Chiang Mai.
"It was the best of times, it was the worse of times."
Day 1.
****
So. Chiang Mai. First city of the northern provinces and once capital of the Lanna kingdom in times of antiquity.
The journey northwards was predictably tedious, by way of ferry, coach and two mercifully short stratospheric jumps by way of flying machines. I generally slept with my eyes open the whole time, drifting off into space and by strokes of luck shuffled about and aboard various mechanical moving contraptions at the allocated time.
The fact of the matter was, I missed Koh Samui. I was glad to see the back of the package holiday makers and all they bring or encourage to grow upon the pretty little isle but I was sorry to say goodbye to the people I had met there. Especially Oh.
Oh.
It took force of will and the physical laws of perpetual motion to keep me on the path to Chiang Mai, leaving her behind. We had known each other only a short time but there was an undeniable connection between us, made most evident by her pleas for me to stay and the cardiac arrest-like pain in my chest that swelled whenever I took one more step further away from her. I left because I needed to keep moving, to keep traveling before Koh Samui and it's bloated farang-oriented prices turned my bank account into an antedeluvian mummy.
But I also ran because I was more than a little anxious about the implications of my affections for Oh. Where would they lead? What would I do? What acts of insanity would I perform with, or indeed, for her? So, with a goodbye and a promise to return - which I intended to keep, and still do - soon, I walked away, with a heavy heart and a rather light wallet (scrounging up enough money for a taxi to the ferry provoked a little anxiety, as much as is medically possible for me, anyway).
And so, with the constant urge to run back to Samui traveling with me all the way, I arrived in Chiang Mai at about eleven o' clock at night. In my adled and emotional state, I had neglected to plan so far ahead as to book a room in Chiang Mai. Thankfully, I grabbed the nearest taxi driver outside the airport terminal, and instructed him to take me to the first dive in town that had clean beds and free rooms. After some searching and false starts, we eventually came to the concrete monolith of the Rux-Thai hotel and, after fumbling with my wallet for passport and cash, I stumbled up the stairs behind a limping and overburdened - with my big backpack - bellboy. Eight flights of stairs later, I arrived, tipped and crashed out on the bed with cliched enthusiasm. From what I had briefly seen, the room was spacious and comfortable in a bland kind of way. It had a bed, most importantly. It would do.
I was woken about 7AM by the sound of pattering feet, like buffalo fleeing savage Indians on the great plains. It was, of course, a mob of farangs, off on some day trip, chattering and stomping past my door with all the subtlety I have come to expect from my fellow foreigners.
My sleep pattern interrupted irrevocably and a taste of white man blood on my tongue, I readied for the day in the - WARM! Huzzah!- shower, clothed myself with as much enthusiasm as I could must, in one of Max - of Samui - the tailor's fine shirts, and headed downstairs, tipping a nod and a smile at the pretty receptionist. She smiled back with bland enthusiasm, and thus I knew that the Rux Thai was definitely not for me. I would be moving. Soon.
The primeval in me urged me out into the already hot streets - Chiang Mai is cooler, my arse, Goh! - in a hunt for food. After some searching (as much of the city had not awoken yet, obviously lacking farang alarm clocks) I found a place who were kind enough to slaughter my prey and suitably garnish it for me. I forget what I had for breakfast that day. I think it was fried prawns and egg fried rice. I suppose I should have looked for the breakfast section of the menu. It was good though, regardless of the hour.
A morning of lazy exploration on foot around the Old City - like Bangkok's Khao San area, only slightly less garish and gaudy and intoxicating...but not by much - I had a fine pita bread sandwich in a hole-in-the-wall cafe on a street I have failed to find again, before heading in the direction of the post office. I hoped. I had gifts and garbage and excess baggage in dire need of shipping back to the Old Folks Home.
