CHIANG MAI Day 14

TUESDAY 16th. Another hot morning so rather than sit by the pool we would go for an early walk done by the river. First I must send more postcards but as we couldn’t find Keith’s organiser with all the addresses in just bought one for our next door neighbours. A lovely man stuck my stamp on along with an air mail sticker as Keith got out his wallet to pay for it. I asked him about their New Year as we have seen a couple of Christmas Trees and ‘Happy New Year’ signs. This year is 2553 and as in other parts of the World the year will change on 31st December. (We had thought they may be the same as China.) I wrote the postcard but then we sat and sat as neither of us could remember our neighbours’ surname. We had mentioned about the city being so laid back I put that instead of their name! As soon as I put the card in the postbox I remembered it was Evans – how could I forget as they have lived next door to us for quite a number of years.
So we set off on our long walk following the river when we could and then moving inland a little until we reached the Military Barracks with a Monument and Park opposite. Lots of teenager school children were sitting in the shelters each group looking at a laptop where they were watching pop groups and imitating the dance routines. During the Festival there is a competition so we guess this is what they are practising for. Along this stretch of the river there were many sandbags piled quite high as we have already learnt the area is subject to flooding in the rainy season. There was a lovely canopied bridge across the river which we thought we would walk to and cross over. We came to the Antique House 2 and stopped for a welcome drink. A lovely setting and already people were eating as it approached mid day. We talked to a couple from Australia who were spending a few days here after a couple of weeks in Cambodia which they loved. They had been in Vietnam exactly the same time as us last year doing more or less the same trip as we did. I offered to take their photo by an old Suzuki motorbike that stood by the small stage where musicians performed of an evening. Returning to my bottle of coke I discovered this part of the table was crawling in spider ants. Luckily they hadn’t climbed up my glass! I asked for the table to be cleaned and they were duly swept onto the floor as I moved to another chair. The table was fantastic – built out of a dead tree trunk and supported on a frame of heavy carved wood with a large piece of glass on top but guess it would take some moving.
We walked as far as the ‘Holiday Inn’ finding no sign of the bridge which was a little disappointing. We had walked past the smart Gymkhana Club and Golf Course, and the Foreigners Cemetery with a statue of Queen Victoria somewhere in the grounds. We passed more schools and the Forestry Department but very few eating places. We also saw some bouti que hotels, one being the British Ambassador’s former resident which was a horrible looking building – large rectangle shaped blocks of white with long narrow wooden planks covering the walls and no windows. It might look better inside and it supposed to have fine dining at a price. We visited another Temple which was also the boat landing stage for Mae Ping River Cruises. I thought this one was unusual as most of the buildings had blue roofs and built in Thai style but one of the smaller buildings nearer the river was definitely Chinese style with ‘happy Buddha’ among several other statues. Along the opposite side of the temple was a burial ground with two lines of stone graves in ‘stupa’ style whilst on the wall was a neat row of carved frames with pictures of the deceased in the centre. Many of these were now faded and some of the wooden frames damaged. Several vehicles were parked in front, one of which was a large pale green Pontiac with a large silver aerial rising up at each corner of the back of the car. The next stop was a 140 year old Thai Teak House where we could look at the outside of the building. Behind it leading down to the river a group of men were constructing a bamboo jetty out into the river as the water level here had dropped drastically exposing a vast area of mud making it impossible to get close to the river for the festival lights to float down river.
We settled for a late light lunch at the ‘Antique House’ before taking a tuk tuk home. Keith negotiated a price whilst I waited for the traffic to ease before crossing the road to join him. 45 baht was agreed but on reach ‘Baan Orapin’ Keith gave him a 5 coin and 2 notes only to have the driver given him the 5 coin back. That must be a first.
We have more new guests as the large party from Shanghai have left today. They seemed a mixed bunch of young men and women with only one woman looking Chinese and we would have liked to have spoken with them but it was not to be.