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I posted a blog entry awhile back about how stupid farang look trying to wai. Okay, so there are exceptions to the rule.
05 Sunday Jun 2011
Posted Dancing With the Devil, Eye Candy
in≈ Comments Off on Wai Not?
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I posted a blog entry awhile back about how stupid farang look trying to wai. Okay, so there are exceptions to the rule.
04 Saturday Jun 2011
Posted Dancing With the Devil, Eye Candy
in≈ Comments Off on Eye Candy: Mo’ Ben
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04 Saturday Jun 2011
Posted It's A Gay World, Smells Like Science
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We are all aware of the stereotypical gay guy who lisps. Some of us are the stereotypical gay guy who lisps. Others of us aren’t but certainly are capable of sounding gay when being campy. Then there are the rest of us who neither lisp naturally or on purpose. We may be gay, but we don’t sound gay. Or so we thought.
A new study by Erik C. Tracy, a cognitive psychologist at Ohio State University, found that for the average listener, the vowel sounds in an unfamiliar voice quickly give away the speaker’s sexual orientation. Researchers asked seven gay and seven straight men to record single-syllable words – such as “mass,” “food” and “sell” – and then played the recordings for listeners. Participants were asked to identify the sexual orientation of the speakers when hearing only the first letter sound of those words, the first two letter sounds, and the entire words.” When hearing the first two letter sounds, listeners were 75% correct in guessing which speakers were gay and which were not. Seems gay guys pronounce vowels differently.
When hearing an unfamiliar voice at the other end of the phone line, for example, most people instantly judge the stranger’s characteristics based on how they speak. The new study suggests listeners are usually pretty accurate in their determination. “I’m not sure what exactly the listeners are responding to in the vowel,” Tracy said in a news release from the American Institute of Physics. “Other researchers have done various acoustic analyses to understand why gay and heterosexual men produce vowels differently. Whatever this difference is, it seems that listeners are using it to determine the speaker’s sexual orientation.”
The listeners were unable to determine the sexual orientation after hearing the sound of the first letter in the spoken word, for example, just the “m” sound in the word “mass.” But, when presented with the first two letter sounds – for example “ma” – listeners were right 3/4 of the time.
This news may cause some concern among closeted gay men who thought that by being careful not to hum show tunes they had everyone fooled. Seems that doesn’t work; there’s still that nasty speech problem. Unless you live in Tennessee. You will not have to worry that someone will know you are gay when you say the word gay there, because lawmakers recently decided to make saying gay illegal.
Known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill, the legislation forbids discussion of homosexuality in classrooms by exclusively limiting instructions and materials to ‘age-appropriate natural human reproduction science’. Republican Senate sponsor Stacey Campfield of Knoxville says “homosexuals don’t naturally reproduce,” thereby defining the purpose of the law. Thanks to celebrities like Sir Elton, Republicans can no longer argue that gay folk don’t reproduce. We just don’t do it naturally.
More American’s would be outraged over the bill, but, well, it’s Tennessee, the state that provided the setting for the famous Scopes ‘Monkey’ trial that pitted the state against an educator for teaching evolution in public school. The folks in Tennessee have always been protective of what their young can learn in school, preferring to ensure they remain dumb and barefooted. Tennessee is one of the leading states in teenage pregnancies and in sexually transmitted infections. By law, abstinence must be taught in school, and Tennessee has the lowest high school graduation rate in the country. 15 % of the state’s population lives below the poverty level, and inbreeding is a way of life in this southern state. An old joke that sums up the way of life in Tennessee:
How do you know when your trailer is level in Tennessee?
When you come home from picking up your welfare check and there is cum dribbling down both sides of your six-year-old niece’s mouth.
