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Day 17 – 20th December 2007

We woke up at 9am, walked around in search of a recommended khao soy restaurant as listed in the photostated papers of Rough Guide (which the two Singaporean girls kindly left it for us) but it was closed. We ended up eating zhap fan at a restaurant for 30baht.

We returned to our guesthouse, showered etc, checked out, and left our bags with the guesthouse for safekeeping while we wandered around. Our Chiang Mai Couchsurfing host had told us yesterday to phone him again today after 7pm to see if he’d be back, so we had almost an entire day to spare.

As we had consulted with our train agency’s counter girl as to the cheapest cineplex in Chiang Mai the day before, we knew where we were going to. The trouble was that there were two simple factors that led us to walk for about an hour to reach the Kad Suan Kaew shopping mall:

1) We were too cheap to hire a tuk-tuk – note that I don’t possess Siew’s stamina in walking for hours without feeling strained or tired, so while he was leading the both of us around town with a map (as he did for almost the entire trip), I weighed the option of just forgoing some bahts to enjoy the convenience of local public transportation while inhaling toxic fumes, or save that roughly 30-40 bahts and walk for an hour. And I finally gave in to walking as I was too egoistic: “If Siew can walk non-stop why can’t I!”

2) We had so much time to spare that walking for that long helped to pass the time quickly.

Hilarious banner on road safety I spotted. There was another version: alcohol + car = overturned car with blood oozing out wtf.

I would describe Kad Suan Kaew as a little similar to Sungei Wang, although it was a little deserted when we arrived there – it was Thursday noon after all. According to our Chiang Mai host whom we met later on, this shopping mall is more popular among the middle and lower class locals, and the mall near the airport is more geared towards the upper.

We went straight for the cinemas at the top (4th) floor after asking for its whereabouts as we weren’t even sure if we were at the right mall in the first place, and then with much exhilaration and long awaited anticipation (thanks to my friends back home who kept talking about the movie repeatedly) we laid our hands on two tickets for I Am Legend!

How the tickets looked like – very unlike our Malaysian cinema tickets.

Large empty cinema area, those are the counters on the right of this pic.

As the movie was scheduled to start at 12.40pm and we still had time to spare, we ate our lunch near the Vista cineplex, where we ate our nasi goreng pattaya (I thought since it has the name ‘Pattaya’ – which is the name of a place in Thailand – it’s a dish of Thai origin) which tasted similar as the ones back in Malaysia. We were a little disappointed, but nothing will dampen our spirits of finally catching a movie after almost a month of not doing so. (We originally wanted to catch the movie in Bangkok, but since we had so much free time, meh, why not do it in Chiang Mai?)

We sat through 15 minutes worth of trailers, each of them particularly long for some reason – and it seems that local Thai comedies seem to have a tendency to include transvestites in them for comedic effect. At one point, a video of the King was played (in Thai, of course, and they had the words “Long Live the King”), and at that juncture, everyone else began to stand up voluntarily and quickly that it caught Siew and me completely off-guard.

We followed suit, though Siew was slower to catch on what the heck was going on. This immediate standing-to-attention activity lasted for about 1-2 minutes and I found it highly amusing – that the locals were actually very patriotic and love their King very much (though later on I discovered that there was some rule related to respecting the King).

I enjoyed the movie thoroughly, but I thought the ending could’ve been better.

We then explored Huay Kaew road for a bit, until I felt too sick and exhausted from all the walking that we turned back to the mall to lepak and rest for a while at one of their limited seats. Siew also bought an Oreo ice-cream – one scoop – at Dairy Queen for a rather cheap price (can’t remember exactly how much, but should be around an equivalent of RM5).

Being the cheap people that we were, we spent another hour walking all the way back to the area near our guesthouse – opposite the Imperial Mae Ping Hotel for the Kuaytiaw Kai Tun Coke restaurant to sample their “chicken marinated with Coca-Cola and spices overnight before being steamed then served with rice noodles”. But when we finally reached there, it was closed. An uncle (presumably the owner) kindly told us that it opened only from 8am to 4pm. According to the Rough Guide, this dish was quite good and “has become famous as far away as Bangkok”.

The street at Ratana’s Kitchen at 5:57pm.

We then went to Ratana’s Kitchen again (the restaurant recommended by LP and RG) near our guesthouse as by then we were too tired and lazy to ponder further on where to eat – in fact, that was exactly what we kept doing throughout: whenever we’ve discovered a decent, reasonably-priced restaurant at a particular place we were staying at, we were apt to return again for some reason.

