After getting crowned in Bangkok, Nathalie and I were trying to figure out where to go next. A good friend of hers happened to be in Thailand for vacation and we decided that it'd be well worth it to see a familiar face.
Chiang Mai is Thailand's second city and the main hub in the northern part of the country. Initially, Nathalie and I planned to visit Chiang Mai and the north of the country after finishing Myanmar. The idea was to fly from Mandalay into Chiang Mai and then work our way down from there. However, we had been in contact with Max, an old friend of Nathalie's who was traveling Thailand with his girl friend, Daphne. They were planning on being up north around the time I had finished my dental work and we decided we'd go up there and meet up.
We booked an overnight train to travel between Bangkok and Chiang Mai. We were able to get 2nd class upper bunks that would allow us to sleep for a good part of the 14-hour ride. This was the second time we took a sleeper train in Thailand (the first time was coming back from Ko Tao), and so far, it's become my preferred way to travel if I need to do an overnight trip. While not as fast as a plane (it's an hour and change by air), the ticket cost us only 750 THB or 20 USD/EUR, and as we traveled overnight, it saved us on a hotel room.
The trip itself was uneventful. I was able to sleep around seven hours, and in the morning, took in the landscape in between watching a hockey game on my phone (the reception was good, and I hadn't seen a game in a while; I needed it).
When we arrived a bit before 10:00 am, we quickly checked directions on my phone, and seeing that the hotel was only a twenty minute walk, we headed out on foot to our lodging for the next few days. Over the past few weeks, we've become quite adept at finding last-minute hotel deals online. The trick is that we're booking no earlier than 24 hours before we arrive. At this point, hotels have a good idea of what their capacity is going to be and will put up deals to cover operating costs. As such, we were able to snag a room in a boutique hotel (a word that unfortunately gets thrown around a bit too much) with breakfast, for 29 USD/EUR a night instead of 65.
Not bad, right? And, counting that the breakfast was a buffet, we felt that we more than got our money's worth. We checked in, grabbed a quick bite in the hotel, and relaxed next to the pool for a bit to refresh ourselves after the train ride.
After grabbing a shower and a change of clothes, we headed out to meet up with Max and Daphne as they had been busy with an excursion earlier in the day. We met up at a cafe and began to catch up. This was the first time we had seen people we knew (other than my dentist) in nearly two months. I'm not going to sugarcoat this; it felt amazing. There was something about familiar faces that relaxed us and put our trip into perspective. We were able to share our experiences and our trip with people we knew and get their feed back in real time. In short, we were loving it.
We spent the afternoon having a few drinks and then went for a massage. This was my first Thai massage (I'm not really big into it, as I haven't felt the need to get one yet) and to top it off, it was at a center where all the masseuses were blind. It was strange, to say the least, but again, we were more into it for the experience and the company. An hour later, we left, me more sore than when we entered, and then went for dinner.
We wound up at a place known for it's excellent Pad Thai and local culinary cuisine. We agreed on ordering different plates and sharing them amongst us. Maybe it's because I've been in this part of the world for seven weeks, and maybe it's because I usually eat spicy food anyways, but I realized that evening that my tolerance for heat is much higher than I thought. Where our friends would struggle with the spiciness of the larb and the chili basil chicken, I plowed straight through, not missing a beat. Nathalie says I'm insane and permanently ruined because of this, but I disagree. I might be a gringo, but I can hold my weight with the Thais (I think I need to go spend some time in Mexico to find out what my limits are).
Afterwards, we headed out towards the evening market. Our path took us through yet another Thai red light district, where we again witnessed bars full of young Thai and southeast Asian women getting deceptively friendly with old white dudes. We'd seen it before in Pattaya and Nana, but this was the first time for Max and Daphne. The experience was a bit more tolerable going in a group and it was comforting to be able to bounce our opinions off of friends to get their feedback.
We spent the rest of the evening walking through the market and discussing the plans for the next day. Shortly thereafter, we headed back to our respective hotels and called it a night, planning to meet the next morning for a busy day.
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| A Stupa or Chedi at Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep |
After breakfast, Max and Daphne picked us up in a tuk-tuk. We headed back to their hotel where we would rent two mopeds. The idea was that we would go up into the mountains to visit Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, a famous temple in a hillside and then explore the rest of the region.
