-done-that. I want to keep finding this alley over and over again for the rest of my walking life, just to see how different the furniture can get.

As I say, Larry knows his way to places that are in the category of "you can't get there from here." He does the same thing in Amsterdam and Bangkok. So either he got lost this morning and refused to fess up about it, or it really was two- or three-mile trek up alleys, over the moat, past the body shops, and through deadly intersections to get soup. Of course, there was a clear benefit from all this exertion, because I for instance sweated out almost as much fluid as I drank yesterday. We burned calories and built up vitamin D. He got us there, but I'm still suspicious. His ass may have been as lost mine was, but he was too proud to admit it.

During this walk, by the way, I saw a lady wearing a winter coat with a fur-trimmed collar. She lives here. For the Thai, the 90-degree weather counts as winter up north.

This is a bamboo bridge I saw on the way to get khao soi.

We get to the place where we are going to have the first course. It looks like one of those unfinished places where you might find a farmer's market. Now, I have noticed that the rawer the place looks in Chiang Mai, the better the food is cooked. Larry ordered one dish made with jackfruit, another with rice, but they're out of that. "You mean we walked all the way here" (This illustrated by pantomime with size thirteen boat shoes) "and you're out of it?"

Remembering an earlier conversation about Anthony Bourdain in Chiang Mai sitting by the moat eating sausages and drinking beer, we order the northern Thai sausage. There's some nonsense too about coupons. You pay a cashier and get coupons worth so many baht. You pay the waitstaff with coupons when they bring you the food. Clearly there is a trust issue at work here. This practice, Larry tells me, is an innovation at this place. He says you often see it at shopping mall food courts in Thailand.

The jackfruit dish is savory, not sweet, and the sausage is lukewarm. Even so, it tasted pretty good to me. After all, my yogurt and pineapple slices were several hours and a few miles in the past by now, so I was a mite peckish. Besides, what do I know? I'm the Grasshopper here. I thought maybe that's how the northern Thai like it. Larry takes it back because they should have heated it. He comes back to the table looking a little shocky and says in this almost far-away voice: "They put it in the microwave."

I still thought it was all right, but then, I'm still the Grasshopper. The filling was tasty and spicy and unlike any other sausage I've had. A little smoky with herbs, maybe. "Unlike any I've had" is always a good thing.

Larry missed the crispness that true grilling would have added. He was probably right. That could have made it even better.

Then we retraced our steps for a half mile or so to a joint that looked like an old bar-restaurant that you might see in Shartlesville, Pa., or Marathon, N.Y. Only instead of black bears or the Pennsylvania Dutch flag, you see pictures of monks on the walls. It also smells very different, and that reminds you that you are not in Kansas—or Pennsylvania, New York, or New Jersey—any more.

This was the destination for khao soi, or khaw soy, a spicy chicken soup fortified with fried noodles. God, it's good, the Grasshopper says. God, what has happened to this place I'm so embarrassed I made you schlep all that distance for this—yadda yadda yadda, so to speak. Sometimes it pays to be the Grasshopper. I was enjoying the food.

Larry got up and looked at the pot of soup we were served from and at bowls on a couple of other tables that he passed. He suspected that the soups looked different. What did they do? Maybe because we're farang they put water in the soup.

Next adventure was brief but terrific. On the way back to our neighborhood, there was an endless open-air market selling just about anything you want to eat—dead shrimp, dried shrimp, crabs, frogs, fish, garlic, herbs, curry powders, fish sauce, etc. Larry bought some more mangosteens and some tiny tangerines. I bought some kind of savory doughnut sandwich that seemed to have a quarter of a hard-boiled egg and a slice of radish in it.

We stopped at an Internet cafe to print a couple of e-mailed documents that Larry needs to enter Vietnam. He leaves for there about the same time my plane takes off for Tokyo on the seventh. We also needed to print out vouchers for hotels where we will stay after we leave Chiang Mai.

That was when our housing adventure began. We had a little difficulty with the booking for our next stop, a couple of nights back in Bangkok. After 24 hours, Agoda, the online booking service, hadn't sent us the voucher for the room, which was prepaid on my credit card.

I had an e-mail message thanking me for the booking, but no actual voucher, which we'd need to check in. The Agoda Web site told us that we had no current active bookings.

