“Oh, is this a Chinese Temple?”: Bicycle Rides, Circle Dancing and a ‘Student Night’ Out.

“Oh, is this a Chinese Temple?”

Washing up out the kitchen window.

A dose of French toast, cha yen (Thai iced tea) and lounging in the ‘gangster’ shelter just by my bedroom window where the ‘cool kids’ usually hang out was a good way to start the day. This was further improved with a reasonably long cycle ride/ rather unsuccessful mission in photography. As it turns out taking pictures while sitting on the back seat of a semi-fast moving bicycle is not the best way to capture the natural beauty of Wangsaipoon and its surrounds. I was very excited (to the point of suddenly and unexpectedly slamming on the shoddy breaks of my bike) to see glimpses of bright blue from a tree on the edge of a small, stagnant body of water. It was far away, but caught my eye and when I trained my camera in I saw a very small, quite impressive looking blue bird. Though the picture does not do it justice I’m glad I managed to capture it at all. I pedaled my ‘vehicle’ as far as the little shelter from the sun where I finished reading “Stoner” a couple of weeks ago. It was just as beautiful as I remembered despite the weather being distinctly greyer, one could say that this added to the atmosphere and made the field, with the rolling hills in the distance, even more scenic. As did a solo field walker who gave us a familiar nod.

There are about 8 buses that go from Wangsaipoon to Phitsanulok over the course of a day. By the time I looked at my watch it was 1.40pm, which meant there would be no way of catching the 2pm bus unless it was late. It is consistently at least 15 minutes late but I got the feeling that ‘sod’s law’ would intervene, the bus would come on time, and we would miss it. As such the only option was to wait to get the next bus at 3.30pm, much to the surprise of Doi and Ally. It appears that our plans were much too loose; Doi quizzed me as to whether it is normal in my country to be so vague as suggesting meeting up at the weekend with no set time, or even day. Meeting up this weekend got narrowed down to Saturday, then Saturday afternoon and finally 5pm (when it turned out that the 3.30pm bus was the only option).

At the Side of the Road.

The Vehicle… and the Initial Passenger.

In the Temple.

By the time we got to Wang Thong it was about 5pm. We piled straight into the truck and headed across to the temple. It transpired that it was closing at 5.30pm so it became a bit of a flying visit. Ally, the Texan girl on a Rotary Exchange Programme, exclaimed about 10 minutes in, “Oh, is this a Chinese Temple?” Doi, Nick and I couldn’t help but mock her gently; there were copious red Chinese lanterns, Chinese characters, Chinese Statues etc. Bless her. This was definitely one of my favourite temples so far, partly because it is located on the top of a hill meaning that the views are pretty amazing. We could see as far as Wangsaipoon in one direction, and if we had arrived earlier we would have been able to look down onto Phitsanulok. There was also a garden full of fake flowers, decorated benches with love hearts and large photo frames to appease many a Thai’s need for taking plentiful photos. I realised that I had actually seen photos from this garden as Teacher Tim and Teacher Frenelly visited a few weeks ago. My camera ran out of battery just as I had taken the last picture of the view. What a lucky person I can be sometimes.

The View.

Thai towns seem to be reasonably suited to vegetarians and Doi took all of us to a ‘Jay’ (V) restaurant. I was surprised to find a packet of ‘crispy Jew’s ears’ (mushrooms) and was distinctly un-adventurous in my choice of dish: roasted cashews with rice, whereas Nick and Doi had something much more exciting. Ali, however, had already eaten (and proceeded to laugh at Nick and I for our lack of spice tolerance.

Male Bonding.

Despite having visited Phitsanulok a fair number of times I had never visited the ‘Walking Street’ night market. It takes place every Saturday and the stalls take up a large long stretch of road beside the river. As with the Chatuchak Market in Bangkok there were live animals for sale; puppies, kittens, but also some eels/ other fish in plastic bags filled with water. The highlight of this trip, however, was the ‘circle dancing’. Doi had quite casually mentioned earlier on that there would be a ‘circle of old people doing traditional dancing’. We walked right to the end of the street and installed ourselves on the top row of the metal seating waiting for the action to begin. There were lots of Thai women (mostly round middle, aging, quite eccentric) wearing matching pink and white polkadot skirts, white frilly shirts, huge brightly coloured flowers in their hair and white sock/ white canvas shoe combinations. They all assembled in a big circle at 8.45pm and each of them were taken as partners by random people from the crowd who had to pay 5 baht (about 10 p) to be part of the festivities. There were lots of different rounds, the first one being traditional that dancing. They also had calypso, salsa and various other types of dancing that basically involved shaking a bit of booty. Doi told us that this kind of dancing was only for ladies and lady boys, not for men (his excuse for not dancing… at least until the last round). However Nick (male, not lady boy), Ally and I were fairly quick to ‘book ourselves a dance partner’. Mine was quite a short, plump woman of about 50 years old with an enormous, illuminating smile. I rather loved following along with the steps and got so into it that this rather effeminate little boy in the crowd would fan me madly to cool me down as I danced on by him.

