Life in Chiang Mai: My own personal paradise

It is coming to the end of my time in Chiang Mai, yet again, and I find myself sitting on our balcony looking out over Doi Suthep and thinking about how much a place can change you. When we first travelled to Chiang Mai four years ago it was just a stop on our honeymoon in Thailand; nothing more than another destination to visit. But within days we knew that this was the place that we wanted to be. So how can a few days in a simple city change your life? What exactly was it about this place that turned our world upside down? 

This is a topic of conversation that is thrown around here at many a dinner table. People from all over the world have got this Chiang Mai buzz and it drives them to return home, sell everything they own and just come back. So as I wander around this charming Thailand city in my last few days, this is what is on my mind. There are many tourist attractions here, which most of us only see when friends come to visit, but there is more to this town than temples, tigers and elephant trekking. Chiang Mai has heart. You can walk down any road (large or small) and just see life going on around you. And the Thai people know how to live! 

Every person I meet here is relaxed and they have this way about them that exudes a kind of personal satisfaction with their lives. Most of the expats who come here to live have done their fair share of travelling, but they too chose Chiang Mai as their home. With every conversation I have with one of these Chiang Mai converts, I am more and more convinced that the Western world has it wrong and that we were raised to achieve everything except our own happiness. We are herded into the workforce and expected to go forth and prosper, but there is no consideration for what we want out of life and the very few people who break away from this cookie-cutter mold, seem to end up moving away from entire lives that they have built. 

There is no one thing about Chiang Mai that causes what the rest of the world would consider as insanity, the more I think about it, the more I realise that it is not the place that keeps us here, it is the people. Day after day I meet both Thai people and Westerners who are in love with their life. Whether they have a lot or very little, the people you meet in a place like this are kind and sincere and happy. Of course every culture has its downfalls and being raised in Australia, there are many customs here which make no sense at all to me. But who wouldn't want to live in a place where sanuk (fun) is a main priority in everything you do? The people here are driven by the need to be happy and they truly enjoy their lives. For us Westerners who have been taught that happiness should take a back seat to achievement, it is a new way of life and for me, an inspiring way to live. 

So whether this is a word of warning about the addictive nature of Chiang Mai or a love letter to my own personal paradise, I can honestly say that every day of my life here is enchanting. Every day I spend in Chiang Mai makes me want more. Why? Because every day there is something about this place that makes me smile.

Just a few of the people who make Chiang Mai feel like home

Life in Chiang Mai: A Charitable Experience

Chiang Mai is stocked full of young American graduates looking to do good in this world. It is a city full of volunteers and retirees, some who care about the place in which they are lucky enough to live and others who seem entirely impartial to the happenings in this tiny pocket of the world. The typical NGO has gained weight in a town like Chiang Mai, within close proximity to so many hilltribe villages that are in need of outside help. Villages so poor that they only have one school, where most of the children are raised by their grandparents because their mothers left, long ago, to become 'bar girls' in the big city. Villages where fathers are either working in another place or spend so much time smoking the local weed that they don't know what is going on around them.  This is a sad state of affairs for the future of Thailand, because that's what these kids are... The future.

Living in Chiang Mai is an experience, certainly one that you will either love or grow to resent, but an experience none-the-less. The people you meet here will etch a place in your heart, without you even realizing until you are sitting in another place contemplating what the true meaning of your life is. The people here have done that to me, both farang (foreigner) and local alike. Chiang Mai is a place that captures your heart and will always be in your thoughts. One of the beauties of living in a relatively small town such as this, is that making friends is never a difficult task and in our time here we have been lucky enough to make many. So when we were invited to visit a hilltribe village with a group of Thai friends of ours, naturally we jumped at the opportunity.  

Drinking for Charity

This experience really began a number of months ago when we were invited to a charity night at a local cocktail bar. The premise of this night was that you could exchange a children's book for a free cocktail and drink to your heart's content. Of course you could also pay the normal price for a drink of which a portion was donated to the cause and then there was a BBQ feast for the cost of a cash donation. Drinking in Chiang Mai is the done thing, whether you are local or otherwise, and drinking for a cause just lends some charitable merit to the experience. So we went shopping for kids books and we drank the night away... We had absolutely no idea what kind of experience would come of it. At this point, it was just another night out in a string of crazy nights in Chiang Mai. 