The ride up was uneventful, save for the many sharp turns and curves along the way. I liked it; the more I'm driving these scooters, the more comfortable I feel on them. The person sitting behind me had a bit of differing opinion on that though. You can ask her if you want, maybe she'll tell you.
After 45 minutes of riding through country roads, we turned a corner and entered into a parking lot/base station. The temple holds prominent significance with Thai Buddhist as it is thought to contain an important relic of the Buddha. However, they have done a great job in marketing the place to tourists and visitors the world over. Upon our arrival, I had a sense that I had entered a Buddhist version of Thai Disneyland. At the base of the stairs (there are 309 easy steps up to the temple itself), there were children dressed in traditional Hmong garb posing for pictures with tourists. Stalls on both sides of the walkway were selling all sorts of souvenirs and food to whoever was interested and school groups were repeating chants while holding out signs asking for ambiguous donations. Honestly, I found it a bit cheap, and taking away from the sacredness of the temple. When I was in Sri Lanka two years ago, I visited plenty of temples and holy sites, including the sacred temple of the tooth. Never once did we see stalls selling souvenirs to visitors.
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| Sign at the entrance of Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep telling all foreigners to buy a ticket for admission. |
Once we reached the top, we were greeted with a sign telling us to pay an entrance fee. I don't have a problem paying admission to a temple and historical site, however, I'm really not a fan of being told to because I'm foreign.
If you ask a Thai the reason for it, they'll tell you that it makes sense, because as Thais, their taxes pay for the majority of the upkeep of these public parks and attractions (although to be fair, I'm not sure who actually owns and maintains the temple), and, as such, it's only normal that foreigners have to pay more than they do.
While I can see and appreciate where they're coming from, I think they're going about this the wrong way. First, let's look at the taxes. It's true that visitors aren't paying any income tax here as they aren't working here. However, each visitor pays an 7% tax each night they stay in a hotel. Additionally, every time a visitor buys something, be it food, drink, or souvenirs, they're also paying 7% VAT on that purchase.
Additionally these visitors purchasing Thai goods and services are either creating jobs or at the least, keeping people employed. In theory, these workers are paying their income tax into the system (assuming they are legitimately employed), so to say that tourists aren't contributing to the revenue system here is a bit inaccurate.
We could even break this down further into foreign aid contributions. The United States has given hundreds of millions of dollars in the form of military and development aid over the past century along with strong international diplomatic support practically since the beginning of modern Thailand's existence. This helped Thailand ward off colonial threats from Europe and prevent the communist surge in Indochina from ever gaining traction here, ensuring that the country became a regional economic powerhouse as well as a sovereign state for the past 200+ years. As an American, my taxes, along with every other Americans, have paid for this support. Under the Thai logic, shouldn't Americans get a different discount than the other foreigners?
But what bothers me more about this is the message it conveys. As you can see in the picture above, it's says in no uncertain terms that if you're foreign, you're going to pay. For me, this gives visitors a very negative perception of Thai culture, and makes the Thais look money hungry, ready to corral foreigners into a different class of people for the sole purpose of financial gain. It doesn't send a friendly message and certainly creates a tense environment between shark-like locals and over-defensive visitors, perpetuating an endless cycle of cynical haggling.
What Thailand should do is change the way they display this message. Instead of greedily declaring that foreigners have to pay more money, they should instead re-word their signage to at least give the illusion of inclusiveness.
Rather than saying "foreigner pay entrance fee" or advertising a foreign price five times higher than a local one, they should set one fee for everyone but say that there is an x amount of reduction with presentation of a valid Thai ID card or passport. This would at least give a clear impression that it just isn't a money grabbing move. If they wanted to go further, they could even explain on a poster the reasoning behind it, saying that it's because of the Thai taxation system.
Right...my apologies for going off into a bit of a rant there. However, this was one thing that Nathalie and I have noticed many times throughout our trip, and to see it so openly displayed on holy grounds hit a raw spot with me, and to be honest, has helped form my opinions on this country.
If you ask a Thai the reason for it, they'll tell you that it makes sense, because as Thais, their taxes pay for the majority of the upkeep of these public parks and attractions (although to be fair, I'm not sure who actually owns and maintains the temple), and, as such, it's only normal that foreigners have to pay more than they do.
While I can see and appreciate where they're coming from, I think they're going about this the wrong way. First, let's look at the taxes. It's true that visitors aren't paying any income tax here as they aren't working here. However, each visitor pays an 7% tax each night they stay in a hotel. Additionally, every time a visitor buys something, be it food, drink, or souvenirs, they're also paying 7% VAT on that purchase.
