The Kingdom of Thailand

I love Thailand. I love the heat of the tropical weather and the juxtaposition of the frenetic energy of its City of Angels with the areas of the country outside that crazy place. And the food. I have not been able to post in the last week because I was there, and we were moving pretty fast. A week is very little time for a country that has so much to offer, so we had to be selective. We spent the weekend in Bangkok negotiating with tailors for some clothes, seeing some sights and the nightlife, and remembering the hard way that the skytrain is the best way to traverse the city. The Chatuchak weekend market, the largest market in the world, was just as overwhelmingly vast and crowded as I remembered, but even my memory could not prepare me for our visit. I emerged drenched in sweat and carrying about five bags of random. As is my typical experience, though, Bangkok was not to be the star of this visit to Thailand.

Chiang Mai is a region in the north of the country, bordering at its extremity with Myanmar. Some consider it a cultural hub of Thailand, and although my last trip was a great one, my only regret was that Mike and I had not made it north due to the weather. This time, the weather cooperated. I found Chiang Mai to be a sleepy town with a pleasant, laid-back sensibility. It was quite relaxing.

I am a bit conflicted regarding the wealth of options for tours in and around Chiang Mai. On one hand, I am usually reticent to sign up for a tour predesigned and running daily because I think it obscures and in some ways distorts the very culture I seek to understand. On the other hand, I really wanted to ride an elephant. Decisions, decisions.


In the end, we opted for the canned tour, and much of it was great. Riding the elephant, for instance, was fun, and it was a fantastic experience to touch and simply be around these amazing animals. That the elephants had been trained to dance, play soccer and basketball, and paint was ridiculous.

Our tour also included a small exploration of an area of the region closest to Myanmar, including a quick ride on a northern tributary of the Chao Phraya River and a forgettable visit to the Karen that was functionally limited to an opportunity to be sold tourist wares by an ethnic minority group. This last visit was a perfect realization of my frustration with the type of trip we booked. We were sold the opportunity to see the Karen, and I understand that the very existence of the opportunity to visit a tribe in northern Thailand guarantees, just by the traffic it realistically creates, that the authenticity of what one will see will be tarnished by the visitors, but I was perturbed by the lack of information and opportunity to see what life is really like for these people. Perhaps I am searching for something that does not exist because of internal contradiction and inconsistency; I am, in the end, a tourist searching for an untouristy experience. But I do think that I have at other times found closer to the authentic when paving my own way. Who knows.

All in all, I am glad we did the day-trip. If asked for advice, I would say that one should hire a private driver and cherry-pick the highlights instead of signing up for a canned experience. Do ride elephants. Consider spending coin on a more intensive experience where you get the opportunity to learn how to ride alone and command the animals. Do see the elephant show. As corny as it is, it will make you laugh and marvel at the intelligence the elephants possess. Get out on the water. Do an impromptu visit to a more remote hilltribe, or, alternatively, arrange for an overnight trek through the hills. Do visit some temples in and around the city.

One of the highlights of our time in Chiang Mai was a day-long cooking class, where I learned to grind curry paste from scratch and the process of making six Thai dishes. Our instructors were funny and filled with information about each dish, Thai food generally, and where to source the necessary ingredients upon our return from our trip. I have some shopping to do so I can throw a Thai dinner party. Kennon looks pretty strong in the apron:

Again, lots of other stuff has happened in the past week. We had amazing meals for which I will spare you the description, knowing full well that this space is straying dangerously towards becoming exclusively culinary. Michael deserves a shout-out, however, for his recommendation to eat dinner at the Chiang Mai Mandarin Oriental. It was a bit of a splurge, but well worth it as arguably the best food of the entire trip (including the previously-blogged meals). We had countless fruit juices and smoothies. We spent much time exploring the night markets and city of Chiang Mai. We had crazy late-night transport adventures that included, at one time, five farangs on a tuk tuk with yours truly sharing the front single bucket seat with the driver and, at another, riding four-deep on a moto with international friends. Luckily, I lived.

Now Kennon and I are in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia enjoying our last day here before heading back to Singapore for a couple nights. Sadly, the World Tour is almost over, and you will no longer have to endure international pictures of KFC.