So I'm the Grasshopper. The sensei, however, is used to bouncing around the world without a land line. We booted up Skype again and called the company's customer service line, which has a prefix of 44, which is England. We spoke to a lady sitting who knows where, who told us things were up in the air because the hotel might or might not have rooms and so the transaction was still pending.

Larry went mildly ballistic. Why weren't we told that? Why did we have to call to find that out? What if the rooms aren't available?

She promised to check it right away and ten minutes later we had the voucher in my e-mail account. Sometimes a little ballistic works wonders.

We strolled up the street, around the corner, around another corner, and maybe another to get our laundry at five. It wasn't ready yet. Larry is bummed out. He wants to take a shower, but says he needs his clean clothes first. What's the problem, sensei? Use this hour to shower and shave, put on your current clothes, change when we get the laundry. No, that won't do. These clothes smell bad I'll get all sweaty yadda yadda yadda. Sensei, for a guy who lives in the Third World, you are finicky today.

Now, this is one of the reasons I enjoy hanging around with Larry. He doesn't get pissed off over a crack like that. Instead, he wants to argue his case. "I'm not finicky. I'm just being practical" or whatever.

Third adventure: this time Larry actually got lost for about five or ten minutes.

Percy was going to be at the Pirate's Cove singing folk songs. We have to go down our street a ways, turn right, and after an indeterminate number of steps, there it is. Because of a combination of the street names, the cuteness of the tourist map, and my jet lag, I couldn't be expected to do that on my own. Don't worry, says the sensei. I think I know the intersection. The worst that can happen is we go too far and come to the moat.

The map shows this big crossing, like maybe there's a traffic light (yes, they have them here, but drivers usually ignore them). We found the moat instead. OK, we take a right, then another and at the first cross street, we don't know which way to go. We go left. Right all the time is boring. We go maybe 50 yards—well, meters here—Larry sees a sign for—get this—khao soi. He's been here, done that, and knows exactly where we are.

We turn around and go the other way. Next thing I know, there's a tiki bar like the ones at restaurants in beach resorts, with Percy in it, along with four or five chubby Brits.

Percy wasn't putting on a show, as we'd expected, but was sitting at a table drinking beer and singing a cappella with one of the chubby Brits doing harmony. Percy has three hand-written notebooks of lyrics. A few of the songs I recognize. Yeats' "Song of the Wandering Aengus," one that I heard a Canadian sing on the radio called "Barrett's Privateers,” and a few others. Most of them I didn't know.

Percy and his harmonist sang a sea chanty called "Haul'er Up," which mentions among other things a lady who pisses in a bucket. The grasshopper is entertained. The sensei prefers jazz and I think he had enough after the sea chanty, because a short time later he begged off and headed back to the digs. Can you get back all right? Sure. I have the hotel card. I hand it to a tuk-tuk driver, overpay him two dollars, and I'm fine.

I had a few more beers Chang, listened to a few more songs. I offered to buy another round, but Percy's buddy had to head for home because it's the holidays even here and the police are eagerly searching for drunk drivers. Considering how badly everybody drives here when they're sober, I am relieved to hear this information.

My last adventure of the day: I seem to recall riding to the hotel on the back of Percy's motor bike. I felt almost like a local.

More later.

Harry

The Sherpa's Two Cents

Sent by Larry, Dec. 31

Greetings, all,

As I don't know most of you, it might seem odd for me to be offering unsolicited thoughts on Harry's ramblings, but as his tour guide, minder and part-time baby sitter, and as one always ready with an opinion on just about anything, valid, welcome, or not, I couldn't help myself.

I have known Harry for almost 25 years, with our roles now reversed. In another life, he was my editor/mentor when I was a journalist; I am now his travel guru as he looks to expand his horizons.

A bit about me: After more than two years on the road all over Europe,  Morocco and here in Thailand, I decided to start another life, teaching English in Thailand. I've been here about a year.

For the most part, Harry is an absolute delight to travel with, and it's been my pleasure to give him some insight into my wandering, as generally useless as they might be to most normal people. Last year, it was Amsterdam, "my home away from home"; this time, Thailand. He's endured my insufferable food obsessions and occasional lapses of temper, judgement and good taste with humor and patience. He's amazingly energetic, game for almost anything, and adds a sense of wonder that I too often lose in my occasionally world-weary and jaded mindset, the unfortunate symptom of many months on the road and living in foreign cultures.

