CHIANG MAI uncovered Derek Workman A Work In Progress

2 3 I have two modes of transport in Chiang Mai; a good pair of shoes and a bike.

Both travel at a speed that suits my leisurely pace and are perfectly designed to spot people and places I wouldn’t see if I was skittering by on or in motorised transport, so I set out to try the more usual ways of crossing the city, just so long as it isn’t on a motorbike, that death- trap on two wheels. The songthaew is the workhorse of local transport, and even though the fleet is reasonably modern, the first one I flag down probably came out the same year as the driver, an ancient wearing a week’s stubble and shirt that’s seen better days. He stares vacantly into the distance when I say ‘University,’ mulling over what I could possibly mean. It’s about the biggest building on a straight road in the direction he’s facing, so I’m pretty sure he can’t miss it. I’m heading for the Saturday second-hand market near Payap University but as my Thai doesn’t extend to ‘second-hand market’ and I assumed ‘university’ was reasonably universal, I’d plumped for that. The only other passenger is a young girl with an oversized rucksack, deeply engrossed in texting on her iphone. I go to press the buzzer

4 5 in the ceiling to signal the driver to stop that I assume also runs the TV installed for passenger entertainment and my finger goes straight into a hole. (although I can’t guarantee that because it isn’t switched on). I interrupt my travelling companion’s Whirling at a blurring rate, whatever cooling they provide is blown texting to ask her to press the buzzer away by the hot air streaming in from the open sides. This time I’m above her head, which she does without glad to have a vehicle of character, and look down my nose at the taking her eyes off the screen. pristine new models without badges, Buddhas and spinning computer A brief scout around the market – fans that we skitter by. worth an extended visit – and I flag down a tuk-tuk to take me to We buzz and splutter into the tuk-tuk rank beside Warorot Market. Warorot Market. The tuk-tuk is noisy, windy, rattling and rolling, and There are two official bus stations, but Warorat Market is the transport takes its name from the noise of the engine that chugs it along. hub of most other forms of transport. Songthaews stand in a colourful A tuk-tuk is of no use for taking a tourist ride because it is so low- line, each colour identifying its destination; yellow goes south to Hang slung and the canopy keeping the weather off your head at such a Dong, blue to Lamphun, dark green to Mae Hong, and red circulates so low pitch that all you see is the side of the road and pedestrians anywhere in the city. legs as you wiz along. They may look as if they are built for two but the The heat of the day is building and while the songthaew and driver will keep loading adults, kids and shopping bags until bums are bicycle rickshaw drivers wait for clients they stretch out as best they sticking out the side. There’s probably some sort of legal limit, but in a can on the passenger seat of their respective vehicles. country where a two-seater motor scooter is the transport for a family I’ve set my mind on lunch at Peppermint, a delightful restaurant of five, who’s going to complain? with chatty staff inside the narrow streets of the moat, so I ask my Uncomfortable, rackety and fumey they may be but, like riding a rickshaw driver to take me to Thapae Gate, the nearest entrance camel, an animal designed by a committee who set out to design a to the moat and lunch. For a fare of fifty baht I don’t even argue, horse but got into some pretty powerful weed before the pencil and but climb up and lounge back in the plastic-covered seat with ‘Old paper came out, you have to try it once – but only once. Glory’, the spread-winged design of the American eagle, printed on You’ll pay at least twice the price the backrest. you would for a ride in a songthaew With hand-signals and mild remonstrations to more hasty vehicles, so be prepared to barter, but he’s we work our way through the tight streets surrounding the market, still yours for the duration of the ride full of shoppers and market traffic, onto Thapae Road. Cars, pick-ups, and will take you directly to where songthaews, tuk-tuks, motorbikes and even bicycles overtake us as you want to go, as distinct from a we gently perambulate along the busy street. My driver, and now songthaew that will wander at will personal guide, points out the few remaining wooden buildings with and paying passengers, eventually their ornate fretwork decoration and pillared balconies, jewels set arriving at where you want to go amid the sad excretions of more mundane modernity. but with no timescale in mind. We arrive at Tha Pae Gate and I’m going to get out on the road on I’ve got an aged boy racer the opposite side of the paved area so my driver can look for another with a ponytail and a weird style punter, but no, Tha Pae Gate is Thapae Gate, right to the arch of in vehicular decor. To help the its entrance. My driver jumps off, flags down the traffic, and in front ventilation and cooling system of four-wheel-drives, revving motorbikes and honking songthaews, open-sided vehicles naturally have, casually pushes his rickshaw across the rowdy road with me still in there are two four-inch computer it, and up the ramp onto the paved area to set me safely at my fans wired to the car battery destination. Service with a Thai smile. 6 7 From well before dawn until late at night Muang Mai market buzzes, with a brief respite during the heat of the afternoon.