When we finished our dinner at nearly 7pm, we phoned our host, Evgeny Frank. This time we’ve finally heard the piece of news that we’ve been wanting to hear – that he had finished work and he could host us, although we did devise a backup plan in case this didn’t work out (which was to stay at the same Tawan guesthouse again wtf).

The public phones here were entirely hopeless, and they were very expensive even. Had to borrow the telephone from the aforementioned train/travel agency who charged us only 5baht for the call – very cincai.

This time I was adamant that we take a tuk-tuk to Huay Kaew Residence where Evgeny lives, because I wasn’t going to walk for an hour with my 10kg+ backpack. The madam of the train agency helped us hitch a tuk-tuk for 60baht – and when we reached there, fearing a miscommunication, I phoned him again by borrowing a handphone of a woman manning a cafe at the apartment. Awfully kind of her and she waved me aside when I said I would pay.

Our host arrived later and he looked friendly despite the first bad impression we had formed – let’s just say his telephone persona is left to be desired, probably because English wasn’t his first language anyway. He asked us to call him either John or Johnny as it was easier to be called or remembered rather than his Russian name, and after bringing us up to his room, he left us his spare key and said we can come and go whenever we like wtf!

That was something I didn’t come to expect at all, as I’m fine with leaving the house whenever the host needs to leave etc. Ah, and he’s a Russian, and apparently does some tours for Russians under an agency – also the first Russian I’ve ever met.

Johnny’s room – simple and clean.

We didn’t converse much as he had to meet a friend. He left us in his room and we were left to do whatever we wanted to do: wash-up, watch telly, use his laptop to surf the Net, etc. We decided not to go out anymore as Siew was sleepy and I was already tired.

He’s definitely an interesting character – a Russian who’s a vegetarian (used to be an omnivore), doesn’t drink alcohol (used to), and doesn’t smoke too (apparently used to smoke or smoke ganja but has since stopped). A fascinating side of him that we didn’t come to suspect, as my visions of drinking with him at night were dashed.

After a while right before when we were about to tuck ourselves to bed, Johnny came back and he started to chat with us. That was when we discovered the numerous places he has been to – South America, China – and his passion for travelling which makes him work at Chiang Mai to earn enough to travel.

Our final impressions were that he was friendly, hospitable, very accommodating, and overall a cool guy. We exchanged travel views and information, and he told us that he could lead us to a mountain some 20km-30km of Chiang Mai – which was awfully thoughtful of him, and whose offer we gladly accepted.

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Day 18 – 21st December 2007

Woke up at 8am plus. Johnny brought us to a cheap restaurant near his place for breakfast – and later we found out that he actually don’t normally eat breakfast, so this out-of-the-way thing was really thoughtful. So with me and Siew on a rented motorbike (Siew went with Johnny earlier to rent as he knew of a place at the east moat where there were cheap motorcycles for rent) and Johnny on his, he led us up the mountain past the zoo – which was quite a nice, peaceful ride, although with our 100cc engine it was a little tough to keep up with Johnny on the mountain.

Us refilling at Shell near his apartment, where even at the pumps there were 3-4 different fuels to choose from. And that’s Johnny on the right.

The peaceful journey, interspersed with trees of either green or red and fresh, smog-free air, was quite cooling and refreshing, and took probably about 20-30 minutes till we reached our first temple in Chiang Mai, Wat Dol Suthap (sp?).

Hundreds and hundreds of steps leading up to Wat Dol Suthap, where by the time we reached it we were already out of breath.

Visitors were supposed to be able to see the city, but the clouds at the time were too thick.

The bells – they also have really huge bells that cost over thousands of ringgit that were donated mostly by.. Malaysians wtf.

The stupa, I believe.

As most of you would’ve known by now, temple-tramping is way bottom on my list of ‘must visit places’, and this wat was just alright. A monk was also distributing strings to wear in a smaller temple, so I went there to be blessed and got a white one – I was particularly inspired by Johnny’s assorted colours of strings on both of his wrists, and he told us he obtained them when he visited so many temples that I thought it was quite.. “cool”, rather than inspiring in a soul-searching, religious way or something.

Johnny was handy to have around as he doubled up as our tour guide – we’d ask him questions and he’d game reply very knowledgeably.. he said he had been bringing many Couchsurfers up to the mountain with him, and it was a wonder he wasn’t entirely bored of doing the tour routine, because if I were in his shoes, I’d be sick of it.

When we finally left the temple and we continued circling around up higher on the mountain, I eventually had to disembark from Siew’s motor as the engine wasn’t powerful enough to carry us both. I then moved to sit behind Johnny as his pillion rider.

From the normal, smooth, perfect tar roads, as we went up further, the road to the viewpoint became pothole-ish and narrow.

