Getting Around Chiang Mai

I have been desiring to visit Thailand since I moved to Asia--in anticipation of this trip I even purchased a travel guide during Christmas break over a year ago.  Finally this Christmas Daniel and I decided to make the dream a reality and we started booking our holiday.  Now, three months later, here we are!

Daniel began his journey to Thailand in the wee morning hours of Friday, March 22nd.  He flew to Vancouver B.C., then to Seoul, Korea (where I met him at the airport), and finally to Chiang Mai, Thailand.  In all, Daniel spent a total of 17 hours in the air and many more hours in the airport.  By the time we arrived at the hotel in Chiang Mai on Saturday night around 11:30pm he was pretty beat!  We both enjoyed a good night of sleep at our night little hotel called the Shewe Wana Boutique Resort & Spa located about a kilometer outside of the old city.

During our first day in Chiang Mai we were scheduled for a 3 hour segway tour of the city--the tour was titled the Chiang Mai Underbelly Tour.  Our first hurdle was to get to the tour operator office from the hotel in less than 15 minutes.  Thankfully the helpful staff at the hotel introduced us to the "red car" form of transportation.  Nope, it's not actually a car but rather a converted pick-up truck (think small Toyota-like) with a canopy cover and bench seats in the back.  For around 40 baht (just over a dollar) and in less than 10 minutes, we arrived at our destination.  Luckily, traffic in Chiang Mai is nothing compared to Ho Chi Minh City or Indonesia.

In 15 minutes we were schooled on how to ride a segway with our two other tour mates and then we were off.  We wove in and out of back streets, in and out of traffic (yes, really--the tour leaders had little red stop signs to stop the cars when we needed to cross), and stopped to visit several Wats (temples), although we passed by just as many as we visited!  We scooted along like ducks in a row following their mother...the other guy on our tour, we think his name was Todd, said we were like Rock Stars with all of the looks we were getting as we rolled by, though I think Daniel summed it up best when he said we were more like awesome nerds.

Riding a segway doesn't take much practice, you really just step on and shift your weight to get it to move forward, backwards, and turn, however, we all learned a hard lesson at some point during the tour, all except for Todd.  My foolishness came first when I tried to take a photo while standing on the segway and look through the viewfinder of my DSLR camera.  Any shift in weight causes the segway to respond and frankly I didn't even realize I was moving forward.  I proceeded to crash into one of our tour guides, tip my segway, lose my balance, go one footed (difficult to maintain one's footing at that point), and yet hold it all together and maintain my composure on the segway.  I'm sure it was hilarious to watch but all I could think was, "I am not falling off this thing!"  The lesson learned was that I should have brought the point and shoot camera so I didn't get many photos after that.  Not much later, Erin somehow managed to ride halfway up an 8 inch high curb and get tossed off her segway.  Daniel had two near misses--both  happened when he was screwing around causing his segway to stop and start abruptly and finally kharma came back to bite him in the butt when the segway started and Daniel was kicked off.  He managed to jump back on before I ran up on him from behind but it could have gone pear shaped at any moment and he could have been eating pavement if not for his graceful recovery.  

Anyhow, back to the hi-lights of our tour.  The guides didn't talk much as it is rather difficult to give commentary to a group of moving individuals but we did get a good feel for the city of Chiang Mai.  The Old City was once surrounded by a brick city wall with gates on each of the four sides.  A river runs through the center and major through streets follow the river.  Narrow streets and alleys transect the major arteries.  We saw lots of different styles of houses--new, old, shack-like, apartment, gated, cinderblock--the feel was much like Salatiga where Karen and Major lived.  The cookie cutter housing developments of suburban America are beginning to take on a whole new feel for me.  Don't get me wrong, I like order and organization, but I am starting to feel more comfortable with developing, disordered, dilapidated, gritty, character filled cities.  Nestled in the midst of these streets are restaurants, coffee shops, pubs, and...temples and wats!  The best of the day were Wat Prah Singh and Wat Chedi Luang.  Here is a smattering of photos (taken while carefully balanced on my segway or from the security of solid ground) during our 3 hour rolling voyage...

Wat Chiang Man was the first temple in Chiang Mai!

This ancient chedi behind Wat Chiang Man is adorned with elephants

Segway Daniel

Three Kings Statue

Wat Pra Singh is a center of learning for those studying to become monks

Another inhabitant of Wat Pra Singh

I loved these many words of wisdom hanging from the trees at Wat Pra Singh

Daniel enjoying a Thai coffee during a break from our tour

Wat Chedi Luang is about 600 years old and used to house the Emerald Buddha

A guardian dragon at Wat Chedi Luang

A different part of Wat Chedi Luang

Where the Emerald Buddha originally sat in Wat Chedi Luang

 Our tour ended in the mid afternoon and we joined our tourmates for some icecream at a little shop just through the Tha Phae Gate.  Like me, Todd was an American working overseas and Erin, his girlfriend, was visiting so they were trying to cram in some sightseeing in Chiang Mai during a long weekend break from work.  Dan and I then ventured back to our hotel, this time via tuk-tuk which is essentially a motorbike that has been transformed into a taxi with a backseat.  As you can tell, we are still alive!  We enjoyed a couple of hours of downtime (I napped!!) before eating dinner and heading back to the old city for the Sunday walking market.  I'll let guest blogger Daniel write about that!

After hearing so much about this market we figured we would not get the full chiang mai experience unless we went and experienced the culture of it ourselves. For starters, there was a ton of places cooking food , some looked rather tasty, others not so much. We personally didn't partake of any of the food because we already had dinner and secondly because to be honest we did not feel like taking the risk of eating something prepared on the street. The second photo shown is just to show how massive the crowd of people at this specific market. Honestly being in a crowd of people so large that you can barley move, hear what anyone is saying, and just in general super busy, isn't really my kind of scene. The rest of the pictures shown are just more examples of what temples in the area look like this one honestly was just on a side street right off the main drag of the market. After about an hour or so and doing a little bit of shopping I honestly was ready to go. Too busy, too much hustle and bustle but was an experience we will never forget.