sit on a weathered bench overlooking the Ping River. In front of me a traditional-style wooden building of modern construction is protect- I ed from closer inspection by a high hedge of deep purple bougain- villea, its glowing blossom reflected in the murky brown of the river. The property to the left, a grand house of porticoes, pillars and shaded balconies, has an even higher hedge, its top manicured into crenella- tions, behind which carefully trimmed cypress trees stand, tapering to the top like a row of green carrots stood on their fat ends. This bucolic riverside scene is in total contrast to the raucousness of Muang Mai, the wholesale vegetable market behind me, for which the phrase hustle-and-bustle could have been invented and which makes every other market seem as sedate as a Sunday stroll in the park. From well before dawn until late at night the market buzzes, with a brief respite during the heat of the afternoon. When I arrived in the early hours I saw a day labourer curled up in a floral duvet in the large hooped two-wheel trolley he’ll use for work, undisturbed by the changing coloured lights of Narawat Bridge as they cycle through red, yellow, blue and green behind him. He’ll spend his day trollying

8 9 produce from trucks to small pickups and motorcycles. On the footpaths along the river on either side of the road small traders, mainly women, sit under parasols and garden marquees wrapped in thick coats and scarves, chatting and laughing with the other ladies going about their business in a way that men never seem to, taking companionship in the cold and dark and the tedium of long hours waiting for buyers for their five kilo bags of tomatoes for 50 baht, small eggplant at 40 baht a bag, fish packed in twos and threes, film-wrapped over polystyrene trays, tiny garlic the size of a fingernail, bundles of lemongrass, snow peas at 60 baht a kilo. Cabbages and onward journey to smaller markets in out-lying villages. Mopeds with onions, cucumber and kohlrabi line the roadside, packed in clear sidecars shuttle larger orders than the porters can carry in their trollies. plastic bags; red, green and yellow bell pepper laid in mounds along- Creamy white cauliflower, limes of all sizes, purple shallots, pumpkins side each other, winter vegetables brought from the north to serve the by the hundred, chopped open to show their deep orange flesh, a restaurants and tables of Chiang Mai. rainbow of peppers, tomatoes and chilies, lemongrass and galangal, In the main market movement is constant. Porters wait by the en- holy basil and ginger. Bundles of morning glory wrapped in newspaper trance with their looped iron panniers, hovering hopefully as pick-ups (ubiquitous in Thai cooking, banned in the US) are hand-balled from loaded to the gunels with fruit and veg arrive. Large green umbrel- the back of a pick-up and stacked beside a stall. As they are being las shading the small external stalls that ring the market are raised off-loaded on one side the stall-holder is selling them in bundles of five and lowered so the high-barred sides of the pick-ups don’t knock and six on the other. In the bed of a pick-up a lady sporting a purple them over. Hangar after hanger of pick-ups piled to the top with veg T-shirt with the message ‘I’m not perfect, never have been, never will stacked in rows or seemingly thrown on, sorted into large plastic bags be’ rapidly selects chilies in a bamboo tray while laughing and chat- on the tailgate. Almost any vegetable I can name and many I can’t. tering with the lady on the truck next door who’s sorting bunches of For 30 baht I can buy five kilos of tomatoes, tiny cherry toms will cost yard-long bean. She looks up at me and her big wide grin turns on 10 baht more for 500 grams, 70 baht gets me 5 kilos of courgette. light a lighthouse beam. While some trucks unload a single product others load up with a An impatient driver backs up at speed, screamed at by customers market garden assortment of vegetables, as kids scuttle around the buying their half-kilo of mushrooms and vendors selling a sack-full of rough stone floor as if they were in the school playground. Bundles lettuce. At a T-junction at the back of the market he does a 16-point and bags are pitched up to catchers in the body of a the pick-up turn to line himself up with the exit into a narrow alley, barely wing mir- as it slowly fills with a Technicolor display of veg, tight packed for the ror-wide. But he’s still having no luck because there’s a heavily laden vehicle coming toward him. There’s so little clearance that porters stack up behind him, inhaling his exhaust fumes, so it’s no surprise that they are almost all wearing face masks. Bottle-neck it may be, but within minutes everyone’s on the move again. Keep moving and you come to the spice stalls, packets or fresh blended scooped out of large aluminimum bowls. On the periphery of the produce stalls are those selling household goods – ladles, pans and plastic containers, a single toy stall to keep the kids entertained, food stalls to keep the workers fed, mixed grocery stalls with jars of pickles, bottles of soy sauce, packets of noodles, and the ubiquitous 10 11 Carnation condensed milk; a tiny coffee stall made of sheets of chip- board, so narrow that the young girl has to shuffle in sideways, but with a professional level coffee machine any barista would be proud of. Further into the market you come to the fish and meat stalls. Choose your live fish from a red plastic box of oxygenated water the size of a small bath and it’s scooped out for you, thrown on the scales, its fins still flapping, then bonked on the head and gutted before it has time to realise it’s dead and the temperature has suddenly got warmer than it’s cool, fish flavoured water. Chicken, pork, mince – mounds of them being prepared in the heat of mid-day, the fans with a tassel of thin plastic strips being the only thing to keep the flies away, but nothing keeps the heat away from fermenting the piles of meat. This probably accounts for Muang Mai’s nickname of ‘Stinky Market’. I watch a couple of ladies strip and clean slippery sections of beef, and by the look of them I’d rather not hazard a guess at which part of the animal they came from and the fat to meat ration must be around 4:1. A porter arrives with a trolley filled with plastic bags, opens three and upends the contents on the aluminium counter. The ladies barely break stride in their cutting. We banter a bit and a couple of other stall holders join in. The meat vendor points to her assistant, a short lady with an amazing array of buck teeth and says ‘nice Thai wife’, although given the way she’s handling her carving knife I’d have been wary of her even if she was the gracious epitome of the marketeer’s ideal of the ‘Thai smile’. better late Muang Mai market is a health inspector’s worst nightmare when compared with western standards, but western food markets bear than never no comparison to the ‘stinky’ market, with their sanitised services and ‘nanny state’ rules, something we should all rejoice in – while probably avoiding the fermenting chicken, pork and mince. 12 13 A passion for everything