That said, it's hard not to comment on certain things:

First, he did ask me to fill in blanks about some details on food. I was all set to do so, but then thought better of it. Most of you would find it positively boring. If indeed Anthony Bourdain is one of your idols (as he is mine), or you are considering a culinary adventure here, feel free to drop me a line via e-mail, and I'd be happy to answer whatever questions you have.

On the "yadda-yadda": Yes, my palate can be both a blessing and a curse. Following culinary leads in numerous cities has often led to some incredible insight and adventure. After language, I'm convinced food is the most important window into a culture. Show an interest in local cuisine, and you'll often receive a positive reception from people who will sometimes even take you under their wing.

But, unfortunately, when I think I'm being misled, or when I see a decided lack of care in food preparation, I can have a short fuse. Harry finds it remarkable that I have few worries about where I'll be working and living next (as of my return to Bangkok from Singapore on 25 January, I have no place to live and no job. I travel with virtually all of my worldly goods in tow, which amounts to one small and one large bag), but serve me what I consider a poorly prepared dish: watch out.... I can lose my marbles right on the spot. It's a major contrast to the incredible contentment I often experience from the simplest of authentic, soulful meals. In a phrase: don't mess with my food.

I also hate being stinky and wearing fetid clothes, and it certainly makes no sense to change back into them after a shower. Even in wintertime, it's often hot and humid here. I've given up quite a bit to live the supposedly romantic life of a rootless ex-pat, but a hot showers and clean clothes will not be among them, third world country or otherwise. Yes, you can call me finicky, but you'd mostly be wrong: you should see some of the conditions I've lived and worked in since being on the road. That said, I do have a fairly thick skin, and am more apt to undertake a lively debate with a thinking person than be offended. It's a lot more fun that way.

Some other general comments on Harry's musings: "I arrived in Chiang Mai." Yes, you did. But first person singular in this case (and a couple of others you've written about) would seem misleading. You were not alone. Your faithful Sherpa was with you every step of the way. As much as I love traveling with Harry, there are those moments where he will totally bliss out on the experience to the point that I need to reel him back in: "Earth to Harry? Earth to Harry? Come in, please." I sometimes worry that if I take my attention away from him for a minute during our wanderings, he'll be abducted by a local he thinks looks like a character from one movie or another he's seen that was set wherever we might happen to be.

And, no Harry. This place is not like New Hope, or Indiana, or whatever other middle-American location you seem to conjure up in your occasional babblings. We are on the other side of the world where, despite the heat, air conditioning is a rarity in public places, the local flora and fauna are completely different (when's the last time you had geckos crawling up the walls of your hotel room in Florida?), the food and beverages are like nothing you can get in the states (a veritable nightmare here for germaphobes, and I am a great lover of street food, which most Americans wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole), and the people are smaller, darker and usually speak little or no English. I get concerned these comparisons are inspired by addled recollections resulting from an over-active imagination combined with excessive alcohol consumption.

I'm glad he's reporting on some of the ex-pat characters I've introduced to him. As important as it's been for me to "mix with the locals" and learn the culture — teaching has been an excellent way to do that — when it comes to most of my free moments, it's time spent with fellow travelers and expats that usually makes me happiest. I'm fortunate to have friends on four continents, and it's been a delight introducing Harry to some of them. And, no surprise, he has also generally been a big hit with them.

And so, gentle readers, please know that despite the occasional minor mishap — even I get lost occasionally — I'd like to think your Harry is in vigilant, if not good hands. I promise to do my best to get him on his flight back to the States in one piece, if not completely sober.

Harry's Humble Sherpa,

Larry

John F

Dec. 31

Dear Larry,

I've heard so much about you that I can't help but refer to you in familiar terms. I'm grateful that you are doing your best to ensure that Harry doesn't stray from the sherpa's pack—whether that little yak likes it or not!

I also appreciate you telling us a little about yourself. The mystery of "Larry" has been looming for quite some time. Is Larry a real person, or someone from Harry's vivid imagination? An imaginary traveling companion, perhaps. When Harry sends out his travel log, I always check to see if he sends it to this stranger named "Larry" and when I see your name I feel just a little better, knowing that at least Larry has a permanent residence in cyberspace.

