Chiang Mai

Languagecorps took a trip this weekend up to Chiang Mai, via overnight train. I liked the experience of travelling under the cover of darkness, sleeping in a tiny room with three strangers. It felt equal parts Some Like it Hot and Murder on the Orient Express.

I was relieved to see that not all of Thailand is as seedy as Pattaya. Prices there were a shade more expensive, which I imagine go hand in hand with the streets not smelling like feces. The Thais were a little less aggressive and a little more self-confident. I sensed that this was because they were living lives that depended less directly on the tourist dollar. I ate lunch at a place where I had a hard time communicating my wants and ended up with liver soup. But given the choice I'd rather eat at a place where I'm ignored than where my every need is catered to hungrily. I felt a little more independent there, as if my trip was less defined by stereotypical tourist traps. There were of course hundreds of tourists in the city but the farang-Thai experience seems a little more casual, more human. I am thinking seriously of moving up there in mid-December to look for work. There several universities in the city and several libraries and museums too, so I would not be starved for culture.

My favorite part of the trip was a night excursion that we made almost on a whim. We had been told by someone in Pattaya to look into the Royal Flower Celebration while we were up in Chiang Mai. We asked around and discovered that the celebration was 8 km outside of the city. Confused, we hired a songtauw to bring us out there. The celebration was larger than I could possibly have imagined. The space took up many acres, like the size of an amusement park, all in celebration of this, the King's 60th year on the throne. And the entire thing was for flowers. Great sculpted fields of flowers planted so as to spell out Chiang Mai, or Long Live the King. Some thirty countries entered the show with pavillions celebrating their agricultural heritage. As many corporations had exhibits on the future of farming, bioengineering and food. All together it looked something like an agricultural World's Fair. In the center of the park was a giant temple and a massive photo of the king, wearing his signature coke-bottle glasses.

The thing that boggled my mind about it was the number of people there. In my estimation there might have been as many as 50,000 people and possibly many more. And more surprising, almost every single one was Thai. The popular clothing this year is a yellow polo shirt with the king's insignia on the breast pocket. A good two thirds of the crowd was wearing these lucky shirts.

Becky and I went wandering around the park, and got lost in the back near the rubber tree farm. There were few lights, but we heard music. I thought it was live music, because after all this park had restaurants, an art gallery, and a theater. Why not. So we pushed through the trees and stumbled on the park's daycare center. Only it was 8 PM and about 8 of the park employees had taken it over for an impromptu karaoke session. They had set up the monitor on the train set and the singer was dancing around a pile of building blocks. They called us over and before we knew it we were singing the Eagles with them. I beat out a rhythm on a toy xylophone while another guy drummed on a dollhouse. They glanced around occassionally and I imagined that if their boss had found them they might have been in some trouble. On the other hand karaoke is such an obsession here their boss was probably the one shoving the microphone in my face, telling me to sing backup for him on Hotel California.