A joy, a depression, a meanness

December 12, 2022 to December 13, 2022

Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai

Dear little friends,

I do love me a nice hotel but as Bruce points out, the Funk-rama was not what we thought it would be so it was with some relief that we returned to Chiang Mai’s Old City and what we KNEW would be funky with no pretensions and a place to dry the goddamn laundry. I sweat a lot, laundry is an ever-present issue with me whether I’m riding 4 miles or 34 miles. A nice sunny balcony with plenty of vacant clothes racks that catch the breeze are better than a thousand sparkling swimming pools.

Nonetheless, it was time to get out of Chiang Mai and head further north. Pluckier cyclists than us will take the highway over the big hill with four lanes of traffic. Nope, not I, said the little old cyclist. We’ll take the bus.

Packing up the bikes takes us just a few minutes now that we are well into the trip and have gotten ourselves organized. Bruce had some items to leave at the guesthouse we’re returning to in Chiang Mai and had lightened his load somewhat, we were ready to roll. But first, a stop at the “tray food” restaurant near McCormick Hospital on the way to the bus station. My research said there were buses leaving for Chiang Rai every hour or so, whether they would be the huge cushy air-conditioned ones with little cakes and bottles of water, or the ancient chrome-and-broken-fan ones was unknown.

Tray food place by McCormick Hospital we’ve eaten at for years. We were pretty hungry and ordered too much food. Bruce finished mine for me.

Well, this is way too much but let’s give it a go.

As it turned out, they were neither.

My research was wrong, wrong, wrong, there were no buses to Chiang Rai, which was astounding because I’d say 1 of every 10 tourists in Chiang Mai, also goes to Chiang Rai to do what I’m not sure but they go there. There are temples and outdoorsy pseudoadventures and elephant camps and whatnot. We were going there because neither of us had spent any time there except on our way to parts elsewhere. In any case, we ended up in the back of a red truck with bench seats, with our bikes up on top in glorious fashion.

Our bikes are used to being flung onto various transport but that doesn’t mean they like it.

Up, up, up the hill we went. How high was this hill? 2400 feet higher than Chiang Mai, that’s how high. The truck was our friend. There were some other tourists on board, and a Thai couple, and it was both interesting and irritating to listen to the tourists talk loudly about what they were doing, had done, would do. Two women were taking the 4-hour truck ride so they could go see the White Temple and then return back to Chiang Mai that very night. More on that later.

You know why we wore masks on an open-air truck with a strong wind blowing through? Because the Thai occupants pressing knees with us were. Maybe it’s pointless, but it’s the polite thing to do.

We bounced out of our truck and tracked down our guesthouse, which seemed alarmingly close to a host of girly bars. I mean, some of them do have clever names, such as the “2-Get-Her” Bar, but other than that the sight of young women in skimpy skirts recently imported/trafficked from poor families in Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar calling out “hey mister” does not spark joy, only depression. We were mostly concerned about noise but it turned out our place was as quiet as could be, although there were some Spanish folks out talking and smoking for a long time that evening. That sparks meanness, to be honest.

Anyway, we rode around Chiang Rai, which was running at about 10% of the pace/traffic/tourist-centeredness of Chiang Mai, so it was refreshingly mellow. We visited some lovely temples, one of which had a gorgeous botanical area with labeled plants and trees which we neglected to photograph and learn from but oh well. And some had exquisite muraling, and I always love those because you see little slices of life from past eras. One muralist would have children running through his scenes, playing hide-and-seek and holding bamboo sticks with their pet rhino beetles attached. The rest of the scenes were pertaining to a so-called Emerald Buddha that got stolen by a bunch of horrible people and there was a sunken ship and deities getting involved and shiny weapons being brandished so naturally I’m focused on what the ladies were wearing and what the kids are playing with.

Honestly, a more studious person than myself would research the era of these events because that western ship foundering amongst the sharks was replicated in several different murals we saw. The sharks look friendly, if toothsome.

Their eyes met in the procession line, and the rest is history.

Kids with their stag beetles. They don’t glow, the mural was behind glass and the greenish reflection from the lighting in temple was unavoidable.

This mural is obviously modern, and may be depicting notable women in the contemporary temple community.

An exquisite little enamel ceremonial bowl set, just sitting around where an unscrupulous tourist can grab it. No, of course I didn’t! But don’t think it didn’t enter my mind.

On the other hand, some of the decor is a bit over-the-top.

At home, these are houseplants worth $70 each.

A beautiful array of spores under a giant fern.

This is a giant blossom that dropped from a mimosa tree, not the fiber-optic bauble you thought it was.

Why, it’s this! Bill Shaneyfelt, you can take the day off.

No way were we going to The Novelty Temple, the big Kahoona of Chiang Rai temples that is 8 km out of town, built just a few years ago, and is basically a huge acid trip of a temple, The White Temple. We got a glimpse of it from the back of the truck, that was enough.

But we did cross a big bridge and visit another novelty temple, The Blue Temple. What a joyless thing that was. Huge buses and minivans filled acreage of bare concrete. Stupidly whimsical sculptures, all blue of course, awkwardly placed, stood around pointlessly, and the big blue temple in the middle was thronging with tourists who all seemed to be there to take selfies. All the basic temple rules were being flouted despite plenty of signage. Shoes on, no problem just traipse past that sign and go in anyway. Short shorts with your ass cheeks out, sure, why not. Definitely pose in the lotus position in front of an altar where there are pious Thais praying. I finally snapped when Miss Cleavage’s boyfriend told her to take the shawl off of her shoulders so he could get that money shot. “Uh, uh, uh, NOPE.” I’m used to bossing children and roadside dogs around so it was amazingly easy to get her to wrap her bare shoulders and DD’s up again but I was too mad to enjoy her flustered compliance. We got the hell out of there before I lost it.

We hid our bikes where they would be perfectly camouflaged.

Her pretty yellow dress was great, until she whipped off her shawl. Somewhere on Instagram the boyfriend captions this with, “...and then this b***h yelled at us.” I certainly hope so anyway.

You can imagine how much fun I would have been at the White Temple, aka Buddhist Disneyland. For somebody like Bruce who studied temple architecture in college, this was probably even more painful than for me. I have seen a lot of temples over the years and stop to admire a lovely bit or poignant scene but mostly I’m out watching the birds fly around and hoping for a butterfly to land on that cool flower.

Anyway, Chiang Rai was mildly interesting and we had some interesting food there and enjoyed riding around but two days was plenty. The open road north was calling us and it was time to get out of cities and back into the countryside again.

Our last evening in Chiang Rai we went to the market for “bowl food”.

The bowls are lidded takeout bowls we brought from Portland. Strong and lightweight, they’ve served us well. We have two kinds of sticky rice: white and purple, and two different curries.

Today's ride: 12 miles (19 km)
Total: 552 miles (888 km)

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