Thanks for all you do for Harry. Next time you get to New York, the first beer is on me, as well anything you'd like from any street vendor in the city.

Larry Leventhal

Jan. 1

A pleasure, John. Should I make my way back to NYC (quite unlikely any time soon, but stranger things have happened), we will definitely get together for a beer and a snack. Assuming Harry behaves himself, he can join us, too.

Joanna Eng

Jan. 2

Have fun, but stay away from your movie land, you are in Thailand.

Listen to your Sensei, ’cause the thought of you being abducted made me frightened.

Harry

Jan. 3

There is no danger of Harry being abducted.

I am armed and, besides, know how to be dangerous.

Changing the Year in Chiang Mai

Dec. 31

From participating in Buddhist rituals and visiting the bug museum to watching the display in the sky from moatside, December 31st has been an eventful day.

Larry tells me that the principal breakfast dish for the Thai is rice gruel. We decided to put off that treat and have a Western, that is Brit-style, breakfast this morning. Good thing. I haven't had too many tomatoes lately.

Larry said he had some things to do this afternoon, like write an e-mail (which you may have received) and take care of some more documentary evidence. Actually, I think he needed a break from baby-sitting. 

So here I was, on my own in Chiang Mai. I have a moderately useful tourist map by a graphic artist named Nancy Chandler. It has the major streets on it, along with landmarks, the Red Cross, and the names of every business that paid the lady money to be included. I've got the hotel card to get me back. I can say "thank you" in Thai. (It sounds almost like "cop coon cop".) I may be able to read one letter of the Thai alphabet. If I'm correct, it looks like the Hebrew resh and has a value something like the "a" in cat. What's more, breakfast is still sitting heavy in the pit of my stomach. The Grasshopper is fortified and all set to get lost.

Funny thing is that I only had to look at the map a couple of times over the course of about three hours. It's so easy. I stayed inside the old city, and you may recall the adventure of Pirate's Cove. You want to find some place in the old city, the moat tells you when you've come too far. 

The first stop was Wat Pan Tao. There are wats everywhere in Chiang Mai. This is a large one a few blocks from the Safe House. I walked around the grounds to see the stupas. Some monks, who may have been teenagers, were planting poles in the ground with parasols and banners on top. There was a stupa there made of bamboo filled with dirt, and another under construction and surrounded by a bamboo scaffold, which is the universal construction platform, even for high-rises, in Asia. 

Inside the temple there were opportunities to achieve merit. I donated money to a fund that will build a bathroom for novices and monks, to another that maintains the pavement around the temple, and also placed a coin in a cup held by an image of Buddha.

I knelt in front of the big Buddha statue, and my legs were quaking under me, probably from hangover. 

On the way out, I was approached by a girl who may have been Japanese. "May I take picture with you?" There was something about the vowel in "you" that I may have heard in Japanese restaurants. But that is a wild guess.

Figuring that she has mixed up her prepositions, I ask for her camera so I can take a photo of her and her three friends. No, she wants one of her pals to take the picture. She wants me in the photo with her and the rest of her friends. OK, so I'm being set up. But being victimized in small ways is one of the joys of travel. It's how stories are born, for instance, and since they are essentially true, you don't have to do all the work of making them up from scratch; you just have to embellish.

So I'm game. They were giggling a little bit as they lined up next to me. Let's see how this scam works.

But how wrong the mind of a skeptic can be: They only wanted the photo taken. That was it. Maybe they mistook me for someone else, a celebrity maybe. Is that likely? It's clear that I am exotic here, an outlander, but they are hardly rare in Chiang Mai. 

I didn't see the picture, but the young ladies seemed satisfied with it. I tried to hold my head at an angle and smile, in the way a lot of celebrities do in photos. Of course, what the ladies may do with my image in Photoshop is anybody's guess. But if they try to blackmail me, they will be disappointed. I have lost all sense of shame.

The Museum of Insects and Natural Wonders, unbeknownst to me, was just down the street. A sign out front says, "This museum is the labor of one couple's life work." It seems that Mr. Marop and his wife, a Ph.D who has a name I can't remember how to spell, are not collectors but entomologists who have specialized in the study of mosquitoes.

