A TRIP UP NORTH

This past weekend Noni's brother & his wife took us up north of Chiang Mai to MaeHongSon and Pai (rhymes with sky) two very interesting towns in the mountain country. The roads are narrow and winding with hairpin curves that seem to almost overlap themselves, no shoulders to speak of and steep drop-offs on one side or the other. The landscape is amazingly rugged and beautiful and the Thais seem to love putting parks or building a Wat (temple) at the highest points. As the weather starts to heat up in the south, the Thais head north to cool off. It did get cool too and I wore long pants, shoes & socks and a jacket at night for the first time since arriving in Thailand.

In the city and on straight highways Ake, Noni's brother seemed to be a competent driver. On these curving mountain roads he was far less so. He, like many other drivers I noticed tended to hug the inside curve of the road, even when that happened to be the wrong side and facing any oncoming traffic. It was a little nerve wracking at first and, were I a religious person, would have set me praying. Being a fatalist, however, I whistled a lot of my favourite tunes and curled my toes. I should note that the professional drivers, those driving the small 8 - 10 passenger mini van busses drove more responsibly. 

At each view point or park area the tourists and their cameras snapped and clicked. I find it quite amusing to watch people posing for shots with these vast panoramas as backgrounds. One of the funniest sights is watching someone with a new iPad with camera capability taking a shot. Apple should have put a tripod socket on these and supplied a black cloth to throw over the head of the photographer. They are clumsy to use and the big screen has too much glare to  see what you're getting anyway. 

MaeHongSon  and Pai were both attractive towns and the north, in general seemed to be more affluent and the towns maintained better than in the south. Both towns sprouted the ubiquitous street markets each evening. In Pai the main downtown area was devoted to the Saturday night market with all the foods and products indigenous to the area.

Pai street market vendor

Kids sleeping on mom's & dad's wares

He boogies as he cooks

Story teller

View from a mountain top Wat

We're safely back in Chiang Mai now and enjoyed a very comfortable nights sleep in our own bed. The hotels we stayed at on the trip were fine, one with a big room and a tiny bathroom. You had to take the toilet paper out of the room before you showered or it would get soaked. The other was a very new and modern little boutique hotel, all clean straight lines in natural concrete with teak wood detailing. Good beds in both. Tonight Noni and I will treat ourselves to a meal at an Italian restaurant. Ake and Jeet have gone to stay with Noni's other sister in the suburbs east of the city.

Nice to have visitors - nice to be alone.

DAY AND NIGHT

This town seems to support two economies, that of the day time and another after dusk. At about 4:00 o'clock each afternoon one can see people moving tables and vendors carts into areas in front of stores and onto sidewalks and on certain of the streets. Then comes a series of carts and trucks bearing the wares and supplies to be offered. By about 5:00 o'clock the second economy is up and running.

This is not an occasional thing or something that happens only on the weekends. This is a daily routine. 

The Sunday Night Walking Street Market is another phenomena. 

On this one street in the Old City merchants, musicians, performers, food vendors and hawkers selling a plethora of useful and useless items of every imaginable ilk set up their stalls. It goes on for block after block after block after block and swarms with locals and tourists alike.

I intend to do a lot of shooting at the evening market just across the river over the next period of time. For now, here are some random shots both day and night time.

AROUND TOWN

I'm getting a bit more time now to walk around with my camera. Just across the bridge and about 100 metres south is one of the very large local market places in town. Here is a colourful corner as we approach the area. The market place is a cacophony of sights, sounds and smells ~ some of the latter take some getting used to. I've yet to attempt to photograph within the main market building but will do so soon. There's lots to see around it.

This is a colourful lottery ticket vendor. I don't know what the payouts are here. We've decided to save our money for other luxuries instead.

As we walk away from the market area towards the centre of town we get a good view of our building looking north up the river. Our suite is the second one in from the right just below the L in the roof line. I'd insert an arrow to show you where except my drawing program is not working on this laptop.

Last night was the first night since moving in that we had trouble sleeping. It seemed to warm up during the night and the humidity increased. I didn't bother to turn on the air conditioner. It cooled off beautifully at about 6:00 a.m. so we just slept in. Isn't retirement  wonderful. 

GETTING NORMALIZED

Well, we're starting to get  into a routine here. Shopping, eating at home, watching the news on TV and, of course, walking a lot. Here's a shot of an alley I spotted and caught it at a moment when it appeared abandoned. Moments later 3 or 4 scooters came rushing my way seemingly out of nowhere.

I'm also thrilled with the ever changing view from our 17th floor balcony. The traffic sounds change as the day progresses and the light echoes the mood of the traffic. This shot is late in the day after the rush hour noise has started to abate. 

I've been too involved getting things done to carry a camera with me all the time but will be able to do so  now that things are settling down. There's so much to see and shoot. Here's something that caught my eye one day when I did have my camera. Hope to send you more photos as the days progress. 

A WILD 2 WEEK RIDE

A few weeks ago we were in a hotel in Vancouver. I looked out the window and saw a sea of red leaves. The season was changing, the nights were getting cold. A long, multi flighted day took care of all that (Vancouver/Taipei/Bangkok/Chiang Mai) On the first segment one might have thought he was on a bus in the Punjab. I'd guess that no more than 5% of the passengers were not Indian. Taipei was a long layover in a rather boring transit area but negotiating immigration in Bangkok was quicker and easier than I thought it would be. The flight to Chiang Mai took off an hour late. We stayed in 2 different hotels in Chiang Mai while looking for an apartment to rent. Noni's family from Bangkok, tired of living in their flooded house, decided to join us here for the Loy Krathong festival weekend, not exactly what we needed while trying to get settled.

Last night was our first night in our new suite. It was a weird night to move in.

The suite is on the 17th floor of a condo building called 'Rimping'  It is on the bank of the Ping River which runs through Chiang Mai and overlooks the lower part of the city. Loy Krathong is a high spirited celebration - sort of like a Thai Yom Kippur where they send flower floats out on the river and ask the gods that be to forgive them for any sins they MIGHT have committed during the past year. There were lots of flowers out on the river, parades on every major thoroughfare and fireworks - from sunset to sunrise. Did you know that noise travels upwards and stops at the 17th floor? Now you do. So do we.

Vancouver from the Best Western window

Rooftops from the condo fire escape

One floating balloon
 

The NakornPing Bridge just below our balcony
swarming with people and food stalls on Loy Krathong.

Looking over the city with 100s of
the floating balloons

In addition to fireworks they send up cotton balloons rising from the heat of a ring of kerosene soaked paper. some of these have fireworks attached to them as well. The number of these floating around all night was unbelievable. I'm told that the airport cancels all flights at sundown due to the hazard these things can cause.