Day 22 - Blogabond

This was a tour day, part of the package deal Barbara booked in Bangkok. The morning was spent just outside of Chiang Mai in an area I think is called San Kamphaeng, which is full of various "factories" where they produce hand the made items for which Chiang Mai is famous. However, the tour was just one factory after another where you spent about three minutes watching the craftsman and twenty minutes telling your assigned salesperson that you didn't want to buy anything.

Some of it was interesting though. The first factory produced lacquer and silverware and was definitely the best (they also had the best shop with some very interesting little f...cking dolls and antique buddha I almost bought). Next came the silver factory. What was amazing there was how some of the artisans copied some very intricate designs only by sight. After that was the teak shop, pretty boring after about two seconds of watching someone with an awl. The fourth shop made umbrellas and fans from both paper and silk. The last (finally!) was the silk factory which did hold my attention because the weaving seemed so difficult (but monotonous as well). Barbara bought birds for merit-making.

From there we went to lunch at a Japanese restaurant (!) which was quite pretty and had a couple of monkeys out front. After lunch we began the long, terrifying, but beautiful bus ride up to Doi Suthep, a buddhist temple located on a mountain overlooking Chiang Mail, a city infinitely more appealing than Bangkok. The temple was pretty uninspired except for the view which was quite hazy the day we were there. So we walked around the temple for a while (which you need to take a tram up to) and then looked at some jade factories/shops just below the temple. The bus had a tv in it on which our driver was watching professional wrestling wrestling while waiting for us. Anyway, it took about two hours to get back to Chiang Mai -- everyone slept.

Once we got back to Chiang Mai, Barbara and I made arrangements for a three-day trek to the hill tribes. Summit Tours had been recommended to us but they were closed so we went next door to a place called Galare Travel and hired a guide (the owner) whose nickname was Oot -- the sound a pig makes, he explained. He seemed nice, knowledgeable and trustworthy and so we were set.

We then went back to the hotel for a while and then had dinner at a fairly decent outdoor restaurant where we tried a really interesting banana-like fruit. Afterwards, we walked through the night bazaar for a bit and I began down the path of becoming an international smuggler by buying a supposedly antique wooden Burmese buddha. Antique or not, since the export of ANY buddhas from Thailand is forbidden without government approval, I had taken the first step.

written by

shoshtrvls on August 22, 1987 from Chiang Mai, Thailand

from the travel blog: Around the World (1987)

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