Animist Tribes and Rice Wine
Chiang Mai, 10th to 13th April 2002
Zooming around on my little motorbike, the first place I visited was
the Hill Tribe museum. It's amazing to know that even today, many
animist Tribes still exist in the hills of Thailand & Lao. These
tribes are centuries apart from life in the western world and belief
that inanimate and natural phenomena have souls. They live in wooden
huts in the middle of the forests, they have limited or no
electricity, no TV, no computers, little technology and some still
sacrifice animals. They cling to a life that many westerners would
see as prehistoric. Nonetheless, they exist and most of them are
very happy with their lifestyle. Some of the villages are visited on
treks from Chiang Mai and unfortunately, some are being taken
advantage of by the tourist trade, and they get little or none of
the money generated by this.
 After
reading about these fascinating tribes, I jumped back on my
motorbike, and took the long journey up to Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep,
the most famous temple near Chiang Mai, situated on a huge hill. The
road up there is fairly steep & windy, but it was good fun burning
up there on my motorbike.
The temple has become a major tourist attraction, and when I arrived
there, I found long rows of countless souvenir shops, clothes shops,
food stalls and dozens of other vendors. All packed with tourists
and locals. The temple itself is at the top of a long set of stairs,
but when you reach the top, it is one of the most spectacular
temples in Thailand. Of course, this means it is always packed with
tourists, but still it's a stunning temple with good views of the
surrounding area.
After the temple, I continued up the mountain to the palace, but
unfortunately, the gates were closed, signifying that it was
currently occupied and visitors weren't allowed in. So I headed back
down the mountain, making a few stops at some great scenic spots and
waterfalls.
 Back
in the city, getting around by motorbike wasn't too hard because the
roads were packed and traffic was moving slowly, but being on a
bike, I could easily dodge around them. The only thing I had to
watch out for, was the water attacks from all sides. It's actually a
bit of a hazard, people chucking buckets of water in your face and
squirting you in the eye with water pistols. I saw more than one
person skid off their bike on the wet roads, but taking it slowly, I
didn't have any problems. I just got very, very wet!
I spent a few hours drying off and chatting to some Thai people in
the cafe in front of my guest house. One guy was a tuk-tuk driver,
the other was a sawngthaew driver. They were really friendly, and we
talked about all sorts of things and I got some free chicken & beer!
Talking about food, one of the events of Songkran is a big food
festival where one of the main roads is shut off and dozens of
diverse food stalls set up. I tried some various bits & pieces, such
as pad thai, a delicious mix of noodles, veg, egg & prawns.
In the evening, when I headed back to the guest house, I found the
owner sitting there practising his guitar. I started chatting with
her about the differences between Thai & English music, and a guy
sitting at another table on his own, overheard and I started talking
to him about music. Quite quickly I got a surprise, this guy was
travelling on his own, like me. He was 19 like me, he was taking a
gap year like me, and he was starting Imperial College London this
September like me! So we swapped e-mail addresses and chatted for a
while. We had quite a lot in common, although we were heading on to
different countries after Thailand, he's going to Nepal to go
trekking. We agreed to e-mail each other when the start of Uni came
round.
After a while, an older guy joined in our conversation, and he was a
very interesting fellow! He was born in England, but he's been
travelling his whole life. He's lived in India for the past 4 years
and he's been to countless other countries, I don't think he's spent
much time in England at all over the past 20 years!
We had a great evening, chatting about all sorts of interesting
things. We've all got the travel bug and we shared experiences and
ideas. We also had a delicious Indian meal at a small Indian
restaurant round the corner. (Yes, that's my 2nd dinner today!)
After the meal, we took a short walk around central Chiang Mai and
John, the older guy, who's lived here for 3 months showed us some
interesting places. The most interesting by far, was a bar called
'Rasta'. As the name suggests, it was a Rastafarian place with all
the essential trimmings. I never would have believed it until I saw
it, but there were a large number of Thai people with thick
dread-locks and big Rastafarian hats! It was a really great bar,
after some tequila, done in the proper way, we continued on our
exploration of Chiang Mai.
The next day, I met the Thai guys I was chatting with yesterday, and
they invited me over to try something they were drinking. I thought
it was fruit juice when I looked at it, but it was actually
home-made rice-wine. It's strong stuff, but very sweet and I really
liked it, so I had a couple of glasses! Apparently, it's illegal,
but the police allow it at the New Year festival. Mainly because
they want some as well!
For the rest of the time in Chiang Mai I just visited the shops,
checked out the bustling night bazaar and got VERY wet in the huge
water fights. I also went to the cinema again (it's so cheap here)
and saw 'Not Another Teen Movie'. As the name suggests, it's a
cliched teen comedy which enjoys the fact that it takes the mickey
out of other teen films. It had funny moments, but overall, it's a
pretty poor film. The most interesting thing about it is that it's
the first film set in High School that I've watched since I finished
the English equivalent of High School. I feel so old!
It's been a fun couple of days, but tomorrow, I'm moving on to a
very different country. At 1pm I'm flying to Luang Prabang, a main
city in Laos!
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