A museum of such joyous idiosyncrasy that it makes most other museums seem like a staid formal dinner compared to the free-for-all of a family meal

t seventy-one Mr Somnang R Tidaj is a happy man. Each morning at nine a.m. he opens the door to his museum Aand until five in the afternoon he will while away the hours chatting with his friends, read a book or watch the television by the main entrance, occasionally dozing there in the heat of a summer afternoon. Surrounding him is a collection of Lanna art and artifacts and donations from supporters of the temple in whose grounds the Wat Gate Khar Rnam Museum sits, a museum of such joyous idiosyncrasy that it makes most other museums seem like a staid formal dinner compared to the free-for-all of a family meal where dozens of delicacies are served as an endless stream of delights. Set in a beautiful traditional wooden building, you leave your shoes at the door and tread on wooden floorboards haphazard with age, strips of woven plastic of a deep blood-red colour, small clippy rugs, old patched lino and original diamond-shaped clay floor tiles, a delight for bare feet. A background of music that is a curious blending of Asian and western classical accompanies you as you stroll around a collection of object d’art that occasionally, but only rarely, dips as far as object bric-a-brac but in the most delightful and amusing way. It would need someone with a sense of adventure to attempt to catalogue this curious collection. And therein lies the charm of this unique museum – it’s the collection of empassioned neighbours and an inveterate collector who spent sixty years assembling a display of the delightful and decadent, things of great beauty and 14 15 those of homely every-day. The collection is displayed in everything from beautifully hand- Brass spoons, reclining Buddhas, carved bookcases to professional glazed display cabinets, possibly Pha Kam-Pee, the silk tablecloths donated from a museum that had a major upgrade. But no space embroidered with fine golden is wasted – if it can’t be put in a cabinet it’s hung from walls, stood wire, used in the Yee Peng Festival on tables or simply put on the floor. Labelling is everything from neat (Loi Krathong); a ‘Na-rod figure, hand inscription on carefully trimmed pieces of notepaper through the hermit seen in many temples, laminated sheets of text from a household printer taped to exhibition made from flower pollen, with cases to professionally produced photographic descriptions – and a figurine of Nang Kwak the fortunately for farang, most of it is in English as well as Thai. waving lady, an incarnation of Mae Po Sop, the An intriguing display of black and white photographs tells the Thai rice goddess, at his feet. A bringer of prosperity story in images and text of Wararot and Ton Lumyai Markets when and customers, Nang Kwak is very popular with they were almost totally obliterated in the conflagration of 1961. Fire shopkeepers, and is the more elegant Thai version of trucks were called in from all the surrounding districts and Lamphung the golden cat with its monotonous battery-driven Province but firemen were unable to contain the blaze that swept arm waving at you from every Chinese emporium. through the market buildings, encouraged by the large amount The historic is mixed with the more recently old – a of clothing that filled the storerooms. Some stall holders who were pile of redundant Bakerlite radios share a corner offered help to move their stock by volunteers saw it disappear, never with reel-to-reel tape recorders to be seen again. and a latter-day cassette player A delightful display in bits. Hang on long enough of images shows life in and that might also become a Chiang Mai during the museum piece in the true sense of years 1929 to 1975, seen the word. through the lens of Mr. Opium pipes sit alongside a Boonserm Sarttrapai. Samurai sword with a sharkskin- covered handle; Buddha in a fair portion of the more than one hundred poses of the asana or attitudes that illustrate his life; china pot lids, ships in bottles; a row of horned animal skulls are mounted high on a wall alongside a row of delicate fans (an elephant skull is a bit hefty for this display but you can see it near the entrance). The walls themselves look as if they haven’t had a lick of paint since Noah was a lad and are pock-marked with holes as if someone has discharged a twelve-bore shotgun at close range, but are actually the insignia of decades of nail holes created by the ever-changing Wat Kar Naram (Ketkaram), Charoen Rat displays in this unique museum that passes from fine art to household 18°47’32.4”N 99°00’10.1”E without ever tipping into mundanity along the way. 16 17 Find a city with a river and you can almost guarantee that’s where its commercial heart lies, or at least lay. Chiang Mai is no different.

