Meerrrrrgge!

‘Less than Zero’ by Bret Eastern Ellis begins with the line, ‘People are afraid to merge on the freeway in Los Angeles.’ The people of LA need to come and drive around Chiang Mai, as Thai drivers have the opposite problem. They drive with no fear at all. 

They will pull out into oncoming traffic, change lanes without signalling, pull in far too closely after overtaking, and ignore road signs.  You will see 3 people on a bike at once. You will see babies sitting on the laps of their parents, or kids standing between the driver’s legs. 

Getting about on a scooter in Koh Lanta was fine – there’s not enough traffic to worry about. In Chiang Mai, it’s a different story. Our accommodation is so remote, though, there’s no other choice. The bigger roads here are basically split into 3 ‘lanes’ of traffic and a hard shoulder. Drivers use all lanes, for all purposes. As massive articulated lorries thunder past us on our tiny bike, I squeeze my eyes shut, and say my Fight Club mantra, ‘slide, slide, slide.’ 

Today we took a trip to the Makro. This is a completely bewildering experience. Vegetable buying is ridiculously complicated. Most things are labelled in English, but some packet things are barcoded, and other packet things you need to take to a man at a counter to weigh. 

Makro is a bit like Costco, so it’s a place you go to bulk buy. You cannot buy one bottle of soy or chilli sauce, you have to buy six. Loo roll comes in minimum packets of 8. Also we have no way of telling how much our shop should have cost, and after going through the till, we wonder if we have been ripped off. 

As an aside, when it comes to money and change handling, most small shops don’t carry penny change. Today our breakfast change was 1 baht short because she obviously didn’t have a coin in the till. Most of the time, they will round up, and you get more change back than you are owed. It largely seems to depend on who is serving you.

The bike parking area is guarded and you’re handed a yellow ticket. You can’t take large bags into the store, so our backpacks and canvas shopping bags are confiscated (you get them back when you leave) it is rather galling to see a sign that says Makro are not responsible for the theft of the bag they have taken from you (which they then leave on a chair for anyone to come along and help themselves to.)

On your way out, another guard asks to see your receipt. I am assuming we were asked, because we had packed all our shopping up into our backpacks. 

The amount of packaging and plastic bags and bottles used here is astounding.  You buy a banana from the 7/11 and it comes in its own little plastic bag. ‘But bananas have their own packaging!’ you think.  Even compared to the UK, where wasteful packaging is the norm, it seems excessive. 

Things I have learned about Thailand so far:

1)      Don’t get a fringe cut right before you come here. You’ll only have to pin it back, or risk looking like Cameron Diaz in There’s Something About Mary.

 

*(source, IMDB)

1)      It’s boiling, boiling hot in the South. Take a few easy-wash clothes you can hand wash before going to bed and hang up. They’ll dry by the morning. You’ll fast run out of knickers and end up wearing bikini bottoms every day because it’s easier.

2)      Up in Chiang Mai, the morning and evening temperatures are more like ‘decent English summers day’. You’ll need a jumper, and you’ll almost certainly want PJs at night.

3)      Your feet will become so ingrained with dirt, it will make everything else your bare feet touch dirty.

4)      A beep from a horn indicates an overtaking, not an admonishment

5)      When the ladies say ‘kaaaa!’ (thank you) it can sound really sarky. It’s not intended to – this the tone that indicates respect.

6)      There’s no decent water pressure, anywhere.

7)      Any food from 7/11 will contain a weird colour / random flavour / inexplicable vitamin additions.

8)      You get really sick of Thai beer after a while, and crave a nice ale, or a cold glass of South African wine.

 

 

 

Auld Chiang Syne (New Year, Chiang Mai)

In the HOPF coffee bar on New Year’s Eve, we meet Nancy and her friend Knut.  Nancy is American. Because I’ve got no filter after two glasses of wine and 2 bottles of Singha, I tell her that seems like a very typically American name and that it always reminds me of the Leonard Cohen song (‘seems so long ago, Nancy was all alone, watching the Late Late Show through a semi -precious stone’) I think she gets this sort of thing a lot, probably like you do if you’re called Sally, and she reels off loads of songs with Nancy in the title.

I’m a bit intrigued by Nancy. She looks a bit like Michelle Williams playing Marilyn Monroe, but she’s much more….curvaceous. She has platinum blonde hair and is wearing fish nets and a leather skirt. She came to Chiang Mai from Boston four years ago on a whim. I don’t quite believe her, ‘on a whim’ story, and try and wheedle out of her why she came here alone. I think I’ve come to realise that writers, and wanna- be writers, are a bit vampiric and like to harvest people’s stories. 

Imagine, you’re in a pub and someone’s asking about you, and you show a chink of an life less ordinary and then your new found friend slides closer to you and says *creepy, pervy voice and hand rubbing* ‘Oh really?  Tell me more about that!’ 

Anyway, she’s not telling, and is even more cagey about what she does here, just saying she’s a ‘free-lance programmer’. 

Knut is from Norway, and comes out here for a month at a time. He helps us get our taxi up to our month-long homestay. We have made plans to meet again at the weekend when we’ll go back into the city.

Everyone is setting off paper lanterns. They hang above the city like floating stars. At midnight, the traffic and everything stops for the fireworks, apart from the band playing in the HOPF Bar, who carry on playing with gusto. They play mostly Rolling Stones covers, though it hard to tell from the lyrics and you kind of have to guess by the tune alone. 

We leave it far too late to get any dinner, and end up going to the only place that’s open. It’s basically a warehouse that caters for large groups of Chinese customers. Oooh, lovely, you might think. Finish off the night with a nice sweet n sour and egg fried rice! Er, no. I can’t really understand the menu, so I take a chance on noodle soup with vegetables. 

I am presented with a bowl of what essentially looks like gelatinous snot. A poached egg sits in the middle of the soup, like a yolky eye, wearing a crown of crispy noodles.  I think it might be the most disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten. When you end up shovelling 7/11 plastic tuna mayo sandwiches down your gullet at 4am, and they taste pretty good, you KNOW that the soup was bad. 

On our way home, we see the singer from the HOPF band. He looks like Johnny Depp in Pirates. ‘Hey! Guys! Happy new Year!’ he yells, waving. 

In all a top night, but I really cannot cope with 4am bed times. 

New Year’s Day breakfast is eaten in the Knut recommended Bamboo Café. Huge amounts of cheese omelette, chips and salad are consumed before we walk away from the old walled part of the city into the more commercial area. It takes about an hour or so, but it’s worth it. Down the little side streets, we find nice wine bars and a pub selling ales. After 3 weeks of drinking Thai beer and weak cocktails we end up hanging around here, drinking Chouffe Blonde and eating pizza. 

We get a tuk tuk back to our area, and meet Knut for a quick drink before going back to the hotel and trying (and failing) to sleep on the pillows. Those pillows are so big and springy, it’s like trying to sleep on a Swiss ball, but more awkward. 

Now we’re in the apartment we’ve rented for a month. It’s lovely – a proper, two-floored apartment with a washing machine and cooking stuff. It’s also in the middle of no-where, so blogs about what we’re actually doing may go quiet for a bit. But I’ve got plenty of ideas for writing, including my ’50 Shades of Grey with Zombies’ idea, so watch this space…..