Of course if you can’t say gay in Tennessee, you most certainly can not marry your same-sex partner there either. But you can wed your first cousin. Priorities people! But then Tennessee isn’t the only state in the union that favors inbreeding over same-sex marriages:
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03 Friday Jun 2011
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“What awesome?” Noom, my bar boy friend and current love of my life asked one night while we were sitting at Dick’s Cafe on Soi Twilight. Hanging with a gang of friends who’d joined me for the trip, we were into our second round of drinks and one of a pair of dykes, Helena, had used the word as an exclamation several times. The third time she did, Noom needed to know what it meant. He liked its sound, liked its exuberant use, but hadn’t a clue to its meaning. I explained, he tried it on for size, approved, and it became his favorite word for the next few days.
Communication, the experts claim, is important to having a successful relationship. Even one bought and paid for. Noom speaks fairly good English. I mean his vocabulary is of decent size; pronunciation and word choice is at lesser levels. We communicate well, as long as I keep words to under three syllables and drop unnecessary words from sentences. On his part, it all depends on how much effort he’s interested in exerting. At times it seems he barely knows any English, he strings together just enough words to get his point across. Or just grunts. Or nods.
Other times, when he’s interested in the conversation, it amazes me how eloquent he can be. One night over dinner, after an off the cuff comment I made, he started in on a political spiel. An hour later we were still talking and you’d have sworn he was a native English speaker. Not just by the words he used, but in his ability to use them to develop his hypothesis. The crux of his political rant compared President Obama and Prime Minister Abhisit. Noom felt they were both ‘good men’ but ineffective in their roles, relying too much on building consensus and not enough on being strong leaders. Sometimes I forget his work as a bar boy is a matter of choice, not education or lack thereof. His English is better than my Thai. And he has a smattering of Japanese, German, and Cantonese, too. But most the time he relies on bar boy English. Tinglish, if you prefer; if you want to move out of the bar world.
I admire that he has no hesitation in asking when he’s at a lost for an English word. Doing so borders on that vast no-no world of implying or inferring a Thai is stupid. I try to remember to never correct his English, but if he asks, I’ll supply the word he’s looking for. If it is a word for something he can point to, it’s easy. Other times it’s like playing an advanced round of Password.
Souvenir is one we’ve done a few times, and I catch on now fairly quickly. After a try or two to explain, he switches over to ‘you know, before’ referring to the hundredth time I’ve supplied the word for him. He usually retains words he learns. That one causes problems, even though he is quite fond of it. He did pull it out of his hat one night in Chiang Mai at the Night Bazaar while haggling over a dozen fake silver and wood hair pins. I knew they were not for him, and I know his family well enough to know the count was too high for their use too. When he got the price down to 5 baht each, I asked him why he wanted so many. “Souvenir!” he exclaimed. “For bar.” Nice. Not a typical Thai gesture, he was buying handfuls of small gifts to take back to his bar mates and friends on the soi (though I suspect a large part of that had to do with the status he’d get by handing out proof he’d been to Chiang Mai).
One night as we lay together in bed chatting, he needed an English word and I was at a lost as to what it was. He’d started with wat and formed his fingers into a steeple, saying, “In you country.” So steeple was my guess. Wrong. He didn’t know that word, but knew it wasn’t right. He kept trying to narrow his idea down, I got further and further lost moving on to altar, temple, nave, synagog, mosque . . . we resorted to using Goggle Images. Him surfing the net nude was a bonus and I briefly considered a new career teaching English. But then molesting your students is not considered good form, so I quickly discarded that idea and went back to staring at his naked body while he searched for the perfect picture to illustrate the word he was after.
Church was the word he wanted, I had gotten too carried away. That was a lot of work for such a simple word. But he was happy once I hit on it; I never did find out why he wanted to know. It had nothing to do with what we had been chatting about, and it never entered our conversation afterwards either.
Some English words that Thais have universally adopted for general use can be confusing to a native English speaker. Both due to accent and word choice, though there is always some logic in their choice, as long as you stick to Thai logic. Sometimes their phrasing is cute once you figured out the progression to its use. Other times it makes little sense, and is just plain wrong. But once a Thai in some position of authority has declared it as the proper word to use, no farang opinion will ever change the locals’ collective mind.