he Mae Ping was the lifeblood of Chiang Mai long before supermarkets, malls and Mayas were even a twinkle in a devel- oper’s eye. It was the river that gave Tha Phae Road its name; tha means harbour in Thai and phae meaning floating house Tor raft and with the harbour being where Narawat Bridge now stands and the floating houses and businesses of the river traders close by, it seemed natural that as the road linked the harbour and the entrance to the old city, it should adopt the name Tha Phae Road. A stroll along Tha Phae Road inevitably leads to much criss-crossing of the street, taking your life in your hands as you face down tuk-tuks, songtaew, motorbikes and cars. Best to use zebra crossings when possible. With your back to the river begin your saunter from the arch that straddles Tha Phae Road. First on your right of note is Baan Tuek Art Centre, part of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Chiang Mai University; not old, but attractive. Glide through the wooden double doors and you enter a bright arts space with

18 19 of its menu. One of the loveliest buildings, cry- ing out for renovation is a cou- ple of steps along from ‘Unique Space’. It’s yellow ochre-painted walls fading and mouldy, bad- ly-weathered woodwork, disin- tegrating fretwork balustrades, The beautiful Raming Tea Room, outside...... inside it gives a poignant reminder of the elegance of 19th Century Thai regularly changing exhibitions. Glide even further up the alleyway at wooden architecture, now spoiled the side of the building and you enter a delightful courtyard with what by the purple excrescence of Siam appears to be an original balconied house on one side and a small Commercial Bank’s cash machine garden below it. Unkempt and apparently disorganized, it is packed cabin. A newsagent-cum-souvenir with floribunda that almost sparkles in the dappled sunlight. A tinkling shop runs the length of the façade fountain does its best to compete with the noisy school-kids next door. on the ground floor, but the ladies There’s nothing of historic importance in the spot, other than a couple who stand guardian over the en- of antique cars in glass booths, but it’s a pleasing place to escape the trance aren’t swayed by a smile sun and tumult of the traffic outside. to let you see more of the interior. A casual shuffle down the left side of Tha Phae road brings you to the Rantanpon stationery store, op- beautiful old building that houses Dan Collections. When I first visited posite, has seen plenty of loving care and Dan a couple of years ago it was a delightful repository of all things attention on the outside, but its gloomy in- historical – or at least historically collectable – with a glorious selec- terior and tubular lighting creates no wish to tion of wooden spirit houses, intricate carvings, delicious textiles and linger, and nor is there reason other than antique Buddhas. I was amused by their sign that declared that the to stock up on pens and paper because shop was ‘full to overflowing with Beautiful Buddhist art and artifacts’ the walls, displays and decora- tion are and boasted that ‘All Buddhas have been blessed in the Temple and strictly utilitarian, although it’s said that it has the blessing passed on to you.’ It is now a collection of six small units a beautifully decorated ceiling in the living selling mainly tourist items, although Dan still have some attractive quarters above. items on display. The two gems of Tha Phae Road sit next Above the shops Street Pizza has created a lovely restaurant by re- to each other, separated by a sulphu- sisting the temptation to over-restore what was once a family home in rous-looking canal over which the Maekae Bridge, erected in 1902, this beautiful historic old building. (See Dining at Home p.4) crosses. You could walk right past ‘Unique Space’, next but one to Dan. A fash- Raming Tea House is a two-story teak building constructed in 1915. ion shop no wider than its door it is simply a covered-over alleyway, a After being home to various businesses, including a medical clinic and perfect example of the Thai approach to leaving no space underuti- an Italian restaurant, by the turn of the century it was beginning to lised. show its age. Thankfully, instead of