Our journey began on a Monday, Asana Buscha Day to be exact - the day that commemorates the giving of the first sermon by Buddha - at 6:00am. Picked up in a friend's car we set off on our adventure. In the true tradition of a farang in Thailand, there was little information given about where we were going, who was coming with us or how long it would take to get there. For some reason, no one except the driver is usually privy to this information, just one of the lessons we have learned in our time here. But eventually we made it to a gas station on the outside of town where we met another car load of people heading in the same direction as us. Still early in the day and with no idea that we were still many hours from our final destination we ventured on, now with a full tank of gas. 

A friend's house in Mae Chaem

We arrived in Mae Chaem at around 10am, to another friends house, we were told, and we headed in to wait for some more friends to arrive before we kept on. It was at 10am that the Sangsom came out and the drinking began, bearing in mind that on a national holiday such as this, that the sale of alcohol in the entire Kingdom of Thailand is prohibited by the King - but they were prepared. They all partook in a drink or two, most mixing the locally made whiskey with water, unlike our driver who was also taking mini shots from the lid of the bottle. A quick trip to the market and the table was filled with local delicacies and us white-folk were offered bite after bite of interesting things with minimal explanation as to what they were. This set the scene for our entire trip, Dave and I amidst a group of Thai people not understanding most of what was going on, but joining in as best we could. A second trip to the market for more snacks and some rearranging of the cars, including the installation of an all important ice box and the concoction of a Sangsom and water mixture in a 1L bottle for our driver, and we were ready to continue our journey.

The Half Way Point

After a stop at the local market to get food and supplies both for our group and the village school we were heading to, and we were off literally bouncing up the hills of northern Thailand on very poorly maintained roads, always getting higher and higher into the mountains. The scenery was good to start with, but as we climbed higher the fog and mist set in making for a damp, clouded journey to our half way point. A little rattled from the bumpy trip we got out of the cars and sat for a while to have a break at a small corner store which was closed for no apparent reason. As we headed back for the cars we were told that our trip so far was the 'easy part' with a cheeky grin, and the hard part of the driving was still to come... Enough to make us at least a little nervous. 

Only part of our treacherous journey

Fairly soon the poorly maintained bitumen roads gave out to muddy roads with little to no grip and we fishtailed higher and higher into this treacherous part of the country. "As beautiful as Switzerland but as tough as Ethiopia, you will see" said our driver between swigs of his Sangsom refresher. And then we came to the mother of all inclines, a 60 degree climb up a thankfully straight stretch of road which was wet and muddy. "Here we go..." they said and I was suddenly grabbing for my seat belt for the first time since arriving in Thailand. He gave the truck all it had and we fishtailed up the incline, nearly losing it a couple of times - but we live to tell the story. It kept on like that for another 45 minutes. While I was wondering how anyone would be crazy enough to make this drive in anything less than a 4WD, we passed a couple of little old ladies on scooters making the same journey. Incredible!

We finally arrived in the small village set on the side of a mountain, the name of which I still don't know, and headed for the school. The kids were ready and waiting when we arrived at 12:30pm and came to the cars to help carry the supplies we had brought - they had been waiting for us since 8am that morning! As always occurs in a situation with Thai kids, Dave and I were a point of interest, somewhat different to the people that they normally interact with. We headed to the central assembly area, a slab of concrete covered by a tin roof - which this same group built for them last year - for an honorary class. We were introduced as 'Teacher Jay' and 'Teacher Dave', but there were two other members of our group who did the real teaching for the day. There was a smaller attendance at the school then normal, considering that this was a Buddha Day and this was a Buddhist village, and the games began. 