‘Finished’ or in their pronunciation ‘finit’ is one favorite and odd-ball word visitors come across frequently. When shopping, if you ask for a size or color they are out of, you’ll get finit as a reply. Same same for a dish that is all gone at a breakfast buffet. And it is used if you showed up 10 minutes past serving time, too. When checking in at a hotel, if you want a double bed instead of two singles and there are no rooms to be had, you’ll get a finit. Occasionally it will also be the answer if you ask for a nonsmoking room when only smoking rooms are available, though usually they say yes and then check you into a smoking room anyway. No reason to learn a whole slew of appropriate phrases (i.e. we’re closed, we’re out, they are all gone, etc.) when one word will do the job.
Sometimes it’s not their choice of words but pronunciation that causes confusion. Browsing the glass enclosed watch display at one of Bangkok’s department stores one afternoon, the salesclerk greeted me with a big smile. “Big dick count for you!” he promised.
I smiled, thinking it was nice that he noticed. Or maybe that was an offer I thought, checking out his package to see just how big we were talking about. “Really?” I said.
“Yes! 50 percent off all!” he replied, anxious for a sale.
He didn’t get the sale, I didn’t take advantage of the dick count. But I did get a laugh out of the exchange.
Normally I’m careful to not correct Noom’s use or pronunciation and avoid the chance of broaching the world of stupid. But I have tried, on several occasions, to correct one common use among Thais that sucks. I can’t blame them for the confusion, rules of English are often contradictory. The first time it came up with Noom was early on in our relationship. We were by the Grand Palace, and knowing even though Noom lives in Bangkok there are many places he has not been to, I asked him, “Have you ever been to Wat Pho?”
“I ever been,” he answered.
Huh.
His reply, though badly phrased, was in the affirmative. That he had been to the wat. I think. But the phrasing was closer to what you’d use to say you had not: I’ve never been. Risking it, I tried for clarification stupidly giving him an either/or question to answer, “You mean you have been there, or you have not?”
Obviously the confusion was on my part, it was clear to him and he responded with a simple, “yes.”
Try again. I explained, “If someone asks if you have ever been somewhere, if you have your answer is ‘I have been’. If not, ‘I have not been there’ or ‘I have never been there’. Ever and never are not like yes and no, they are not interchangeable opposites.”
He didn’t take offense to my lecture. Instead he came back with, “I ask if you ever eat Thai food, you not say – and he carefully annunciated each word – I never had?”
Bastard. Typical of a Thai, he knew his ‘I ever been’ wasn’t correct, but it is to Thais and that’s all that really matters. To them. It may be your language, but it’s being used in Thailand, so their rules win. Then, with an accompanying smirk, still slowly sounding out each word with emphasis, he sang out, “I have never not been there.”
If he could sing worth a damn, it would have been an aria as he let go with his creative juices:
“I not been there ever . . .Never . . . Ever.”
“I been there not ever.”
“Never been there ever.”
“Ever been there not never.”
I really need to learn how to say fuck you in Thai. Instead, I relied on sign language.
Sigh.
Note to self: Never, ever, ever, try and correct Noom’s English again.
02 Thursday Jun 2011
Posted Monk Shot!, Travel Photography
inTags
Red baht busses, or songthaews, are the common mode of public transpo in Chiang Mai. Bus loads of monks are a daily site. I’ve snapped this photo a dozen times up north, and probably will another dozen times. I took this one while sitting on the patio of the Montri Hotel one afternoon, the brick wall of the Thapae Gate adding a third – or is that fourth – shade of red/orange to the scene.
02 Thursday Jun 2011
I have a long history with the Montri Hotel in Chiang Mai. It was the first hotel I stayed at in Chiang Mai, a good twenty years ago. At that time, being generous, it was a dump. But it had a lot of pluses going for it too. Not normally the quality of hotel I’d stay at, for some reason it fit the city and it set the tone for hotels in Chiang Mai for me on future visits. I still tend to stay at lower end proprieties whenever I visit the city.
My first trip North was with my friends Ann and Char, a pair of dykes. A third lesbo we knew, Karen, was along for the ride. Ann had picked the place and booked our rooms. She’d done the same in Bangkok; there we stayed at The Mahattan. Hard to believe you could take a step downward, but the Montri managed to do just that.