The museum contained bits of rock and wood that look like something else—small dogs, dinosaur heads, and the like. That was boring and you can see that in Upstate New York. But there were also cases of vicious looking beetles, extraordinary butterflies and moths, some with wingspans bigger than a sparrow's, and several of mosquitoes with pins through their wings to hold them in place. Also a jar of unsorted mosquitoes that may have been spares.

One of the displays includes biographical information about the origins of Mr. Marop's interest in mosquitoes. When the Japanese occupied Chiang Mai, the Allies began bombing in 1942. Mr. Marop, who was about nine at the time, was sent to a remote village in the hills for his safety. He contracted severe case of malaria, and nearly died. He was taken to a traditional healing woman, whose treatment consisted of bleeding him. He says she took a thorn from a tree and pierced him at several points about the anus until he bled. He estimates that he underwent this treatment on perhaps ten different occasions. There is an old photo of him at nine. The caption says, "Oh, my poor anus."

When I came out of the Museum of Insects, it was about one o'clock in the afternoon. I stop at a convenience store to buy my first beer Chang of the day. Then I come to another temple. I stand on my side of the road to finish the beer, walk around to find a place to drop the can (Trash cans are not abundant here, but I notice there is very little trash on the street.), and then proceed. A lady sells me a flower (Maybe it's a real lotus—as in "jewel in the heart of" and other Buddhist references. The Grasshopper's not sure what a lotus looks like.) for 10 baht. What do I do with it? Leave it in church? 

They are also selling packages of string. Now, this is confusing. They all look the same, but they are sorted according to days of the week. Then I remember the first temple. You put money into a slot for your birthday. Not day of the year, but day of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Wednesday night (which is handled separately), Thursday, etc. The offering is supposed to improve your fate and your life. I was out of small change by then and so will have to enjoy my current path of life. 

The temple, as I discovered after wandering around and finding a sign in English, is Wat Phra Singh and it is not like the previous one or others that I passed. There is a welter of activity here. Vendors have set up in the temple grounds. People are picnicking. The locals outnumber the monks and the tourists.

A voice from inside the temple sounds like someone is giving a sermon. So I leave my bucks on the steps and head inside. The place was jammed. A family is posing for a group photo in front of an altar. People are tying knots in the strings and lining up in front of monks, who are sitting on chairs to one side. The voice I heard was of a monk reading, possibly prayers or sacred scripture.

Other monks tie the strings around people's wrists and then bless their heads with holy water sprinkled from a brush. Flowers like the one I bought have been placed on bowls in front of the monks. Not wanting to interfere with anyone's blessing, I added my lotus to some others in front of an empty chair.

When I knelt for the Buddha, the Chang had kicked in. My legs were hardly shaking at all.

This may have been a New Year rite. The wat may do this every Saturday (at least, I'm pretty sure it was Saturday.). Larry has heard that there is a convention of Buddhists in town. Not all, but several other temples, have been very active.

Monks were selling streamers filled with bills. You donate 100 baht and they give you a streamer with five neat 20s held in cellophane pockets. People were writing messages on cards, putting them into the pockets with the bills, and with the use of a notched bamboo pole were hanging them overhead.

The cards are printed with the images of different animals. These may be the signs of the traditional Thai zodiac. Larry told me that the Thai, when they get tired of us lumbering around, will call us farang quai, which translates to "French buffalo."

Not knowing the traditional Thai zodiac, I look for a card with a buffalo, but couldn't find one. The closest I could get was a very handsome sow. Then things got serious for a moment.

I wrote a small New Year wish, asking the Powers to look fondly on the living and the dead. And I remembered them all at once, those whom I have loved and those who have loved me back. It is an overwhelming sensation when it happens, and I have had it before. It is usually brief and always intense. I don't like to experience it in front of people who know me. My face probably looks pretty strange when it happens.

Then things lightened up again.

There were stupas and smaller temples on the grounds, including one with its own reclining Buddha, only not as big as Bangkok's. Near that was a white stupa with an altar where I was able to light incense and a candle. Many people were taking cups of water and lining up to carry out another ritual. They poured the water into a cylinder on a miniature cable car. Then they cranked a handle to send the carrier up the cable. When it reached a point high on the stupa wall, the cylinder overturned and the water spilled. Today's photo shows the carrier just after it has spilled and is on the way back down. The black marks on the white wall are from repeated water spills. No one drinks from the tap here. 