All of the games that we remember playing in primary school are the same in any language apparently but at this school there was sweets! Lollypops, sugary treats and more and more sugar handed out to every kid in the group of about 50. From a Western perspective we were amazed... Kids aren't even allowed to take one sugary treat to school in Australia, and these kids were getting a whole month's worth in the space of an hour! As the games went on there was a beat required, so Dave took over the drumming portion of the lesson, a happy man indeed. The kids were enjoying their day of fun, all the while sneaking peeks at Dave and I. It took a bit to crack them, to be honest. These kids were obviously not used to the likes of us showing up at their school and they were understandably wary. Most of our group had disappeared into the kitchen to make lunch for the crowd, until one guy came around the corner with a fresh Sangsom for Dave. Drinking during class - this was new! Eventually I figured out the only way to crack the kindergarten kids... The answer is bubbles! Once the bubbles came out I had an army of kids waiting on my every breath!

Meditation to Finish Class

The class finally ended with a short meditation session and a lot of dirty, but smiling faces and the boys from our group entered carrying the biggest pot I have ever seen in my life... It was lunch time. One of our group members explained to us that these kids are lucky to get a decent meal during their school day - let alone what they don't get at home and you could tell as each one of them came back for seconds that this was the case. And by this stage it wasn't only the kids, many of the village people had come to the school to watch the class and have a decent meal. All dressed in shabby clothes and sitting on the concrete to eat their meal in a mismatched array of bowls brought to the school with them. The meal was served by hand with plastic bags as the only hygienic element to the whole affair. I later asked what the meal had cost to serve these poor people a decent meal and the answer absolutely blew me away... $30USD. That's all it takes to be able to feed these poor people for a day and yet the school struggles to get by on the little government support they get and the donations from this community conscious group of Thai drinkers. 

Some of the boys serving lunch

Eventually lunch was done and it was time to retreat to the staff room for a few more drinks. This gathering later moved to the only store in the village and then the fun started. There was more food, of course and plenty more to drink with a few other escapades that I wouldn't care to detail in a public forum but I can now say that I have seen a bong made with a machete, candle wax and some bamboo cut from the forest! It was then that the music started. Armed with an acoustic guitar and a set of maracas (originally intended for the kids) the afternoon entertainment took on an international form with Thai songs and Western songs all intertwined. Dave got into the spirit and with the help of a few others, he managed to create a drum kit out of a plastic lid, a pot and a few other various items with pieces of bamboo for drum sticks. All of this was taking place in a tiny store/house on the side of a mountain while I stood back and took in an atmosphere of fun and celebration and what I can only describe as the Thai way of life. As the sun set, it was time to take the treacherous journey back to our accommodation for the night and the festivities went well into the night with more food and more ridiculous antics of both Eastern and Western origins.

The Corner Store

A day like this gives me a great sense of pride and admiration of my group of Thai friends, who don't need a Non-Government Organisation or even an organised charity to help their fellow people. These are just people with a sense of community who are giving to those who are less fortunate than themselves. And I consider myself so extremely lucky to have witnessed this day of charity with a group of such welcoming people, most of whom we didn't know at the beginning, but who we now consider to be friends. Next year they plan to build a library for that same school and are now looking for corporate sponsorship to help their cause. These people are providing an opportunity to a small collection of kids who, without their help, would not have much else and I am extremely proud to know them. 

