Pictures of Chiang Mai

You can see a Blue Rock thrush on top of this roof if you look hard!

Manbags.  You either love them or hate them.  In Thailand, almost every self respecting young chap has one and they come in a wide range of shapes and sizes.  Most hide an ipod or MP3 player and often you will see them talking into their bag which suggests they have a phone in there as well.  You will be pleased to know that I have gone native and bought myself one and very useful it is too.  Mine is made of a woven material with an elephant pattern running through it and I carry all sorts in it, anti mosquito gel, mobile phone, BTS card, antiseptic spray and tissues to name but a few. 

So what else have Eunice and I been up to.  The biggest highlight was last weekend when we flew up to the north of Thailand to Chiang Mai.  This is a small, bustling, walled city surrounded by steep hills which has almost a wild-west feel about it.  It is full of western tourists and, as a result, is full of market stalls which cling to every available pitch, spilling onto the pavements and making progress along them an adventure in itself.   Chiang Mai is also higher and a few degrees cooler than Bangkok although last weekend the temperature dropped to a chilly mid to upper twenties.

The purpose of the visit was to do a recognisance visit for the Year Six residential in January, which of course, Eunice will be doing.  My residential will be with Year Eights to the area around the bridge over the River Kwai in November.  It’s tough I can hear you say.  Anyway, back to Chiang Mai.  Our first night was spent at a residential centre half an hour drive to the north of the city which will be Eunice’s base for most of the week.  It is comprised of a number of small, modern apartment blocks which house six children and one member of staff in each apartment.  They are situated in superb grounds with playing fields, nature areas and small lakes all nestling in a steep sided valley.   White-breasted Waterhen trot around the lakeside and Olive-backed sunbird abound in the numerous trees surrounding the site.  On Friday evening we were taken to a restaurant located in the middle of a small lake and serving yet more wonderful Thai food.  (Both Eunice and I both love the food and yet we have both lost weight.)

 On Saturday morning we were up early and drove for an hour or so to the north and into the mountains around Chiang Dao which is one of the highest peaks in Thailand and not far from the Burmese border.  We left the winding tarmac road then bumped along a dirt track for a further couple of miles, finally pulling into a village.  The houses cling to the side of the hill, are built on stilts and made of wood and sticks. The livestock run over the verandas and the family pigs are tied to the posts holding up the floor.  The adult locals met us with polite but wary smiles and the children swarmed around us, inquisitive to know where we were from.  The hill tribes are all immigrants who have been given land by the king but not Thai citizenship and some groups have been this way for hundreds of years.  Eunice’s class will study these hill tribes as one of her topics next term and gifts will be exchanged.

 We moved through the village and climbed steeply through the rice fields before plunging deep into the rainforest along one of the trails.  The rain poured down and mosquitoes whined around our ears as we pushed through dense jungle.  Exotic calls from invisible birds such as a Hill Myna, frustrated my efforts to see them and my glasses steamed up from the humidity as soon as I raised my binoculars to my eyes.  The forest was alive with the mechanical drones and buzzing of scores of insects each staking a piece of territory as their own.   For both Eunice and I it was as if we were in our own adventure movie.  

 After a few hours trekking, we reached another village similar to the first where the local women, dressed in traditional costume over the top of tee shirt and shorts donned for our benefit no doubt, came to sell us local crafts of jewellery.  How can you resist?

The mini buses picked us up at this point and took us to the camp site Eunice will be using for one night during her residential visit.  It could persuade me to take up camping again!  After sampling a delicious yellow curry for lunch, we set off once again to visit a last hill tribe.  Here we were taken to look at the school, a rough wooden and concrete structure with open sides and a tin roof.  The playground for the Foundation pupils was uneven, bare earth with a rusting swing at one end.  Yet it was viewed with pride and a building of obvious value to the community, a lesson for us all about the importance of education.  We were taken on trip around the village with the usual train of children streaming behind us, shyly calling out ‘hello’ as they tested their skills in English. 

At the end of an exhausting day we finally drove the hour or so through the mountains back to our hotel, glimpsing the elephants being taken to bathe in the river as we speed past with Drongos swooping down off the telegraph wires.  It had been a long, hot thought-provoking and exciting day which we finished off with a cool glass of beer.