I strolled some more to absorb local color and got back to the hotel around 4:30.

After a quick change, we were ready for the holiday. This has been my 66th New Year's Eve. It is also the first that I have spent outside my house in more than two decades, I think. 

We started with some tequila and my second Chang of the day, then went for dim sum. After strolling around among the early revelers, we stopped at an open-air bar on the roof of a small hotel on a side street. It caters to the French, but as it turns out, it has house policies similar to those of many bars in Amsterdam.

After that discovery, we headed around the corner to the U.N. Irish Pub to see Percy and Seamus. Percy, the professor, was spiffed out in a pin-stripe suit. He had French cuffs on, and I had left mine at home in New Jersey. He and his family, a laughing Thai lady and a 10-year-old son, were there to partake of the holiday barbecue. Seamus is a very thin vegan, so I guess he was there for the beer.

Entertainment was two Irish singers who did some good Dylan covers and several prison songs. I loved it, but Larry decided it was time to revisit the French. He has studied the language and uses it from time to time in his travels, so I guess he went back to sharpen his conversation skills.

The singers, a man and a lady, were doing one number that was still new to their repertoire. She had a sheet with all the lyrics except the last verse, which she would "do from memory." And she did fine, too, until the second line of that last verse, when she went blank. Percy ran to the rescue and led her through it.

He also did some a cappella, including "The Wild Colonial Boy," during their break. 

Larry and I left the U.N. around eleven and headed for the moat, where we expected to see fireworks. Outside, there was one of the most wonderful displays I have ever seen in the sky. A custom here is to take a lightweight paper lantern about three feet high and light a disk of something combustible in the base. After a couple of minutes, the assembly becomes a hot-air balloon and takes flight. There were hundreds of them, all glowing yellow lights, drifting over the city. 

I don't know how far they can rise, probably hundreds of feet. When they use up their fuel they just flutter lazily back down to earth. Here and there you could see them crumpled in the street or hanging from tree limbs.

Most people were headed for the moat. The sidewalks were full; traffic was snarled. 

I bought a lantern when we got to the moat, because this was too cool not to be part of it. With Larry's help it took off. People up and down the moat were sending them up, and shooting Roman candles, and then the fireworks started. All over the horizon. Traffic wasn't snarled any more. It was at a standstill. The crowd was picking its way through an endless parking lot to see this view and that view of the lights. It was laughing-out-loud fantastic.

I hope everybody's day was fantastic.

Bless you all.

Another Great Day in Chiang Mai

Jan. 1, 2012

New Year's Day: more aimless wandering, and I did get lost three times, but in the good way.

Because of a dish of great pad thai made on the street last night after midnight and a stop for a final beer at the Chiang Mai Saloon, I wasn't feeling hungry when I woke up this morning.

I was up around 7 local time and had coffee early, but it was almost eleven before we went out to eat anything. Remember the khao soi sign that got Larry to the Pirate's Cove? That's where we ate breakfast this morning. It's also what we had, khao soi gai, which is made with chicken. We had a spicy and savory jackfruit salad as good as the one we had on the other side of town a couple of days ago. There was also eggplant with Thai basil and sticky rice. No beer that early, even for me, today at least.

Larry's universe is back in balance. Everything was perfect.

Larry went to handle more business, and I took off with the tourist map and hotel business card in my pocket.

I walked along stretches of the moat, stopped in at a city park, also at a pet store to see the sandfish skinks. They are lizards with frilly necks that stand very still, trying to look like rocks. Let a bug crawl on the rock, and he's gone.

The store must be the PetSmart of Southeast Asia. And there was another store selling pet supplies a few steps down the sidewalk. There are lots of dogs and cats here, and they go everywhere and do just about anything they want. But judging by the size of the store, the Thai must be as obsessed with their pets as Americans are. Come to think of it, we did see a white poodle this evening being conveyed in a baby stroller.

The ring roads that run by the moat have little shade, are very noisy, and are perilous to cross. So I left them behind to wander up and down alleys instead. Today's photo is taken from one of the larger lanes and is looking out onto the park by the city moat. The clothing racks are the laundry being dried by a professional service whose sign is out of frame.