demolishing the stylish historic build- Directly opposite is is Spices Indian food store and restaurant, bright ing – the fate of too many of the wooden buildings on Thapae Road, yellow and worthy of the praise heaped upon it for the deliciousness the owners decided on a major restoration, completed in 2003, that 20 21 harmoniously brought together the original structure and the necessi- humidity and plant-life clinging tenuously to the chinks and cracks. It ties of the new millennium. The scrolled fretwork of the pillars, an orig- is being given a lick of smartening-up, as befits an important temple inal tiled floor, and spinning fans to keep the rooms cool, all retained. in Chiang Mai (although you would never know it), and its Buddha Step out into the garden and have tea at the small tables dappled by statue claims third place in the New Year Festival parade of Songkran. the sunlight sprinkling through shade trees. A total delight. It also has the two longest Naga in Chiang Mai that undulate their Wander over the bridge to Thapae Inn, a cheap-end hostel with no serpentine way from the street to the temple, set back off the road. external appeal. To appreciate its sheer weirdness you don’t need There’s little left of note at the Tha Phae Gate end of the road, other register, simply stick your head through the door. Plenty of places dress than a beautiful white building on your right with a peacock adorning themselves up in antiquery and bric-a-tat, but Thapae Inn outdoes its roof, the Buddhist symbol of wisdom. them all, the complete antithesis to its next-door neighbour. Old ad- As you wander along Tha Phae Road you may not be aware of its vertising media, a Shell petrol pump, packs of playing cars – you could secret hidden in plain view. It is one of only two streets in Chiang Mai while away the hours in nostalgic contentment, reminiscing about where electricity cables run underground so as not to disturb the visual a youth sans ipods and dumbphones, when a holiday photo meant appeal of the charming buildings that haven’t yet been swept away something and wasn’t just a selfishie to show you’d been there. by rampant and tasteless building. (The other is Chang Klan Road, Directly opposite, the tumbling garden of Celadon and Ceramics – home to the Night Bazaar.) Having drifted downward in the late 1990s Special price! - whose hand-written sign is so encrusted with dirt that Tha Phae Road has steadily been climbing its way back and now has it’s probably been a while since a pot was sold. It doesn’t look much many top-end shops catering to tourist and resident alike. Possibly one at night, other than a place with a weird sculpture thingy covered in of the nicest meanders in the city. sparkling fairy lights, but when the shop doors are open it’s the original Aladdin’s Cave of plastic toys, models, second-hand cassette tapes, garden ornaments – as kitsch as kitsch can be but hours of fun gig- gling over things that you really wouldn’t want to buy A stroll further down the road are two temples almost opposite each other, Wat Bupparam, ornate and much visited and on the ‘safari’ route of tuk-tuks packed with visitors who wave their selfie wands in the air, ensure luck by releasing a few finches from small woven bamboo cages (although it’s not so lucky for the finches who invari- ably end up back in the cage), and whizz off to their next destination on their mad-cap tour of Chiang Mai. (And I’ve yet to discover why Donald Duck stands in the garden. Even given the power of Disney I can’t believe he has been accepted into the Buddhist pantheon.) Tucked away to the side, much less visited than the gaudy temple, is the original, a 300-year-old wooden delight, far more charming in its simplicity than the heavily ornate main temple, for all its grandeur. Har- monious but with the curious decorative addition of plates screwed to the ceiling in the manner that would have been seen in a suburban semi of 1980’s Britain. On the opposite side of the road, Wat Saenfang appears to be the poor relation, neglected until recently, with its stupa blackened by 22 23 In some of the second-hand markets around Chiang Mai a lot of the stock has been worn almost to extinction. But there’s still some decent stuff to be found.

