I hung around Chiang Mai which I came to love, not as a holiday destination, but as a home...
DA bakery does the best breakfasts in Chiang Mai (including real English Breakfast tea, chocolate croissants and fat American pancakes), the lady “Tips” in the undercover market does the best smoothies which super fresh fruit and no added sugar and gives great advice on life, the universe...oh alright men then!
One of Chiang Mai's temples
Eco resort's heavenly pool plants
Yoga Sala is the place for yoga, especially if Adam’s teaching - really relaxed and fun guy who tells you to listen to your body and mocks the arrogant self-righteous yoga-bods. The south west corner of the old town has Chiang Mai central(!) park where you can sit/sunbathe next to the lovely fountains and ponds.
Funky Dog has great pumpkin curry and other vegetarian foods and a super mellow owner ("no food today guys, I’m too tired"), but is also base for the extremely querky (loopy) Peruvian Aleela who pokes your hand and tells you you have a kidney problem and then tweaks your foot and tells you to drink more water (I met at least one other person with bizarrely similar afflictions - one diagnosis!).
For sleeping Little Bird is cheap and central with a great social life but Eco Resort (east of town) has the most incredibly lush pool and fussball and table tennis.
My uke being painted.
Tom's frisbee
There’s the Saturday walking market, the Sunday walking market (more hectic), and the night market (like Khao San Road on speed..ok, on more speed). There’s monk chat at most temples between 5pm and 9pm but the best are those where you can talk one on one like where I met Songtan, an awesome monk who really made me think and was fascinated by England, snow, my life and my experiences of meditation and Buddhism. There's the parasol factory where ridiculously talented painters sit around badgering you to paint anything and everything on you for a pound, and Thai silk where they farm silk worms and weave the silk on these incredible looms. I got my ukulele, ukulele bag, camera case and book painted and then while I waited for Tom's frisbee Om taught me how to paint a butterfly Thai-style. "No pay, you funny, happy make."
Making parasols
I can't begin to explain how complicated weaving silk is
Thai silk worm cases
And then there’s the people. I spotted Ni walking back from a restaurant along the river. She’s an old woman (84 as I later discovered) with white-grey hair, bright black eyes and lots of wrinkles. I think what drew me to her was how every wrinkle seemed to mark a smile line and her eyes were so bright smiling at me as I walked by. I looked back and she was still beaming so I asked her if I could take her photo and then ran to catch up with the others. I went back a few days later and sat on the step to her shanty hut on the edge of the river playing the ukulele to her. She introduced me to her granddaughter who we played with for a bit and I have no idea what (or how) we talked about but it was really nice to make a genuine connection that wasn't about money.
Ni
Tips was genuinely sad that I was leaving - I think she enjoyed hearing about my life and problems and chatting about her business and life plans. I may have to go back to Chiang Mai one day to finish a few conversations.
Despite the sad departure I love that feeling when you leave a place. You hoist your backpack onto your back and wander off with a whirlwind of memories, plans and hopes buzzing in your head. You cut free of the life you've been living for one or two days, or a week or two and you're free again. You can change your plans at any time, decide to go somewhere different or meet someone new. You mull over your adventures in your head: choices you made, perfect moments, funny incidents and all those to come. Dreams, ideas, revelations, changes...
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