Vantage of brilliant blue, mountains, and clouds.

Where we were at the viewpoint – one could just stand here and relax for a long time if not for the heat from the sun. We lepak there for about 10-15 minutes while enjoying the slightly cold air and impressive view.

We then went back all the way down where Johnny brought us to the Chiang Mai University cafeteria to have lunch. In fact, the reason why he brought us here was because he understood us backpackers are on a tight budget, and this cafeteria offers decent food at very cheap prices – mine was only 15baht for zhap fan (for 2 different dishes), and 4baht for a combination of apple, pineapple, and strawberry drink.

Chiang Mai University’s cafeteria – the campus itself is very, very vast (like all public universities are in Malaysia) that you definitely need a vehicle to navigate through.

We returned to Johnny’s apartment to recuperate for a bit before we went on for our Grand Temple Tour in Old Chiang Mai.

Snapping a photo of Johnny and Siew before we left the apartment.

We went to eat the Coke-marinated chicken even though we’ve already eaten our lunch, and it tasted.. almost like regular chicken. There was a hint of ‘something else’ that I can’t quite lay my fingers on, but that was about it.

We visited the main temple (whose name I’ve forgotten) where we sat and chit-chatted for some time. It was then the uneasy feeling of diarrhoea settled in.

After looking around the complex of the main temple for a bit, we eventually returned to the main hall again – and this time a local guy came over and talked to us, and he told us that he’s the interpreter for Thai monks for that particular temple. His English was quite good despite his heavy Thai accent, and he told us numerable precious info, which would be handy for tourists who eye on Thailand for shopping – information such as how Chiang Mai is the number 1 producer of Thai silk and handicrafts, but Bangkok is more popular for its imitation products, thus the prices in these two cities differ and rely heavily on each city’s actual ‘speciality’.

Me sitting at the main hall, leaning against a beam.

He also told us that if we ever want to get a suit, we should go to a government tailor as it is cheaper than the shops at the streets, and the government even provides a 3-year guarantee. It was interesting to hear these honest info from a local, which again, is somewhat of a general characteristic of Thai people.

So after chatting for some time about wats and Buddhas and Thailand, we then left urgently as the Three Kings Monument supposedly closes at 4.30pm, and it was about 4.10pm then.

We rushed there on motorbike, and there wasn’t really anything much of interest.

Someone tell me if there’s anything remotely interesting of this Three Kings Monument apart from the um, monument itself.

We headed to the next temple which we thought was Wat Chedi Luang (there wasn’t any sign, and later on we found out that we were at the wrong temple – all these temples are at the suggestion of the two Singaporean girls and Johnny).

Finally some other Thailand pic I snapped that I thought was good – compared to many nice ones I have of Laos.

Lots of lanterns and banners and flags hanging on this tree.

I was already suffering from symptoms of diarrhoea which later at night manifested at full force. Johnny brought us to local food stalls (we called them as “street food”) for dinner, which were again, cheap and decent.

Hahaha the Thais don’t exactly follow the rules either (neither did we) – this picture was snapped near said stalls.

I also teman-ed Siew to the night bazaar as he wanted to buy more souvenirs. We spent a long time at the streets and I kinda regretted it ‘cause I felt like pangsai-ing multiple times – being attacked with that urge to excrete while walking around wasn’t exactly the best thing to happen.

When we finally did return home, I was already feeling feverish by then – not good. Johnny was trying to strike up a conversation with the both of us, but I didn’t really talk much as I was feeling rather uncomfortable and sick.

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Day 19 – 22nd December 2007

At 3am I woke up feeling awfully hot, my fever full at force – I had already zipped myself up in my sleeping bag (oh Johnny insisted that he sleeps on the floor, while Siew and I should share his queen-sized bed) as my feverishness made me feel both paradoxically hot and cold at the same time. Took a Panadol Actifast and a bottle of poh chai yin – as the first thing I did upon waking up was to bomb the toilet. >_>

When I woke up again later in the morning, I was feeling much better, but my diarrhoea continued to persist at such high frequency that Siew started to call me the ‘shitting machine’ wtf. He also kindly helped me do my laundry at the coin-operated washing machines below at the apartment which I was grateful ‘cause I was lazy and wasn’t feeling well. >_>

Johnny offered us his bike to use as we had to return our rented bike to the shop by 9am – we needed some form of transportation back from the motorbike rental shop as it wasn’t exactly near Johnny’s place. I used his bike, feeling really apprehensive about it. And I crashed it.