ne of the more enjoyable weekend diversions used to be the second-hand market on the streets around Prince Royal’s OCollege on Kaeo Nawarat Road. A few months ago, after ten years of providing entertainment for many and a source of income for a large number of people, the vendors, coffee stalls, and street enter- tainers were told that their company was no longer required and they had to move on, for no apparent reason that I can discern. Rumor had it re-appearing in different parts of the city, sometimes beside Changpuak Police Station on Saturdays, but over the last few weeks it seems to have taken up residence on Chang Khlan Road, between 2499 Café and the Chinese temple. While it seems to have some sort of permanence with blue-roofed canopies and wide spaces it is a shadow of its former self. The original had a compact jostling that made you feel that dive deep enough and you might discover something interesting; here if feels like a hol- iday camp at the end of season with a few die-hards hanging on to get the last few sunny days. But there are still plenty of places to have a good root around if the second-hand bug is in your blood.

The Granddaddy of Gladrags New clothes can be bought very economically at most of the large stores around Chiang Mai but I’d rather pay a lower price for good

24 25 quality second-hand Weirdly Wonderful clothes from a good Setting up home is an expensive business wher- make. There is no ever you are but take a drive down the old Chiang shortage of sec- Mai-Lamphun river road and just before the traffic ond-hand clothing lights at Mahidol Road (the superhighway) you will shops in the city but spot a place on your left that looks like a ware- the granddaddy of house for used catering equip- gladrags and still ment, which indeed forms part T-shirts by the thousand one of the best is on of its stock. But delve inside and Si Ping Muang Road, you discover that this place sells south of Chiang Mai Gate. No sign tells you where to look but it’s easy everything that isn’t in the food or enough to spot, just look for a ramshackle old shed next to an equally clothing line, from junk to bric-a- ramshackle shop selling plastics. tat to object d’banal. Before you stretches rack after rack, pile after pile, box after box of You want a a paraglider with anything and everything to wear, put on your bed or dry yourself off one careful lady owner? It’s on a with. The quantity is enormous, price depending on quality. The better shelf above a pile of old treadle end is on long rails, cheaper end in large low-walled containers that sewing machines waiting to be you step in, sit down and wade through. Ladies can buy a blouse for converted into tables for your 15 baht (7 for 100 baht), men a pair of jeans or trousers for 60 baht (3 chi-chi café. Golf clubs galore, an industrial freezer for for 150) or a shirt for 40, kiddies’ cuddly toys for 25 baht, bags, hats your kitchen, buffalo skulls to enhance your décor or a and bras for the same price. Shirts by the hundred, T-shirts by the thou- collection of Buddha ephemera for your private devo- sand and a bundle of silk ties that probably never get looked at. tions, they have them in abundance. For men wanting to buy a pair of trousers here’s a tip for getting The price coding is curious; everything has a tie-on your waist size right. Fasten the waist of the trousers, shorts etc and put ticket with a single digit followed by a hyphen and two the waistband around your neck like a parson putting on a dog-collar. or more other numbers, for example 2-18. The code If it’s a neat fit there is a pretty good chance that they will go around is simple, the first digit, in this case ‘2’ means that you you waist. I was given the tip by a lady selling shorts on Wararot Mar- add two zeros to the latter digit (18), which gives you the price for the ket and while it works for me I can’t guarantee it for anyone whose article of 1800 baht. If the first digit had been 3 the price would have belt size hasn’t been below XXL for decades. been 18000 baht, which begs the question, why not just write 1800 or Sheets and fabric lengths at bargain prices – and if you shy away 18000 baht in the first place, particularly as the staff aren’t trying to from pre-used bedding just think, when was the last time you stayed in hide anything and are very happy to explain what it means? a hotel where they put on brand-new sheets for you? I bought some Part of the experience is simply wandering through the weirdly excellent quality white cotton sheets and had pillowslips and napkins wonderful and sensationally sublime on display. There’s the odd an- made by my local seamstress, the same with cushion covers from a tique and plenty of kitsch so all decorative tastes are catered for. A beautiful striped fabric length for about a fifth the price I’d pay in a surprising amount only needs a wipe-over and polish, although some shop. of the older pieces require a restorer’s hand. Having been an antique (18°46’21.5”N 98°59’03.6”E) restorer for twenty years in my youth, that’s what I’m looking for. (18°45’31.9”N 99°00’25.8”E)

26 27 Shanty Market You could drive past the market on Kong Sai Road near the rail- way station and never even notice it but it’s a fascinating place if you need an obscure cable, a thingummyjig or whatsit that you can’t find anywhere else. The shops are decrepit, their roofs plastic advertising banners tied down to bamboo poles or garden umbrellas long, long past their sell-by date that probably leak more than they protect. The roof of one establishment is so covered with leaf-mold from the tree it shelters under that it even has its own garden. But it’s not all junk. If you ever felt the need for a wooden carved lobster there’s a pot full of them at a delightful little shop with a plank front tacked onto an old shed that looks like something you’d find in a disused railway siding. A mixture of collectable and the mundane, the lady sat in the far corner invites you to look around to your heart’s con- tent. Jewellery, clothing, décor and household, this is the static version of the old Sunday market beside Princess Royal School. Antiques shed There are plenty of odds and ends stalls selling pans and plastics, shoes, spare wheels and clocks but a few are organized into one or two products; plumbing and electrical goods, stereos and banks of loudspeakers. Music drifts from equip- ment shops testing their wares or portable TVs in full glorious gaudy-co- lour with screens flickering and snowy thanks to the bent wire coat hanger acting as an antenna. It’s unlikely that you’ll find a genuine antique, but it’s quite possible that you’ll come across something en- dearing to grace your home. The delight of the market isn’t so much the goods on display but that it’s a little somewhere tucked away that, judging by the number of people who smiled and me and asked what I was doing there, would seem to indicate that a foreign face is rarely seen – unless, of course, they are looking for a whatsit or a thingummyjig. (18°46’59.2”N 99°00’51.3”E)

28 29 Street Eats

As darkness sets over Chiang Mai Gate, the red glow of the sun is diffused with smoke from grills and charcoal burners.