The rooms were old and tired, the linens in need of replacement years ago. The decor was non existent and the ceiling fan was made from old jeep parts. The bathroom was small, smelly, tiled in a fashion popular in the ‘50s and the shower took a good fifteen minutes to cough up a bit of warm water. The bathroom was also one of those where the shower head is mounted a foot away from the toilet and sprays water over the entire room. You learned quickly to move the toilet paper out of the room before taking a shower in the morning.
But it was cheap. Under $15 back then. And the staff was friendly. Sitting in front of the Thapae Gate, it was a fixture in town and an easy landmark all the tuk tuk drivers knew well. Centrally located with plenty of restaurants in the area, it was but an enjoyable stroll into town for the Night Bazaar. Best yet, downstairs next to the lobby was JJ’s, a restaurant/bakery with incredibly fantastic pastries. That’s difficult to find in Thailand. Sugar is not mandatory for me in the morning like caffeine is, but it doesn’t hurt. JJ’s menu was extensive enough that we pigged out every morning and then got a slow start on the day because of it.
Travelling with women, even lesbians, opens you to a whole new world. On our first night in town after we’d retired for the evening, Karen came knocking on my door. She needed help. She needed a guy to move the bed away from the wall in her room. Earlier in the day she had hand washed a bra and hung it on the ceiling fan to dry. Returning to her room that night, not thinking, she’d turned the fan on and it pitched her bra against the wall where it slid down to become lodged behind the headboard. No problemo. Should have been the end of a forgettable moment but we relived the incident over sugar at breakfast the next morning. She was effusive in her thanks. Turns out that was her favorite bra.
“You have a favorite bra?” I couldn’t help but ask. I know guys tend to have a favorite T-shirt, one they’ve owned for decades and still prefer wearing, holes and ragged hem be damned. But a bra is more akin to a pair of briefs. I’ve never gotten attached to a pair of briefs. Unless they were on someone else.
“Well, yes,” she replied quite matter of factly. “ I have a separation problem and that one fits just right.”
Char chimed in that she too had a favorite bra and Anne confirmed she also was particularly fond of one of hers. I was still stuck on the ‘separation’ thing. And asked for an explanation. Seems her tits didn’t meet quite right and needed special support. Okay. TMI. Could have lived without knowing that. But since we were on the subject of breast problems, Char added one of hers was bigger than the other, which set Ann off describing her own boobies’ boo boos. Women. Most guys don’t even know if one of their balls is bigger than the other, and we certainly don’t discuss that fact if we do know. The closest we’ll ever get is a claim on length in regard to a nearby body part.. And then we lie. So whenever I think of Chiang Mai, I think of the Montri. JJ’s cafe. And tits.
Six months later I was back in Chiang Mai, this time with my running partner Dave. Dave had travelled the world with me and knew my tastes in accommodations. When we checked in to the Montri, he gave me a disbelieving look, “You gotta be kidding me!”
“No worries, wait for breakfast,” I assured him.
The next morning he agreed maybe the hotel wasn’t such a bad choice after all; hard to be grumpy when your system is full of sugar. I stayed at the Montri the next year with Ann and Char again, then moved off on subsequent trips to check out other cheap hotels in town. I stayed at the Downtown Inn on several occasions; won’t be doing that again. And tried a few different hotels along Loi Kroh Road. All were cheap, but none quite hit the mark of the Montri. And none came close to having a JJ’s in the lobby.
A few years passed, I met my bar boy friend Noom, and ended up taking him to Chiang Mai for his first visit to the city. Of course, we stayed at the Montri. It was now a $30 a night hotel. They had upgraded both the linens and decor. And the ceiling fans were no longer army surplus. Like Dave before him, Noom was familiar with my normal choice in hotel and gave me a dubious look when we got to our room. The shower, by the way, still sprayed cold water all over the room. Unfortunately, JJ’s was no more and the new cafe, with outdoor seating, while stylish enough offered a breakfast you’d be better off passing on. A limited choice with everything but the toast floating in water. But Noom loved the location. He spent time each afternoon feeding the birds and fish on the plaza in front of the Thapae Gate. Sugary desserts had done it for me, fish food had the same effect on him. The Montri was the place to stay.