Life in Chiang Mai: The Search for Normality

When you are on a holiday, you revel in the differences you find every day, you enjoy the fact that everything is completely different from what you know of normality. You spend every day exploring and no time resting; but sooner or later there comes a time when you have to slow down. Your exploring becomes different then, whilst you still search for adventure, you begin somewhat of a new search... The search for normality. As humans we are creatures of habit, we enjoy the calm of the familiar. Anything outside of that is a holiday of sorts. "Change is as good as a holiday", people say and I think, to a degree, a place like Chiang Mai will always be a holiday for us in one way or another. 
Living in a place like Chiang Mai is amazing, it's relaxed and stress free. Coming here, we knew we were headed for paradise and since arriving here, it has been nothing but relaxed and stress free; every bit of the paradise we remembered. But now we find ourselves moving past the initial holiday feeling and moving more into a state of day-to-day life and that involves getting to know the other side of Chiang Mai - which is what we came here to do. Right now we are only scratching the surface of who and what Chiang Mai really is. 
But now the search begins for the calm of the familiar - the little things in your day that start to make this place feel like home. Of course this is not something that can be established overnight, it never happens simply because you will it to. It is almost a state of mind that you have to reach before you can even start to recognize what it is that you consider to be normal - or maybe just a craving you have after not experiencing something for a while - a good piece of cheese, a drink without sugar or even dealing with someone who speaks proper English! Whatever the reasoning is, those cravings have begun and simple though they are, they have awakened a new and different kind of adventure - because where do you find a sense of normality in a chaotic place such as this?!! 
It could go on forever, this list of things that are different, weird and wonderful all at the same time. Walking home a couple of days ago, I saw two guys adding new power lines to what seemed like a group of electrical wires that had maxed out its safety potential 10 lines ago. They were on bamboo ladders, and the only safety gear they were wearing was a pair of gardening gloves, so what did I do? Stopped and took a photo of it, of course! This is the kind of thing you see every day in Chiang Mai and the strangeness of it has not yet faded. But then there are the days when you are hot and tired and just want to get where you were going, or get what you came for and it all begins to be too much. These moments don't happen every day, nor do they make me want to jump on the first plane home, what they do though, is remind me that this is exactly what we were looking for.
Speaking with other travelers, it seems that they too are on this search, to get to know the heart and soul of this beautiful city and what we all come across is both good and bad. A friend of mine showed up to lunch the other day and opened the conversation with "I have had it up to here with these bloody lady-boys" and proceeded to launch into a tale about the red light district of Chiang Mai. Another friend had to battle for 4 hours with her non-English speaking landlord last week, to have her bond returned when she was moving from her accommodation.Yet with these kind of bad experiences occurring, these people seem to still have the original love that they found for Chiang Mai and these experiences aside, they are still getting to know the city, just like me.
But when normal does pop up occasionally it is refreshing, yesterday I found and bought a wheel of Camembert cheese from a 'supermarket' and proceeded to eat the lot! Today I had lunch with a group of friends and talked about shopping, food, relationships and parties - completely normal. Tomorrow, no doubt, I will find a number of weird and wonderful experiences in my day with a healthy dose of normal to balance it out. After all, life is one big balancing act right? 

Life in Chiang Mai: The Word for Smile!

In my endeavor to learn even a little of this beautiful language, I have enrolled myself in a beginners class in Thai Language at the American Language Centre in Chiang Mai, and by doing this I am slowly starting to get a grip on a language which is completely different to that of my own. By the time we leave Chiang Mai I am well aware that I will be nowhere near fluency, but my aim in doing this is to be able to order a meal, buy credit for my phone and ask the most basic of questions without the response of a bewildered look from which ever Thai person is on the receiving end of my stammered request. At present, the most I get from my English spoken requests (aided of course by hand gestures which must make me look completely insane) is a basic understanding if I am lucky, and if not, a blank stare and a smile. In the majority of circumstances the result is that I walk away without whatever it was that I was attempting to purchase!

There is one word in Thailand that you will hear no matter whether you are in the North, South, East or West... The word Ka does not have a literal translation in the English language but here, in Thailand, it can mean almost anything you want it to. When formally learning the Thai language, you are taught that this word is what is used in everyday conversation if you are being polite - saying hello to someone that you don't know all that well, or talking with them in general - this is the word that concludes every sentence you manage to struggle out, no matter how awkward you sound or how totally incorrect it may be! In this sense, the word Ka should only be used by females - the male equivalent is Krup, but to date I have heard it from almost everyone in all kinds of different circumstances. 

What I love about this very short, very simple word is it's flexibility to fit into any conversation. I find myself listening keenly to Thai conversations and intently watching Thai television to see how many words I can pick out; but without fail, this little word appears most frequently in every conversational medium. In class, our teacher will explain the meaning of a Thai word in English and will directly follow any explanation with the words "Na Ka" which is meant to mean "OK?" or "Do you understand?" of course the words OK and do you understand have their own Thai translations which are more literal so in this scenario, I suppose Ka is a form of slang. Funnily enough, the English words Yes and No do not have literal translations in the Thai language, a yes or no response is given differently depending on the situation or the question being asked, but in every day life if you ask for something, the response "Ka" is given by a Thai person as a sign of understanding what it is that you want. In this circumstance it is given with a nod, and always with a smile.