We were on our way to visit the real Wat Chedi Luang which we missed out the day before (Johnny was emphasising about how beautiful the temple now looked, since it got struck by thunder wtf), and as we got a little lost as to its exact location, Siew stopped by at a restaurant and asked a bunch of schoolboys as to its direction. One of them generously volunteered to lead us there by motorbike – which showcased yet again genuine hospitality of the locals.

Anyway there was a junction in which we had to turn at, with traffic raging through from the opposite direction. As I turned to swerve following Siew’s lead, I suddenly spotted a manhole right in front of me and braked hard on gear 1. Motorbike weirdly skidded and I released the brakes and braked again and before I knew it, I lost control of the motorbike and fell on my right side.

My spectacles flew out during the crash, and the first thing I did was to reach out for it. I could hear gasps of locals as I crashed right in front of a restaurant, but my mind filtered them out as I was more concerned about Johnnys motorbike and my injuries than anything else. His bike luckily sustained only minor scratches on the exhaust pipe – and the rubber of the ‘stand’ where pillion riders place their feet on was badly rubbed off as well.

Funny that right before we left, he looked at me as if doubting my motorcycling skills (rightly so) and asked me to be careful with it. I’ve succeeded in doing nothing of that sort – and boy was I worried like hell as to how to explain to him.

So I had a sharp prickling pain near my right elbow, right side of the stomach, and right toe. A woman from the restaurant (presumably the boss) fussed over me and brought out tissues, and as I dabbed them on my wounds, she came out again with some yellow Thai ointment and plasters (I refused to use the plasters – I’ve never used a single plaster for any wounds i may have sustained since I was young). We both don’t know the other’s language, but her gestures were awfully touching – I kinda thought people would crowd over and not lift a finger to help, and I didn’t mind anyway if there wasn’t any help since I didn’t expect one in the first place.

It just rekindles my belief in humanity, or what’s left of my beliefs – the teenage boy who went out of his way to show us where the temple is, and the lady who offered medication, help, and concern to me.

The partially destroyed Wat Chedi Luang.

I switched to sitting on the rented motorbike as I didn’t want further damage to occur to Johnny’s bike – I was riding even slower than I already was. And as we spent ages (definitely went past longer than the appointed 9am) looking for the shop which Siew rented it from, the rented bike ran out of fuel lmao. Siew had to walk around for a while asking for directions, while I stayed put as I was reeling from guilt (and pain) from crashing Johnny’s bike, trying to think of the exact words to use to break the news to him.

Siew eventually found the shop, and he had to push it there.

After tapauing breakfast and eating beneath Johnny’s apartment, we went to Johnny’s room and I told him the truth. He was graciously smiling and laughing all the way and said “Never mind it’s alright”. I was relieved.

I kinda felt though that we didn’t really bond that much with Johnny – there was a little too much politeness around that it felt like a very reciprocal relationship, although he had been a very good host.

We went out for our final lunch together at the food court of Kad Suan Kaew – the mall was just a 5 minutes’ walk away from Johnny’s apartment. An Asian woman (whom I guessed to be Korean) who was sitting next to us was making small talk and asked how the three of us met – a Russian and two Malaysians, a very unique combination who are unlikely to be found together. We looked at each other rather comically and Johnny said “Long story”.

“Through Internet?” she asked, and we replied in the affirmative.

We went back to his room again, lepak-ed, continued with my diarrhoea-induced activity, and finally bade goodbye to Johnny.

These postcards and assorted things were sticking on his wardrobe – one of them was the Chinese placard “Do you have vegetarian food?” which he said took him 10 minutes to write as he copied it from a guidebook and utilise to the maximum when he was in China.

Good ol’ Johnny.

We left for the shopping mall to use one of its public phone booths to call Songwoot, and then hitched a tuk-tuk to the train station. We arrived at 4.20pm, and the train left exactly at 4.30pm surprisingly. The punctuality was unexpected.

Siew sat opposite a local Thai woman who can’t speak English.

Me eating my dinner that was outrageously expensive at about 90baht.

Siew looking fierce wtf.

The bed bunk was decent and comfortable even though I had anticipated otherwise, but the toilets (which were all squatting style btw) were.. very odd. A chute leads to the rails beneath as the train rambled on the tracks, and as you do whatever you have to do at said chute (what with me and my diarrhoea), there’d be urine and shit scattered along the rails, as it’s best illustrated below:

I mean seriously – there wasn’t even a proper toilet system whatsoever, whatever you excrete will fall right beneath the chute and land right on the tracks as the fuel-powered train moves at its somewhat constant speed. Probably the most revolting idea of a toilet, but when a man gotta go, he has to go.

The experience of doing precisely that was exceedingly odd – I had to hold onto something for support and make sure I don’t tumble backwards or something. How many people can say they’ve done this literally shitty experience? :)