The town had changed, grown, and been upgraded too. Now there was a Sunday Night Market to browse, located right next to the hotel. And Tiger Kingdom had been built offering new wildlife to play with, the old elephant camps having been visited too many times before. We both had a good time and returned the following year for the Yi Peng celebration. But the Montri was fully booked. When we sailed past on our way to Raming Lodge, Noom was disappointed. The Montri had worked its spell on him. Chiang Mai just didn’t seem like Chiang Mai without it.
Two years later I was back in Chiang Mai again, this time with a different pair of dykes on their first visit to Thailand. I’d learned from past expressions and prepared them for the hotel’s downscale ambiance. Upgrades had been done yet again; the bedding almost looked new and there was even a picture mounted on the wall, an attempt at room decor. The bathroom, however, retained its original flavor, function, and lack of hot water. But it’s location again won the day and the $35 a night rate made it a hit. Especially with Chris, another friend travelling with us who was notoriously cheap. Noom came along too and was happy to be ensconced in a room at the Montri again. The girls loved Chiang Mai. Much more than Bangkok. And didn’t get into a discussion about any problems they may have had with their tits.
Last year I planned on spending several weeks in Chiang Mai on my year-end trip. I had time to kill and a great desire not to return home until California warmed up. Naturally, I checked into staying at the Montri. But things have changed. Management finally decided to capitalize on the hotel’s location. And evidently felt their most recent renovations raised the old girl’s reputation to a higher level. Rooms were being quoted at $100 a night. In Chiang Mai. At the Montri! I passed.
I don’t know what they could have done to make the rooms worth that kind of money. The biggest change is in its name. It is no longer the Montri. Now it is the Hotel M. Pictures of their remodeled rooms look like they’ve cleaned the place up a bit and opted for a post-modern decor, lots of tans and browns laid out in a minimalist look. I’m sure they have not replaced the plumbing system, but it looks like they’ve enclosed the showers in glass. Double checking prices before publishing this post, the cheapest rooms are now listed at 4,000 baht. Even if JJ’s reopened downstairs, for Chiang Mai that is a ridiculous price. A shame, my ongoing relationship with the hotel has probably come to an end.
For my long stay in Chiang Mai, I tried a new place instead, The Mandala House, buried down a small soi off Loi Kroh Road. It’s still downmarket, but has a homey feel to it. It fits Chiang Mai. Close to everywhere I need to be in the city, the rates are reasonable, the staff efficient and friendly, the shower water stays within its space, and you only have to wait about five minutes for hot water. Best yet, downstairs next to the lobby is a small cafe that offers good dark rich coffee in the morning. And pastries. It’s my new home away from home in Chiang Mai. At least until it becomes the M House.
01 Wednesday Jun 2011
Posted Monk Shot!
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You don’t see very many monks at Chiang Mai’s Night Bazaar, but they are quite common at the Sunday Night Market, both shopping and working. These two were doing the latter, but not much of it.
01 Wednesday Jun 2011
Posted Thailand Travel Tips and Tales, Tips
in≈ Comments Off on Chiang Mai’s Night Markets
Maybe I’d been hanging out in Chiang Mai too long. When other touri, complete strangers, start turning to you for advice and directions, you need to rethink your demeanor. Maybe my appearance is starting to scream expat from too many trips to Thailand. Maybe I needed to pay closer attention to the dark scowl so many of the grumpy old men on Soi Twilight display. Too late to compose my face into a snarl, a young backpacker type American politely stopped me and asked where the night market was.
His assumption I was some kind of a tour guide gave me pause. Being asked where the night market was when we were standing on Chan Klan Road at 8pm in the middle of Chiang Mai’s famous Night Bazaar gave me reason to question his sanity. But he explained he’d been to Chiang Mai once before, had friends in tow, and wanted to show them the market but the one he’d been to had a different ambiance, a different feel, and different vendors. The best he could do was wave an arm at the high-rise hotels blocking out the stars and say, “The market without all these buildings?”
