Northern Thailand Dec 2011

I began to get itchy feet after a couple of days at Sanghka in the east. (Kinda like landing in Ipswich on your first trip to Australia?) So I made my apologies and took leave of my hosts and their warm no-fuss hospitality and climbed aboard a coach bound for Bangkok. I sat in the front seat with this massive front windscreen to marvel out of. In the mountains off in the distance a huge gold Buddha sits in contemplation atop the high sharp peaks. Ornate teak houses, and beautiful ‘wat’s (temples) always colorful, contrasted with the simple farm dwellings. Buffalo were grazing and/or working and along hundreds of kilometers of this busy highway on both sides, were fruit stalls, endless fruit stalls. The abundance in Thailand was a culture shock to me; there are literally mountains of food everywhere you look. The shock, I think, has something to do with coming to terms with just how many more seventy million mouths are than twenty million. Also, it is surprising to read the long list of exports that Thailand leads the world in…. rice, pineapples, and sugar, are just a few. I arrived in Bangkok in the early evening and thought I had the trip to the now famous Shanti Lodge sorted. A taxi-meter was dispatched promptly from the Mor Chit Bus Station to take me the 10 or so kilometers I needed to travel, but as we got closer to Dusit, the driver got more confused. ‘No worries, I’ll get out here thanks, Khap’. Cocky in the knowledge that I was within 500 metres of a good hot shower and a meal, and with google maps on my smartphone, I happily stepped out on to the uneven crumbling pavement and headed in exactly the opposite direction to my lodgings. Fifteen minutes later, I was starting to get lost. My Smartphone? Not! I’m sweating, got a heavy backpack, it’s getting dark, and I haven’t eaten. OK, TV. Team-talk, Chill! Sit down, have a mango drink at a street stall and try to work out what on earth your silly GPS is doing and this time get it right! I managed to do that, and finally found myself exhausted and sweating but very thankful, out the front of Shanti Lodge. I was shown to a different (smaller) room this time, but it was just as authentic Siamese and lovely. Then followed a) shower, b) shave, c) beer (Leo), d) a light meal, then e) off to find Bua, my amazing Thai Masseuse. Somewhere in that progression I was transformed from weary traveller to cool rockin’ daddy… around c), I think. But after an hour of e) - Bua climbing all over and pummelling me to tears - I was back home in my bed and sleeping the sleep of a very blessed man.

Bua (means Lotus - Bless!) I was up early (5am) for a quick breakfast before getting a Tuk Tuk to the Train station for the 8am departure North through the centre of Thailand and up into Chiang Mai. It was exciting hopping on to the train with all its quirks. Table service/carriage sweepers/alcohol rolling past on trolleys every 20minutes. The train was very old and rackety, the seats reclining way further back than they were designed to, and from this comfortable vantage I watched again awestruck as Thailand revealed her beauty to me, around every bend, across every bridge there was a wonder to behold. I got into the habit of just uttering ‘Ohhhh La!’ to myself all the time (mainly at the astonishing beauty of the local women). The 12-hour trip went quickly, at one stage some French backpackers had a DVD playing that I watched - The Passion of Christ – it was horrifying! As dusk and Chiang Mai approached, the lights began to become more dense out the window though as we climbed up those few long grades in the dark, I was still quite ignorant of just how big is Chiang Mai. I had been picturing a large country village the size of Glen Innes. So much so that I foolishly set out to walk what I thought was 3 blocks from the Railway Station to my hotel, but was actually 3 kilometers through a busy city at night. Chiang Mai as is big as Canberra, with heaps more people! I was continually being reminded just how narrow had been my worldview in sleepy isolated redneck Australia. I found a Tuk Tuk to take me to my sanctuary on the 15th floor of the Royal Lanna Hotel in the central Night Bazaar inside the old town wall. Strangely though, for all its charm and majesty, I could not stay here. Something mysteriously was pushing me to get on further up into the hills and mountains and I set about first thing in the morning, after a lovely Thai breakfast, to arrange a booking on a mini-bus that afternoon, for the notorious trip (80km as the crow flies, 762 hairpin bends, four hours to travel 135km) up to the Valley of the Silver Moon in the Land of Pai.