ther than a brief pause in early afternoon when market traders take a snooze, resting their weary heads on their stalls, OChiang Mai Gate Market on Bumrung Buri Road is all hustle and bustle even before dawn breaks; locals buying breakfast from the dozen or so food spots, ladies selling stings of marigolds and small foodstuffs to passersby to gain merit by putting them in the alms bowls of the monks, their saffron robes adding a splash of colour to the morning light; a shoe repairer unpacks his last, a watchmaker lays out his cloth pack of slender tools. This is the time when the neighbour- hood does its business, but it’s at night when the place really comes alive. As dusk settles the motorbikes lose their parking spaces, replaced by fold-out tables and plastic stools. Wheeled stalls that have been pushed through the streets from nearby storage have twenty-litre al- uminium pans set on gas burners, to be used as both steamers for rice and for the boiling water to plunge a wire dipper full of noodles into for high speed cooking. Most of the daytime food stalls with their enormous woks blackened 30 31 with years of frying a feastly menu of chicken, sausages, pork ribs, fish and spring rolls have shut up shop and gone home, but two stalwarts stand behind their eye-high mounds of fried food watching the few early evening diners take their seats. The golden brown crispy-coated food cooked earlier in the day looks dry and unappetizing without its sparkly glisten of oil fresh from the pan. Crab claws with morning glory, a long-stemmed leafy vegetable that appears everywhere in Thai cuisine but is banned for consump- tion in the US; pork with long bean and onion, as spicy and biting as small plaza built over the water of the moat tables are set up, catered the devil’s tongue; plump grilled tilapia, Asia’s favourite fish laid out to by carts that take the place of the early morning second-hand on trays of banana leaf; coiled rings of local sausages, chicken bits clothes rails. Food vendors cook, serve and wipe down tables with a and liver fresh from deep boiling oil. Almost all dishes cost around speed and dexterity that goes beyond the name ‘fast food’ to ‘fast forty baht, a portion of sticky rice another ten, but over at Fine Ease of absolutely everything’. (And not all menus are fast-food, the won- Steak, 79 baht will get you an enormous plate of sausage, two chops derful khaw kaa moo, spicy pork leg, stews languidly for a couple of with pepper sauce, chips and coleslaw, a welcome change from the hours, served with a boiled egg, its sumptuous sauce slathered over lip-numbing spiciness of some of the Thai food on sale. rice.) For dessert, baby pineapples are peeled and cut on the curl; Nip through the tiny alleyway that connects Bumrung Buri Road watermelon, mango and durian, a fruit with such a disgusting smell and Phra Pok Klao Soi 2, the narrow lane that runs parallel with the that many hotels and all market, a diversion into the depths of Dickensian squalor. On a street trains ban it although said corner just as you leave the gloom behind, where twelve hours earlier by some to have a flavor a pair of ladies worked by the light of two small electric lamps to cook as delicious as its aroma is up a storm of takeaway breakfasts, ladling rich stews and quick-fried repugnant, are sliced and vegetables into plastic bags that look like angular balloons because film-wrapped. of the heat of the food, at night two tables form a ‘tot shop’, an The majority of stalls di- impromptu bar where measures of cheap whiskey and rum are doled rectly in front of the market out with tiny aluminium measures, your choice of either water, soda or are for take-away food or coke to go with them, ice if the stall holders are well organized. Seen for finger-picking while you everywhere, usually outside small grocery shops, where you buy your walk around and see what bottle and mark it as the level goes down, topping up your glass with you could have enjoyed if fresh mixers bought from the fridge. All part of customer service. only you had somewhere to take-it-away to. On the A word of warning. If you would like to savour the visual and epicu- rean delights of Chiang Mai Gate Market, don’t go on Saturday because it’s Walking Street day and packed like sardines.

32 33 move in the evening with little time to smile, as she runs a very popular stall, giggling with a group of other evening-harassed friends as if they are having a day off school. A final power hose down, gutters cleaned and cardboard picked up and bagged, and they are off home to get ready for the eve- ning trade. They’ll be back around five-thirty to unpack their carts of folding blue, green or red tables, plastic stools, pots, pans, spoons and Street cleans... chopsticks, ready for a cooking shift that will take them into the new morning.

orking on the premise that if you and your clients make a mess then you clean it up, once a month the street-food stall Wowners of Chiang Mai Gate get together to scour their pitch. Working around a stout man with a powerful hose pumping water at high pressure from a yellow city council water tanker, they scrub and scrape with the traditional broom favoured by street cleaners, park attendants and housewives alike. As they work, packets of detergent are scattered, their cleansing blue and white granules forced into the paving stones, dragging out dirt and the detritus of dropped food. It’s almost a party affair. It’s probably the only time many of them get together to chat, because in the evening when most of them will be running their stall on their own and they will be running back and forth between their woks or deep pans of bubbling spiced pork soup and the folding metal tables where clients tap their chopsticks impa- tiently and work at the perennial difficulty of keeping an occidental bum securely parked on a tiny plastic stool designed for the much smaller Thai backend. Kids are there, more to get their feet wet than to do any cleaning. Orders are shouted to warn of the powerful water jet coming your way so best to step aside (although a playful flick of the hose damp- ens a girls bum, raising a laugh from everyone, including her beneath her mock-indignation smile); elderly ladies who’ve probably only come for the com- panionship because I’ve never seen them at any stall, lean on their brushes and hand out advice on the best way to use one – as elderly ladies are wont to do the world over – and I see a lady who seems constantly on the