It was on this same lane that I had a plate of the best pineapple slices I ever ate. I was walking around sweating and feeling the hot weather. Also feeling the effects of too much partying. Larry had recommended pineapple—refreshing, especially in the heat. All the fruit tastes great here. Our taste buds seem to crave that kind of thing when we're hot, and maybe the fruit grows tastier in this climate. Maybe it's my imagination or perhaps I'm mistaken.

It took me only three tries to find the alley where we took our laundry. That's kind of lost in reverse. I knew pretty much where I was, or at least how to get back to my starting point, but didn't know how to get to the place where I needed to go.

I may even remember how I got there. This will be doubly useful knowledge because I am sweating a lot and need to have my clothes washed frequently, and also because we will be moving to the Boon Thavon, a hotel in that lane, for two days beginning tomorrow.

More evidence that I'm not in Kansas any more: I was wandering through one lane, and across from the beauty parlor, a man in a uniform, maybe a policeman, stood with his back to the road peeing into a trough. I don't remember seeing anything like that in daylight, even in New York. Usually the police arrest people for that, or at least serve them tickets.

The temples are everywhere, and they are not just churches. They are complexes containing a principal shrine, often partly covered in gold, plus shrines of various sizes, a variety of stupas, and apartments for the monks. Some of the stupas are old crumbling brickwork, some are made of bamboo, others are covered in white and gold, some are covered in bamboo scaffolding as they are being restored. Many of them are hundreds of years old.

I went back today to see if the festivities were continuing at Wat Phra Singh. They may have intensified.

Here and there at Wat Phra Singh and some other temples, there are signs posted with aphorisms. They read almost like fortune cookies: "The good man never extols himself; the clever man never boasts; the great man never brags." "It is easy to learn a man's face; it is difficult to know a man's thought." (Or did it say "impossible"?)

The temple that I see from the window of my room is called Wat Baan Ping. A sign outside that wat says, "It's never too late to mend." I may remember that. Or may not.

According to a history posted on the grounds, the principal Buddha image is in the Singh fashion. I certainly don't know enough to understand what that means, although the headdress on the figure is shorter than on some other images. But that style and details of the stupa that I also don't understand suggest a construction date of sometime in the 14th century of the common era. It's about as old as some of the Gothic landmarks of Europe. And so is the city wall.

At one corner of the moat, I was able to climb onto that old city wall, near where a cistern used to be. I wouldn't climb onto the brickwork. That was too old. But there were some paving slates up there and I stepped onto them. This is where the defenders of the city stood in pointy Siamese helmets and golden armor, cutting people in half with scimitars.

Much of the place is hidden from the road, though, and some drunks must have been partying pretty hard up there last night. It's one of the few sites where I have seen trash strewn about a public place. And when I think about it, that surprises me. I had expected a Third World city to look like some of the rundown areas of Newark or New York. Chiang Mai's not Frankfurt, but the desert outside Las Vegas has more litter than the streets of the old city.

I got to that corner, by the way, because of the second time I got lost. I stopped for a small Heineken at 2 in the U.N. Irish Pub, and then headed north. I thought I had crossed the moat a block above the street where the U.N. is. Then I turned right, which is east. I was making directional notes in my head so the worst that happens is I retrace my steps, because I was outside the old city now. This is free-form. No moat to tell me I missed the Pirate's Cove. Friends, I was stepping into the big time. I was an Asian traveler.

So when I came to the moat, I was a trifle flustered, especially because I didn't know which side I was on. Clearly I had spaced out, but the question was when. I might have crossed the moat and then circled back without realizing it. Or maybe my sense of crossing the moat was in fact nonsense. I made an error about direction one afternoon in Buenos Aires and walked an extra four or five miles.

I didn't want to do that here. I was supposed to meet Larry back at the hotel around four so we could go the street market to eat pork and bugs, and other exciting things.

I get the map out, hold it up, study it, and Nancy Chandler comes through for me. If I'm inside the moat, and turn left, I will come in a short distance to the northeast corner of the moat. If that doesn't happen soon, I'm outside and come back, retrace my steps to the hotel, and not tell anybody. Either way, problem solved.

I came to the corner of the moat.

So after I look over the old fortifications, I head west along the northern ring road. I've got it now. I'll come to a street headed south until I come to that other street whose name starts with "Ram," turn right, then come to the other street that starts with "Ram," where the Yamaha dealer is, and turn right again. I'll see lots of signs that say "Internet," and hell, I'll be home.