 

The Walking Street, Phitsanulok

Some of the Dancers

Next up we had to drop Ally off home (because she has a traditional, very protective host mother- and she is only 17) before heading off to Doi’s ‘quartier’. He showed us a little bit of the nightlife right beside his university. Living in such a small place as Wangsaipoon (an entirely different story from London, but still) I was amazed by the bright lights, the loud music, the large number of young people/ people my age and by the short clothes all the girls were wearing… including me actually. It was more like something out of a film than something that was real. As soon as we arrived we were beckoned over by a group of Thai students who gave us whiskey and introduced themselves. Slightly embarrassingly Doi lent me some of his sexy (I imagine) Thai girlfriend’s clothes because the wardrobe that I had available to me in my rucksack consisted only of two obscenely long teacher skirts and two ¾ length work shirts. As such I turned up, shyly, in a white playsuit adorned with black lace. Though I don’t like to admit it I felt like a bit of a ‘sexy mamma’ and didn’t actually want to give it back to him at the end of the night. Nick was also encouraged to change from what is actually his favourite shirt to one of Doi’s oversized stripy shirts (it was big on Nick, and Doi is a lot smaller than him, so that was a little odd.) What I didn’t mention before was that Doi had brought me 5 outfits to choose from, which was incredibly sweet of him.

Doi and I.

I would agree with people who say that the best way to get to know a place is with the local people! I feel so privileged.

Chiang Mai- Temple Tour…

Tuk-tuk waiting for passengers in Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai is a very beautiful city in the north of Thailand. There used to be a restaurant in Haymarket (Edinburgh) called Chiang Mai and until I met 26 other young people who were going away with Project Trust to Thailand I didn’t realise that it was a place, let a lone where it was exactly. I now know that it takes 6 hours from Sukothai (but longer from Phitsanulok or Sak Lek- stations closer to my place). It was less than a pound an hour for the journey.

During the bus ride the landscape changed gradually from fairly flat plains and rice paddies to mountainous regions covered in tropical jungles. I particularly remember a steep climb that the bus struggled with as we approached Chiang Mai. I am very pleased to note that since coming to Thailand I have started to read again. Nick leant me a couple of novels and on the bus I devoured ‘The End of the Affair’ by Graham Greene. It was very satisfying.

On arrival to Chiang Mai Lek had various conversations with various bus/taxi/tuk tuk drivers as Nick and I stood aside wondering what she was negotiating. We ended up jumping into a red vehicle (apparently they are to Chiang Mai what black cabs are to London) that took us into the centre. We were dropped off at one of the city walls where many tourists stopped to take pictures of each other. By this point hunger had got the better of us so we split up in different directions; Nick and Lek to 7/11 for noodles and I managed to acquire some sticky rice, mango and ice cream from a little stall nearby before joining them on a bench which was in the shade.

Not much planning had gone into our trip and it very quickly became a temple tour. Unfortunately I do not know the names of any of them. In my mind, before going to Chiang Mai, I had told myself: no temples. I now realise that this was very closed-minded and by visiting a number of different temples throughout the city I came to appreciate their beauty and peace. I also learnt that the king of Thailand had been a monk when he was younger and it is a rite of passage that many young men undertake here. Lek prayed to Buddha at all the temples, and this time inside the holy buildings (which also seemed to be tourist attractions for Thais and farang alike) provided an opportunity for reflection and even spirituality. I definitely felt connected to something bigger by sitting in these sacred places surrounded by believers.

Before stopping at our last temple we checked into a hostel that backed onto a car park. It was not the most aesthetically pleasing (which doesn’t matter as we were there to sleep) and it cost us each £2. Amazing. There was even air conditioning.

The last temple stop we took was probably the most impressive, but also the busiest. As it is the weekend of Kaw Pan Sa many Buddhists go to the temple to pray and offer candles to the monks. As we were about to leave the pregnant clouds gave birth. We had to move our shoes inside and wait it out. This is what people tend to do, just wait until the rain passes, as it is almost impossible to do anything with it around. It was like a tap we couldn’t turn off but I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere and being able to sit and gaze out of the window without being able to see more than 2 metres away because of the thick and heavy drops. The novelty of the tropical rain wore off slightly when hunger called. Lek, Nick and I were very much in the mood for food… immediately.

We took another of these red vehicles (this time joined by two surprisingly sombre Americans) to the food market, which would have been quite a walk. Falling upon a vegetarian stall we ordered various dishes to meet all of our needs and three large, heavily iced orange juices from a charming lady boy. The portions were enormous and I had to take a ‘doggy bag’ away with me.

Night markets are commonplace in big cities (at least) throughout Thailand and Chiang Mai boasted a large and impressive one. Lek bought each of us a little key ring and a phone charm as a reminder of our trip, how sweet of her (and also practical). At one point there was an impressive overload of electricity when there was a ‘Mexican wave’ of bulbs cutting out with explosive noises resounding through the bazaar; quite exciting really.

Food is central to life; it comes up in almost every conversation and almost my entire basic Thai vocabulary during the first week consisted of words for food and relating to its consumption. Rotis were next on the list and were delicious (aroy mak maak in Thai). We sat by the edge of an inky pool in the dark eating them as rats and cockroaches brushed past us. A nearby shrine was inhabited by a rat who sat inside like a deity inhabiting his own temple.

English: The Sunday evening walking street is a market which is held on Rachadamnoen road, the main road through the old city which leads from Tapae gate to Wat Phra Singh, and its side streets. The products on sale are mainly handicrafts which are made in and around Chiang Mai. Most of the food stalls can be found on adjacent temple grounds. The mountain in the background is Doi Suthep, just west of the city.

En route back to the ‘temple district’ as I like to call it we stopped by a café and had some icy fruit shakes to cool down. Night does not mean cool here, it is just hot as opposed to very hot. Between us we had mango, banana and dragon fruit. We discussed different festivals that we have between Thailand, Scotland, England, and also Canada, where Nick spent his year abroad last year.

By this point after a long day of bus journeys, reading and temple touring it was time to retire for the night, reflecting on what perhaps the next trip to Chiang Mai might entail. Perhaps visiting some elephants, or the surrounding jungle areas… Only time will tell.