His confusion was understandable. Yup, the Night Bazaar is quite famous and attracts thousands every night of the week. But Thais are never satisfied with a good thing. At least not content when there is money to be made. Not when you can copy whatever is successful and possibly make another few baht. Chiang Mai is not home to a single night market. It has five. Well, five suitable for touri.
In addition to the nightly downtown bazaar, there is a Sunday night market originally held the first Sunday of each month and now overflowing with vendor stalls every Sunday night. There’s also a Saturday night market. And two Friday night markets. That’s a lot of markets, a lot of stalls, a lot of vendors almost all selling the exact same thing at each. You’d think that would be night market overload. But Chiang Mai is all about shopping. Well, at least from the touri point of view. From the Thai point of view it’s all about separating you from some of your cash. Hopefully lots of it. Yes, there are elephant camps to visit, treks to Disneylandesque styled hill tribe villages, rafting excursions up and down the Ping river, and other assorted outdoorsy-type day trips designed for the touri. But in reality, it’s shopping that sets Chiang Mai apart from the other major visitor destinations in Thailand.
While there are plenty of older and middle-aged touri around, the majority of visitors to Chiang Mai seem to be in the early 30s and under crowd, attracted to this metropolitan city of the north due to the numerous trekking excursions available and the opportunity of visiting exotic villages filled with unusual ethnic folk. At least that is the dream. The trekking will turn out to be along well travelled paths filled with all of the people you thought you left back in town. And the exotic villages are well-staged sets where your opportunity to mingle with the locals is limited to taking their picture (and paying for it) or buying some of their handicrafts, which you already saw in abundance at cheaper prices back in town. And which are now made in Viet Nam.
Partying the night away, however, has been handled well as there are several areas catering to the touri crowd filled with a plethora of bars, pubs, and seedier establishments where you can kill off brain cells to your heart’s delight. One of the Brits I hooked up with and spent a few days partying with noted that it’s nice that the tourist will never ruin Chiang Mai because the locales have already done so. But in a kinda nice way.
Out and about any night of the week, the market you can not help but not miss is the granddaddy of them all, Chiang Mai’s Night Bazaar located along a few dozen blocks along Chan Klan Road. The market comes to life around seven at night with vendors operating out of 8 foot long carts that line the street offering every sort of local handicraft and knock-off you could possibly want. Don’t worry if you walked past the dubiously silver plated Tiffany jewelry booth without stopping because there will be another few dozen duplicate booths yet to come.
These ‘temporary’ seller stalls line the street side of the sidewalk while permanent stores and malls line the other side (offering the same wares as the nightly vendors and often only open the same hours). Prices are a bit less than in Bangkok, providing you bargain well. Though I noticed that these days the initial asking price seems to drop quickly with nothing more necessary on your part than a bit of silence. First time visitors will be enthralled with the goods offered; twenty years of visits makes you shake you head over the fact that the same crap is being sold that was available the first time you flew into town. Delighted or jaded, you’ll spend hours roaming the Night Bazaar in Chiang Mai.
As humongous as the nightly market is, it pales in comparison to the Sunday Market (uh, that’d be the one held on Sundays) along Rajdamnern Road starting by the Thapae Gate in front of the Montri Hotel. If you make the trip to Chiang Mai, make sure you include a Sunday night to visit this market. The locals come out for the Sunday Market, more Thais filling the street than touri. They close down the streets in this area for vendors to set up stalls along the sides and down the middle of the streets.
These are more the ‘umbrella over a mat’ type set-ups than the metal carts used at the Night Bazaar. The same stuff you’ve already seen there is readily available at the Sunday Market, too, but there is also tons of merchandise offered by local entrepreneurs that will be new to you. Lots of crafts, loads of food, art and paintings galore. Locales bartering with much more aplomb than touri (watch and learn), sidewalk cafes to rest a bit in and watch the people walk by, and monks! I can not tell you how big this market is as it also spills along several side streets and plazas. I can tell you that as big a fan as I am of night markets in Asia, after walking in one direction for over an hour I still couldn’t see the end of the market in front of me and started thinking, “Enough!”