As part of my language studies, I am required to study in my own time for at least an hour every day. This can be done in the form of every day conversation or practicing - whichever helps you learn best. In my case, I use a combination of both since there is only so many times you can ask a stranger how they are feeling. It is easier to practice what I have learnt at home, considering that all I have learnt so far are the basics which will help me later on - they don't quite fit into normal, everyday conversation yet!  So we sit on the balcony of a night time and Dave quizzes me from my school worksheets. It turns out that this is the best way for Dave to learn Thai too, so I find that after my day of learning, I then become the teacher. Teaching someone a foreign language is not an easy task, as you can well assume, especially when the literal translation doesn't make all that much sense in English - for example instead of translating the phrase as "How are you feeling", it translates as "You comfortable good question". So in this particular circumstance, how do you translate the word Ka? With a great big smile!

Of course as we interact more and learn more of this language, I am sure it will take on other meanings but for now, in 'The Land of Smiles',  I guess there is no better way to describe this particular word - than as the one word in the Thai language that represents a smile.

There are smiles everywhere you look in Thailand, even on statues!

Life in Chiang Mai

It has been a week since we arrived in Chiang Mai, Thailand and it surprises me that we have settled into doing nothing so easily! Prior to arriving here, we had 3 solid weeks of finishing up with work, packing, then crazy packing and the final move. It was exhausting and exhilarating all at the same time. A time full of goodbyes - adjacent to a time rampant with possibilities, a window to a new life for both of us. 
The result...
We landed in Chiang Mai both exhausted and excited and walked 16km on our first full day here! As it is with all beginnings we were true to our generation, trying to take it all in at once. And so, day by day, I begin to realize that it will take so much more than one massive walk to drink in all the sights and sounds of this beautiful city. 
On our previous visit to Chiang Mai - the one that inspired us for 3 years to work towards this adventure - we slept outside the city, to the north, in a beautiful small resort on the banks of the Ping River. There, we had the perfect combination of city and country. It was from there that we participated in almost every tour available to the tourists of Chiang Mai, and it was from there that we made the first pact inside of our marriage to return to this place and, somehow, make it our home. But now we are staying in a guesthouse on the edge of the Old City, a land full of guest houses, scruffy travellers and tuk-tuks. I remember Chiang Mai as being almost a quiet place with locals doing their own thing and monks walking the streets robed in orange. Trying to think back to how I first saw Chiang Mai compared to what I have seen on this trip is almost like remembering a different place, but then, I was a different person 3 years ago too. This is not to say that I don't like it here - not at all. What I have seen of Chiang Mai in the last 7 days has only grown my love for this beautiful, ancient city. 
Through all of our exploring since that first huge day, I have come to realize that there are 2 distinct parts to Chiang Mai. The first is the city moat (yes it has a moat!) that surrounds the city, where it is virtually impossible to cross the road for all of the traffic - which seems to be ever present no matter what time of the day or night. The second is the quiet Soi's (laneways) off the main roads which are filled with suburban housing. The minute you turn off the main road you are transported to a different world all together, simply by turning a corner. Thai housing is interesting to me. The differences between Australia and Thailand in this sense are immense. The houses look grubby and there is always someone standing outside their house talking to someone else, or a bunch of kids running around the street - yet you can tell that these are a proud people. You get a much stronger sense of community here, which seems to be common in the third world no matter where you are. It makes me wonder why we lose that sense of community in the first world. Here, there is not a great deal of fear from people about being out on the streets at night, I see women walking past our guesthouse alone late at night who don't seem to be frightened or even cautious the way I would be at home. But then here I see kids riding around on motorcycles at age 15 with no helmets either. This is something that I intend to explore further in my time here. To understand the differences in the community, the fears and the grievances of these quiet new neighbors of mine.  
The next step for us is to move away from this guesthouse riddled area we are in, to a place that feels a little more like home, to an area that isn't so tourist focused (which is not hard to find in a place like this). We have spent our week as tourists in this city and now it is time to settle in and become part of the furniture that makes Chiang Mai what it is. 

Chiang Mai by Night