North to Chiang Mai

I spent the morning of Tuesday, December 23 in a bit of a funk. First of all, my Apple hard drive was full. It had been slow for a while and I knew it was nearing capacity – I had already moved some movies and music that people had given me to the external hard drive, but now I had to move some pictures – I moved all of the Azrou artisan product photos and many of Abdou’s rugs – and realized how much I missed everyone. I had spent so much time with those pictures, putting them on the web site, and with those rugs, sitting at Dar Neghrassi, that it felt a little like putting old friends out to pasture. Banished to the external hard drive! I had already told Martha that my first stop when I got to Los Angeles was the Apple store, but I still needed a stopgap – I bought additional photo memory cards so I could keep all my photos until I had additional memory and could download again. Mushkil solved, but funk not. I then heard that I wasn’t getting a call back from the National Peace Corps Association – again, that worked out for the best, but when you’re already in a funk, hearing news like that doesn’t help. I think the main reason I was down is that I was overcome with the feeling that the trip had reached a turning point – I was almost at the end of the Thailand portion, and even though I had more countries and weeks still to go – plus the Drive Across America – it seemed that I had reached the pinnacle and was on the downslope. But I pulled myself together and reminded myself that I was going north! Originally I thought I would go north or south and I was doing both!

I got up early to head to the internet again and confirm hotel reservations through January 1; that was far enough ahead. Did some email catchup too. To the post office to send a package to my sister and one to my friend Howie (i.e. things for him to store for me – I bought enough in Luang Prabang to justify a lightening of the load, and since I was going to the post office anyway…); once I decided to go north I also decided to save my major souvenir/support-team shopping for the Chiang Mai night market. And then it was on to Chiang Mai! By plane – not that the overnight train ride south wasn’t fun, but it would have been more like afternoon/overnight to go north; the plane flight was much faster and not expensive. And then I had some time in Chiang Mai!


My hotel didn’t have all of the rustic touches that it appeared to when I booked it, but it was in a good location, right in the center of town. Lonely Planet recommends a walking tour, so I went to three nearby wats, each different – architecture of the north is a different style (again, you can tell by the rooflines – but again, I failed to become an expert). You’d think I’d be watted out but no – although I’ll admit I was getting there. At one wat there was a fortune teller and I thought why not, my birthday was coming up. She told me I am a good woman, a hard worker, a happy person, a lucky person, not a lonely person, and that I would find a nice young (maybe in his 20s!) man with a similar temperament and that we would come back to Chiang Mai for our honeymoon next year. I’m not too sure about that last part but her description of me rang true so you never know.





At one of the wats there was “Monk Chat” (which made me think of “Coffee Talk”). You could ask the monks any question about their practice or about Buddhism. I sat and talked with the monks for a while – it was interesting!



There was also a marching band at one of the wats – it seemed out of place, but it was fun to watch. I always feel uplifted when I hear a marching band.


There are also modern parts to the city – one of which had a philosophy to which I could relate.


I ate dinner at a place called the Writer’s Café, which I thought would bring good karma, and then I headed for the night market. It was certainly big! I mostly scoped things out since I knew I’d be back. And then, since it had been a couple of days after all, and I had had a hard day, and I had done a lot of walking, it was time for another treatment – this time for the feet; soak, mask and massage!