34 35 Sunday in the Park

Buak Haad Park, the only green space of any size in Chiang Mai, is a pleasing place to relax for a while.

uring the three days of the Flower Festival in February Buak Haad Park is awash with floral displays, the colour and atmo- Dsphere enlivened by the visiting groups of school kids in their bright uniforms. For the rest of the year it is a pleasant mix of families picnicking on woven straw mats, couples canoodling on the grass, strollers strolling, carefully trying to avoid the joggers in their endless circumnavigation of the lake, high speed walkers with arms swinging across their chest; I prefer low-impact sitting still. While most of the Thai visitors seem to prefer the standard forms of park sports, badminton included, there are usually a few groups of young farang practicing rope walking (which is only ever interesting if it is done fifteen metres in the air instead of fifteen inches which is the case with these performers) and other so-called ‘circus skills’, which fortunately don’t include mime or clowning; martial arts practiced, usually while someone is taking a photo with their smart phone. Mean- while, kids get dangerously near the edge of the lake, or plague their parents for an ice cream. Same-old, same-old the world over. A group of Thai ladies take part in an exercise class led by a camp instructor who has them side-stepping, arm-stretching and knee-lifting to 32-count BPM power music (whatever that might mean) especial- ly designed for fitness professionals. At least most of them. While the majority have the timing and rhythm of the well-practiced, I watch one lady so out of step and rhythmically incoherent that whatever the instructor and the other girlies are doing, her movements are left-step, right-step, arms bend ever so slightly inward at the elbow, repeat. And they keep this up for an hour. What impresses me most are the big smiles on almost every face at their instructor’s shenanigans. This is fun! All cash-strapped councils look to wealthy companies and organi- sations to fund projects, and if it wasn’t for AIA Life Insurance there 36 37 would be no open-air gym for park-goers to peddle, push and lift their sumably his client, had opted for the park with its raised platfom sat way to fitness, although despite all the fancy equipment I watch a in the centre of the small lake. The photographer’s assistant throws a young man use a set of weights made from an iron bar and a ce- handful of seed to the flock of ever-present pigeons to encourage ment-filled can on either end, like a child given an expensive Christ- them nearer to the camera, then claps her hands and jumps up and mas present, only to spend hours playing with the box. Kids seem to down to force them take off to provide a romantic background for have as good a time using the equipment as adults do trying to hone the student’s graduation photo. Unfortunately, the pigeons are having their physiques. I observe a little girl of about three watching the world none of it, and simply scuttle a bit further away, with a couple of the go by from the saddle of a bike as her sister peddles frenetically, ex- more timid ones taking to flight and dropping to the ground again cept that it’s a static exercise bike and she’s going nowhere. Still, she when they realise their palls are scoffing all the goodies. seems to enjoy the view. At the end of the row of small stands at the back of the park selling soft drinks and coconuts, packets of brown pellets to feed the fish and renting woven mats for 20 baht, an elderly lady has a stall. When times are quiet she’ll give you a massage, tell your fortune (in Thai only) sell you a nip of local whiskey and maybe allow you to duck down behind her stall and take a quick drag on a cigarette, both the latter of which are forbidden in the park but she somehow seems to get away with it. To supplement the meagre selection available at most of the stalls, a lady in red shirt and cap carries two shallow baskets slung at either end of a bamboo pole. In the front basket a small charcoal brazier is covered by a wire grill with about 20 eggs cooking. She stops at each rubbish bin and picks out the plastic bottles and puts them in her rear basket, a supplemental income to the eggs, which don’t exactly seem to be flying off the griddles. The ice-cream man, on other the other hand, is doing good business, his tinkling bell heralding his arrival, the deep pan almost empty by the time I stop him. He slides in a dessertspoon-sized scoop and puts three each of vanilla and coconut into a cone, squeezes on a dribble from a bottle of strawberry syrup (what we used to call ‘monkey’s blood’ as kids) and a squirt of Carnation milk, drops on a sprinkling of peanuts and jelly-bean stuff that is almost flavourless, et voilà. I’ve yet to try the ice cream sandwich where the scoops are put between two slices of white bread. I see a photo session with a young girl in a mortar board and gown posing with her certificate. Obviously it’s graduation time, and pho- tographers are looking to find the strangest places to photograph their clients. A few days earlier I saw a young couple, robed and gowned, being photographed with some ancient rolling stock at Chaing Mai railway station. In this instance, though, the photographer, and pre- 38 39