A few tips: Bring your camera . . . lots of great shots available here; as they drive on the ‘wrong side of the road’, Thais walk on the wrong side too so the crowd will move in the opposite direction than your natural inclination (join them or be crushed). Prices, even on the stuff you’ve already seen at the Night Bazaar, will be cheaper here, so it’s a great time to actually buy some stuff. It is, after all, your duty as a touri to pass some of that cash along to the local economy.
Since its inception, the Sunday Night Market has spilled over and now starts in the plaza in front of the Thapae Gate. It’s a good place to start you visit, and a good place to grab something to eat before the crowds swell. Prices on merchandise in the plaza are higher than in the rest of the market, so it’s not the best place to actually buy goods. Food, however, is a good buy anywhere within the market and there are dozens of vendors offering an array of Thai delicacies within the plaza area. For a real treat try the barbecue at the streetside stall at the north end of the plaza, right at the end of the brick wall. The small cart is run by an old local lady and her middle aged daughter. Moms is a drunk and spends most of her time hitting the bottle while her daughter deals with customers. But the recipe for the barbecue sauce is hers, and it is sublime. Tangy and sweet, at 10 baht a skewer, she does a brisk business serving locals in the know. Grab a few to snack on as you head across the street and into the market.
Things don’t really kick off until after 7pm. By 8 you’ll be shuffling more than walking down the street. Whenever I bring new friends to the market I try and get them there a bit before 6 so they can experience a truly Thai moment. At 6 sharp an announcement (in Thai) plays over a set of loudspeakers, everyone comes to an abrupt halt, and then stands in silence while the national anthem plays. It’s amazing to watch the bustling scene come to a dead stop and then spring immediately back into life when the music stops.
There are several wats along the street, each opens its compound to food vendors and your best way of meandering through the market is to stop and pick up another bite to eat at each. Dishes run 10 to 20 baht and you’ll be able to snack your way into a state of gastronomical ecstasy. At the first wat you come to on your right, look for the fried banana booth; a 10 baht meal in its own right, the vendor there smothers the crispy fruit in a sweet coconut sauce. It’s pure heaven.
At the first set of crossroads, turning right will take you to two more wats, both lit for the night and overflowing with monks. Even if you’ve hit these temples during the day, a visit at night offers a whole new perspective. It makes for a nice break from the crowds, too. At the crossroads, if you wander to the left instead, you’ll find the biggest grouping of artists, mostly painters. And at the far end of the street, across from the Three Kings Monument, there is usually a set of puppeteers putting on a show and drawing a huge crowd.
Throughout the market you’ll run across street performers, an occasional Hill Tribe Child dancing a bit and posing for pix a lot more (just try and snap one without coughing up a tip . . . now there’s a Kodak moment!), gaggles of students lined up sitting in single file playing local musical instruments, and groups of old Thai folk playing local favorites.
Keep walking straight along Rajdamnern Road and you’ve got a long haul in front of you with even more vendors lining both sides of the street as well as a line of booths down the middle. The market dead ends at yet another temple, Wat Phra Singh, one of the biggest, finest and most famous temples in Chiang Mai; it’s large lit Buddha with worshipers massing in front is a great photo op. There is also a horde of tuk tuk drivers waiting and the far end of the market to whisk you back to your hotel. Forget about bargaining for the cost of your ride, the price is not negotiable and will be the highest priced ride you’ll pay for in town. They know they have a captive audience; pay up, or walk a long way back through the market loaded down with all the great buys you’ve purchased.
By the end of the evening your wallet will be depleted, your tummy will be full, and your feet will be worn, tired, a begging for relief. A long rest back at your hotel is a good idea. Tomorrow night you’ll be plodding along the length of the Night Bazaar. And then there are the Friday Night markets and the Saturday Night Market still to come . . .
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