Additionally these visitors purchasing Thai goods and services are either creating jobs or at the least, keeping people employed. In theory, these workers are paying their income tax into the system (assuming they are legitimately employed), so to say that tourists aren't contributing to the revenue system here is a bit inaccurate.
We could even break this down further into foreign aid contributions. The United States has given hundreds of millions of dollars in the form of military and development aid over the past century along with strong international diplomatic support practically since the beginning of modern Thailand's existence. This helped Thailand ward off colonial threats from Europe and prevent the communist surge in Indochina from ever gaining traction here, ensuring that the country became a regional economic powerhouse as well as a sovereign state for the past 200+ years. As an American, my taxes, along with every other Americans, have paid for this support. Under the Thai logic, shouldn't Americans get a different discount than the other foreigners?
But what bothers me more about this is the message it conveys. As you can see in the picture above, it's says in no uncertain terms that if you're foreign, you're going to pay. For me, this gives visitors a very negative perception of Thai culture, and makes the Thais look money hungry, ready to corral foreigners into a different class of people for the sole purpose of financial gain. It doesn't send a friendly message and certainly creates a tense environment between shark-like locals and over-defensive visitors, perpetuating an endless cycle of cynical haggling.
What Thailand should do is change the way they display this message. Instead of greedily declaring that foreigners have to pay more money, they should instead re-word their signage to at least give the illusion of inclusiveness.
Rather than saying "foreigner pay entrance fee" or advertising a foreign price five times higher than a local one, they should set one fee for everyone but say that there is an x amount of reduction with presentation of a valid Thai ID card or passport. This would at least give a clear impression that it just isn't a money grabbing move. If they wanted to go further, they could even explain on a poster the reasoning behind it, saying that it's because of the Thai taxation system.
Right...my apologies for going off into a bit of a rant there. However, this was one thing that Nathalie and I have noticed many times throughout our trip, and to see it so openly displayed on holy grounds hit a raw spot with me, and to be honest, has helped form my opinions on this country.
After we finished visiting the temple, we headed out down the road towards an Hmong village. Along the way, we passed in front of a residence for the king. We were half tempted to go in to take a look, but after seeing the spectacle that was the temple, we felt more inclined to continue on our path until we reached the village.
Ten minutes of driving later, we entered into the small village. We were told that it would be a traditional village where you would be able to see Hmong in action, as they lived their daily lives (whatever that meant). Nathalie and I had already inadvertently been to a Hmong village in Laos and probably weren't too keen on another one, but our friends hadn't seen one before and we were enjoying the company.
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| Hmongian botanical gardens |
After nearly an hour of riding, we landed back in the center of Chiang Mai. By this point, we were hungry, hot, and tired. We did what anyone would've done in this situation: found a place to have a beer.
We wound up taking refuge in an American style sports bar (it could've been Canadian as they were showing the NHL network on the TVs. Guess who made sure his seat was facing one of the screens?). We settled on eating there, having lost the capacity to move after sitting down.
Once we finished dinner, we drove back to Max and Daphne's hotel in order to return our moped. Nathalie and I took the 20 minute walk back to our hotel where we freshened up. About an hour later, they rejoined us and we set off for the Saturday evening market.
We spent the next couple of hours taking in the sights and sounds of the market through its nearly 1 Km-long thoroughfare. Max and Daphne did some souvenir shopping while Nathalie and I casually looked around. Once we had finished our walk, we headed out to town to have a few more drinks.
We wound up a couple of different bars, having moved from the market to the backpackers district, then onwards to some more diverse western bars. Throughout our time, Nathalie and I were relishing each opportunity to talk to and enjoy the company of people we knew well.
We finished off the evening at a decidedly Thai bar close to their hotel. I'll save my description of the place for my next post, but needless to say, it certainly helped to redeem our earlier experiences with Thai culture.
As Max and Daphne were flying to the southern islands early the next morning, we reluctantly said good-bye and headed back to our hotel. It's hard to describe how it felt seeing familiar faces again after traveling for six weeks straight. It not only recharged our batteries, but in a very real way, gave us some much needed perspective on our trip and direction on where we're going. The lessons from this were immediate, and had a profound impact on the rest of our stay in Chiang Mai, as well as to what we did next, which you'll find out about in part two.
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