It never works like that.

I'm walking, making my way, confidence ebbing as I go. I haven't come to any other moats yet. I haven't spaced out again, have I? Then I see a piece of sidewalk. Actually the pavement at the entrance to a retail building on a corner. It is slate cut by a graceful curve, like a gently bending river of pebbles. It's a decorative touch, or maybe provides drainage. I had stepped across that river this morning to make way for a lady pushing a baby carriage. Earth reached Harry, and I looked up and said, yes, this is the first Ram street. But I was a block west, not east, of my destination.

Left turn. Yes, left turn. Don't mind the traffic. They only pretend that they're allowed to run you down.

But then, oh wow, man, this is not deja vu. Did I turn the right way?

It was after three. There were so many vendors setting up, trucks blocking the street and sidewalk, and people out walking that I didn't recognize a street that I had traveled only three hours earlier. Then I remembered a white stucco wall. Yes, even at noon, there had been bundles of vendor stuff blocking the sidewalk so I had to step into the street and compete with motor bikes. I was on the right street. This was the Sunday Market pulling itself into shape.

It's about 9 right now, and the Sunday Walking Market is still open. Vendors have set up stalls on the main street, which is closed to traffic from 4 to 10. It's about a hundred yards from the hotel. They sell all kinds of tchatchkes and wonders—hand-made jewelry, carved wooden animals, origami mobiles made of palm leaves, clothes, bowls, vases, souvenirs, omelets with ant eggs (very good), used comic books, fried crickets (a little funky tasting and, Larry says, not crisp enough), plus some things I even recognized, like spare ribs. There are musicians and beggars, and the locals outnumber the tourists.

There are cars parked and others stuck in all the streets around the Safe House. Half the motorbikes of the world seem to have congregated here. There is a temple that is dark, but its parking lot is full. Making a few bucks, I guess. Maybe they're going to build a bathroom for the monks and novices.

Besides crickets, ant eggs, and ribs, we sampled a fried chile and a fish fried whole from one vendor. We got one of each, and the guy cut them into bite-size bits with a pair of shears. We had fried wontons that contained quail eggs. This, mind you, is all available at a flea market.

We took three kinds of pork, the crickets, and sticky rice back to the hotel so we could have beer with dinner. The street market is dry, probably because they don't want people colliding and spilling beer on each other. It gets more crowded as the night progresses. There were spots where it was already difficult to navigate at six, so I can't guess what it's like at eight or nine.

I have partied heartily over the past few days. Today, I have limited myself to half a dozen beers, and not one has been as much as a half liter. I am going to go bed early and wake up in the dark. Tomorrow we go feed the monks.

Love to all.

HH

Harry H to Tenebrous Kate

Jan 1.

I have an urgent message that needs to get to Brian. He may want to change his travel plans.

He was talking about how he'd like to come here so he could go to a bar with a sign that forbids customers to bring in their guns, knives, and hand grenades.

That might happen in some of the rougher sections of Bangkok. But I don't know. Most of the Thai people I've met are charming, gracious, and considering that large neighborhoods of their cities have been overrun by farang quai, pretty tolerant. 

But I digress. That is not the message. 

Brian may want to rethink his travel plans because he could starve here. Or else spend all his time in emergency rooms instead of bars. 

The only thing that doesn't have peanuts in it is the beer. It's not that they are always included. But you never know when they will show up. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I'm not always sure about the beer.

Thai food will be Russian roulette for him. He may want to look in Newark first for that kind of bar.

Tenebrous Kate, Jan. 2

Oh dear! I'd kind of feared that was the case. I keep trying to poke Brian into getting an allergy test to sort out if there's anything that can be done for his allergy (which I understand to be mild as far as those things are concerned). The idea of relying on Thai emergency care with the added wrinkle of not speaking the language is rather cold-sweat-inducing.

I guess we'll stick with the "bratwurst in Berlin" plan, then! I'll just make a posterboard "no weapons" sign and hang it up outside the bar so he can check that off the bucket list.

Harry H

Jan. 2

Darlin, I have heard that many food allergies are caused by the relative sterility of our American digestive systems.

I understand that contracting a case of worms ends peanut allergy. Brian may want to check that out.