Somber Anniversary

October 13-14

Friday the 13th was the anniversary of the king’s death. It would be a day of genuine mourning. The Thai people universally loved the late king.

We had no idea what to expect.

Joanna and I walked to the Somthep Market, near the northeastern corner of the Old City, early in the morning while it was still cool. 

Markets anywhere are fun to visit, but may be best in Asia, where stalls seem to offer everything: produce, clothes, candy, live fish in buckets. There is always someone cleaning squid or prawns.

The color, the smells, the noise all together can make you feel like Indiana Jones.

We stopped at Mountain Coffee, for my caffeine fix. 

From there we strolled out to the moat and back in the general direction of the coffee shops near the Tha Phae Gate. 

Monks were chanting at Wat Dok Kham, a temple that faces the eastern moat. It appeared to be a service for the late king. 

We went to Top Coffee, the luncheonette on the corner by the gate, for some porridge to hold us till everybody got together at brunch time. 

Today we had the alternative of yesterday. That is, I had the cheok with egg and Joanna the rice soup.

She chose the option with pork, which was in small meat balls. They were actually familiar to us. I forget when, but we had eaten them somewhere before. At the time, I had guessed they were chicken.

Like most serious observances here, it was a dry day. Many places were closed, including Annie’s.

Archer’s was open, but of course not serving beer or liquor. One of the specialties of the house is English breakfast. Kimberly had some time before her flight so she joined us there for brunch.

I hadn’t had grilled tomato for breakfast in a while, so I opted for the small English breakfast. The large version, which Larry ordered, has more parts, including the traditional baked beans

After the meal, Kimberley took off for her hotel and then the airport. She was going back to Bangkok for a night and then off to the Philippines.

When Larry went back to the hotel, Joanna and I went to Wat Chedi Luang. 

Chedi Luang means Great Stupa. According to anything I’ve been able to learn, it is still largest historical structure in the Old City and stands 60 meters high. It lost two dozen meters, more than 50 feet, to an earthquake in the 16th century.

In the chief building, or vihara, the main hall was lined with chairs. We also saw a collection of saffron cloth bundles. 

I learned the significance of that later in the day, when all the Thai TV stations carried a ceremony from the palace in Bangkok. Monks were chanting while the new king and an array of officials and royals sat at attention—that is, straight up and never moving.

At the end of the service, the king presented monks with new robes.

We walked around the Great Chedi, which is partly reconstructed. Like many we have seen, it is built with elephants around the base so they seem to support the structure. About half of them are missing.

Each face of the base is surmounted by a large niche that holds a monumental image of the Buddha.

To come from the other side of the world and move among these things astonishes me.

We may have come out of the rainy season. There had been occasional downpours every morning or night since we arrived. Accuweather keeps predicting possible showers, but for the past few days we have had some clouds, but no rain.

The temperature is high, though. It is always hot here by New Jersey standards. Right now the highs are in the upper 80s and low 90s. The humidity is intense.

By the time we had gotten around the stupa, I was wiped out. 

Thank God or Buddha for coconuts. One of them may have kept me out of an ambulance.

Chedi Luang is a top tourist site, and even charges admission—40 baht, or a buck-twenty a head—to get into the grounds. It also has a small market, mostly for souvenirs. 

Apparently, we all have a survival mechanism left from the old days so that when the heat is about to knock us out, we can spot coconuts from a long distance. I made straight for them.

Joanna and I shared one and so made it out to the tuk-tuk line on the street. Our driver, a cheerful young man in stylishly ripped jeans, had no clue how to get to our hotel. 

He was starting to take us out of the Old City when we stopped him. We had to give him directions one turn at a time.

Later Larry joined us at the hotel and we all took a tuk-tuk across the moat to the Night Bazaar district to have dinner at a Western-style place called Duke’s Grill.

The pizza was surprisingly good. A little too much garlic, maybe, but the sauce wasn’t sweet, which is one of the usual downfalls of outlander pizza—the sort you get in Upstate New York or Phnom Penh. 

Joanna’s hamburger seemed to be good. It looked right, and she finished it.

From what little I saw, the Night Bazaar consists of stalls jamming the sidewalks to sell junk to tourists. There may be an authentic section for locals, but it takes a lot of patience to explore environments like this because they tend to make people lose all sense of civility. I wasn’t up for it.

Saturday was the kind of day when you have to be lazy.

We set out for the Somthep market again, but this time there was no cool of the morning. The day had heated up by 7:30.

We stopped for breakfast in the courtyard of a guest house. We shared yogurt, fruit salad, a couple of waffles. 

Most mornings in the States I eat yogurt, sometimes but not always with a muffin or toast. So it was fun to sit under a palm tree and eat something so familiar and routine.

We retreated in short order to the air conditioning at the Boonthavon.

On the way back, we were walking in the shade along the soi and saw someone bent over a Kindle at the Mountain Coffee shop. It was Larry.

He had phoned and said he was getting coffee, but hadn’t said where. We stopped and arranged to go to Annie’s for lunch before Larry had to leave for the airport.

We did that. 

Annie’s is new to us. It opened since the last time any of us had been to Chiang Mai. Larry and I had been there for the beer, but hadn’t looked into the food side of the place.

We were all surprised at how Thai the menu was and how extensive.

Joanna ordered Pad Thai and a side of a green vegetable that I found a bit too fibrous. The Pad Thai was very savory.

My dish was a yellow curry with pork. Thai curry tends to be sweeter than Indian, but even so, this one was very good, especially over white rice.

I had a King Mule IPA. At my recommendation, Joanna tried the Belgian white beer with strawberries, the Limburgse Rose.

I thought she might like it because she once told me about how much she enjoyed the punch at an office party, when she had no idea that it was spiked and got loaded.

She actually preferred my bitter IPA. Good for her.

Larry was on his way back to Bangkok in the afternoon. Joanna and I spent the rest of the day hiding out from the heat.

Good night, all. Stay well—and keep cool.

Harry