I never got there, as I was accosted most politely by a tuk-tuk driver. A woman tuk-tukker, no less! Have you ever heard of such a rambunctious and outrageous thing before? Of course not. Introducing herself as Grandma Thip (as in tip) she offered to show me about the city. By the way, that's Grandma Thip in the picture with the tuk tuk. Not Oh, or Meaw. Meaw's the one with the basket of birds and the wrinkles, below!(Grandma Thip with her tuk-tuk, Herbie (no, not really; no idea it's name) )
Every backpacker knows - or should know - there is more than meets the eye, to such offers, even those made by wise-cracking old madams like Thip. They show you the sights, guide you around some wats if they're really good - which Thip was - and then show the delights of Eastern handicrafts. Paperworking, such as fans and umbrellas. Silk weaving. And, of course, a visit to a jewelry store where their dubiously genuine products are set at prices well in the range of even the poorest farang.
(The steps to the temple somethingsomething in Chiang Mai. It was the original home to the hallowed jade Buddha I talked about in an earlier blog until the king of Siam took it south to the capital, according to Thip)
I knew Thip would do this, and she did but I went along anyway because she spoke conversational English, had a razor sharp wit and had the Union Jack on her T-shirt. So what if she tried to pass me around some locals stores like prison cigarrettes? No one was going to force me to buy anything and considering what tuk-tukkers make, her enthusiasm to pawn me off was understandable. She made me laugh along the way with her anecdotes and insights and that was worth the entrance fee alone.
Thip, once married to a Dane and living in Denmark, is a short pug of a woman - in the nicest way possible - with short spiky hair you might see in an eighties music video by Blondie. A chain-smoking, hard-drinking - but not Chang, apparently! - and hard gambling grandma of some fifty sons, Thip knew everybody and knew everything in Chiang Mai and beyond.
(A woman who sold me good fortune in a basket of fluttering little birds. I did the same again today at a temple, with Meaw)
I had a thoroughly enjoyable first day in Chiang Mai because of her and she allowed me to draw my thoughts away from Oh for a little while. Assuming she got some small commision, I even bought a cheap pendant and ankle bracelet for Oh, a painted fan for Ma back home - or, if grovelling is needed in future, for Oh - and some other things that escape me at the moment. Trinkets. Tourist crap. The works. Getting it all for about fifteen quid - and a hefty four pound thank you for a gobsmacked Thip - seemed like a fine exchange for an afternoon of idle wandering in the smog-choked back of a speeding, grinding, grumbling tuk-tuk around the mind-boggling streets of Chiang Mai.
By the way, I set free a wicker basket of birds for the family. Apparently, it should bring you all good luck. So, when you all win the lottery, you'll know why and I expect to be duly compensated, or at the very least reimbursed the hundred baht it cost to free the poor avian captives.
Saying fair well to Thip - but not before she hawked me off on her tailor brother - I made for my concrete cell in the Rux-Thai, stripping down, showering off the sweat and grime of the city - cleaner than BK, mind you - and promptly losing consciousness on the bed, nude for all the geckos to see.
Waking about 6pm, I followed my stomach in search of food - but not before remembering to put some clothes on, thankfully for all concerned. For the life of me, I cannot remember where I ate but, like all Thai food, I'm sure it was very good. My thirst for drink needed sating next, so I wandered about, gently pushing away the pawing bar girls as I searched for an upstanding establishment befitting an English gentleman looking to get royally pissed, or at the very least, quietly inebriated.
Just when I was beginning to give up hope, I spotted a restaurant named the Olde Bell. Out front a strikingly beautiful and elegant Thai woman - who's name I would know as Koi, as she proved to be my sympathetic ear in the evenings to come - beckoned me in. Growing thirstier by the minute, I conceded defeat and walked through the door....
...into the middle of a very English pub with a very English pub quiz going on, complete with Northern quiz master and grey-haired players sat about the tables. Assuming I had stumbled through an rift in the space time continuum, fixed between Chiang Mai, Thailand and Attleborough, Norfolk, I turned about, half expecting to see sunshine pouring through the door behind me.
But no, it was still dark, and Koi was still standing there, grinning and ushering me inside. Remarkable.
More remarkable than that, though, is that they had Chang beer on tap, levied up in good, honest pint glasses. Two of these, and a lightweight such as myself will be appropriately blasted, wasted and otherwise intoxicated, especially on all my medication. Thankfully, I know when to stop...except when troubled by that most alluring and exasperating of creatures, the Thai female. Needless to say, last night I passed out in front of Meaw's place, whilst she flannelled my neck - when she wasn't glaring disapprovingly at me - and the aging beauty who persists in giving me free hand massages worked her magic on my sleeping limbs. I think. It's all rather blurred, and certainly a tale for another time.Where was I? Oh, yes, and English pub in Chiang Mai. After downing my pint and agreeing that that was more than enough, I wandered back down the road, intent on going home. Fortunately, I did not for this is when I met the wonderful Meaw, a particularly adept masseuse, an prolific talker of all things under the Sun in her peculiar and endearing English, and now a good friend. Assuming she has not disowned me after last night, but I digress.
(The pictures here abouts are of the massage parlour gals. Well, the older ones. Unsurprisingly, the younger ones are in high demand. Filthy farangs. Oh, and Meaw is outside because I scare off any creeps coming to her for massage. I am now banned from sitting out front, by her, unless it feeding time. She has to make a living, after all and only a few of the male customers are lecherous. But I digress! The one with my glasses is a masseuse and master herbalist. She makes the stuff for the herbal massages. I bought some from her, for Oh. The aging beauty with the rose behind her ear is a real minx called Peah, who gives me freebies and acts as my chaperone home, when I'm drunk and depressed with the women in my life. She's also constantly trying to seduce me and offering me an oil massage. I imagine she's even better at it than Meaw and Oh combined, thanks to her experience. I may take her up on the offer before I leave. She's the tiny Thai woman protecting a big farang from the mean midnight streets of Chiang Mai. Bizarre! 
The sad looking lady in grey is ladyboy I believe, or a very butch woman. She's very nice but terribly unsure of herself. Meaw is the one stuffing her face with honey roasted peanuts. More on her in later blogs. )After an oil massage that reminded me painfully of Oh back on Ko Samui, and with much banter and only mildly flirtatious talk, we finished up, closed shop - it was about 12.30AM at this point, and headed out to get some supper together. This involved hair-raising ride on the back of Meaw's motorcycle for me, knuckles as white as my porcelain backside, as Meaw pointed out.
After many threats to drop me off amidst groups of loitering ladyboys, we stopped at a noodle stand and tucked in. Well, she did. I battled valiantly and lost all with chopsticks, tofu - I think... - strange floating grey stuff and, of course, noodles. Meaw was suitably amused by my chopstick skills, declaring that I was as proficient as a three year old. She then proceeded to talk my ear off about what it is to be Meaw. She talked of her life as a masseuse, after her husband died. She talked of her son, who lived far away with her parents, that he might have someone who can care for him, whilst she works to feed and clothe him. She talked of her faith, and nightly visits to a temple, where she prays and wishes good fortune upon her son and her parents. I asked her if she is happy - for there is undeniable sadness and seriousness in her eyes, which her constant laughter lacks - and she replied that she is happy if she can provide for her family. It is an answer I had heard before, from Oh. Happiness in the heart of Thais is very different from that in the heart of Westerners.Nonetheless, I was determined to give Meaw a day to be happy. That, however, is another story.
(Said day on which she was made happy. I hope. I think. Tune in next time for the full update, fans! Fans? Hello?)
After finishing out supper - well, she did, I just ate the big lumpy bits and pushed the noodles around the bowl somewhat dejectedly - she took me back to my hotel, once more bombing along the early morning streets of Chiang Mai and once more hanging me out before the ladyboys and bar girls like a particularly tasty piece of white meat, before shooting off amidst a howl of laughter from her and sigh of relief from me.
Finding my hotel proved somewhat troublesome, as I had no real idea where it was besides a vague sixth sense that it was that way.
Half an hour later, with much backtracking, laughter and head scratching, I bid her farewell at my door and wished a safe journey back to her own room.
That's about it for day one in Chiang Mai. I'll write up day two - not much happened in daytime - and three maybe later today, or tomorrow.
I hope you're all doing well and are staying out of trouble.
Lots of love, as always,
Jamie
x
Oh, and for those of you desperate for closure, no I haven't gotten to the post office yet. Dun dun duuuuuunnnn. Anyone got their postcards yet?
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